Sentience: When You Know You've Got It

First, I'm sorry to all readers for taking so long with getting this out there. I would say that I've had a bit of a hectic time out of life here lately, but I kind of feel that that would be cheating . . . so instead I'm just going to say sorry, again.

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Recap: To remind you all, sentience is what makes any living being alive, meaning that you have your own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Sentience is, for most tulpamancers, the first goal to creating a tulpa. Recall that if your tulpa does not have its own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs independent of your own then it is not truly a tulpa, but is instead an example of a servitor, or at least a highly-developed imaginary friend. There are many ways to achieve sentience, the most common two being:

1. telling the tulpa as you narrate/force that they are alive and real, and
2. narrating and forcing to your tulpa normally, until they eventually become sentient.

For best results, do your best to believe that your tulpa is real and alive, and they will show you that they are so in time. Generally speaking, most tulpas come around anywhere between three days to three weeks, but there are a few exceptions that are shorter and longer.

So.

"Anastasia, you say that our tulpas will show us that they've alive . . . but how exactly do they do that? Will they, I don't know, move a hairbrush from its rightful place or something?"

Nope, not at all. I've said this before, but remember that it is impossible for tulpas to interact with the physical world, so you aren't going to walk into the kitchen one day to see a chair levitating.

That being said, do you remember the concept of wonderlands? Whether or not you create a wonderland is entirely optional, and it is essentially a mental playground for you and your tulpa, and often times, if it exists, the tulpa lives there. Only you and your tulpa are capable of changing wonderland. So, take a moment to imagine your dream home (we'll say that's your mindscape). Pretend that your stove and counters have always been a very dark green, but one day when you walk into the kitchen they've turned in to a lime shade. In a situation like this, it is entirely plausible to say that your tulpa has reached sentience.

Sometimes the first sign of sentience is when a very specific thought pops into your head where your own train of thought had nothing to do with it (e.g., you're thinking about work and you suddenly have a very strong feeling about sharks). Other times, you might experience head pressure (a "headache that isn't quite a headache," often used to make a way to communicate between tulpa and tulpamancer) or an emotional response (like if you're reading a book for the thousandth time and you start feeling giggly at something that isn't funny to you but could be to someone else--has happened to me before, by the way). Sometimes the tulpa might say something and you can hear them (e.g., "Don't forget to pick up tomatoes!" right before you go to the cash register at the store, when no one else said that and the voice came from your own mind). The possibilities are endless.

Perhaps the question I see most often in the tulpa community is, "Is my tulpa sentient?" This is a very understandable question, because it is so easy to second guess yourself if your way of first realizing that they are or may be sentient is by way of head pressure or emotional response, but understand that this is totally normal. Go ahead and assume that it's them, anyway, because if nothing else you aren't hurting anything by doing that.

You can rest assured that you aren't going to spend the rest of your life wondering whether or not your tulpa is actually sentient. Once you know, you know. And you'll know. That moment when you're trying to figure it out, though, that can be a pain, and everyone's story is unique. There isn't much I can tell you as to how to know, and so the only advice I can give you--and this is very important--is this:

Pay absolute attention. Always pay attention. There have been many people who have missed their tulpas saying or thinking something because they've been too caught up with their own thoughts. I'm not saying that you have to set aside every waking minute to your tulpa, but I am saying that you should be quiet and invite him, her, or it to talk to you during your sessions and actually be quiet in your head, so that you can hear or feel them when they do try to reach out to you.