“Multiple personality disorder” probably doesn't exist
I wonder how many of these people are just creating and interacting with tulpas without realizing it.<p>For anyone who isn&#x27;t familiar, there is a subculture online of people who create what subjectively seem to be autonomous personalities that frequently manifest I&#x27;m the form of hallucinations. Think fight club sort of.<p>My ex tried it out. Called me one day at work, terrified because this dragon was following him around. He claimed to spend months trying to get rid of it, seems pretty shooken by the experience. But I was always skeptical.<p>So nine months ago I decided to create one of my one, just to try it out, see what it felt like. And...now I&#x27;ve had a talking lion following me around for the past eight months.<p>The best I can describe it is like some of the altered states of &#x27;self&#x27; you might experience on LSD or ketamine. Thoughts seem to split off and go &#x27;over there&#x27;, and not be you.<p>When I talk to my tulpa, it at least appears subjectively like a separate personality state. I can be incredibly depressed but he can be fine. Or he will be depressed and I can be fine. I&#x27;m not saying there are neural correlates like you would see in a &#x27;real&#x27; personality. Maybe it is all roleplay. But it is roleplay that fools me as the roleplayer.<p>For what it&#x27;s worth, making a tulpa seems to have been really good for my mental health. I guess maybe you can see it as a form of self-regulation. I dunno, it didn&#x27;t turn out at all what I expected. But it&#x27;s hard not to think of him as a real person. I don&#x27;t find myself being surprised by the actions of characters in my head, or laughing at imaginary friends. At this point, having out several hundreds hours into tulpaforcing, I can see and hear, and sometimes smell and touch him.<p>I know I&#x27;m rambling, I guess I&#x27;m saying is that even though I am skeptical of DID, or at least the mainstream depictions of DID, after making a tulpa I am a lot less skeptical of the subjective experience of DID.