# Tulpas

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Description: Tulpas covers modern online tulpamancy, thoughtforms, headmates, servitors, egregores, imposition, voice-like experience, and adjacent AI companion analogies.
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---

Made inner others and modern tulpamancy

# Tulpas

 A tulpa, in modern online usage, is a made or cultivated inner other:
 a companion, headmate, thoughtform, or agency-like presence that a
 person relates to through imagination, attention, dialogue, ritual,
 memory, and community vocabulary. The word carries older Tibetan and
 Theosophical echoes, but modern internet tulpamancy is not an
 unchanged Tibetan practice. It is a hybrid, recent, source-mixed
 practice culture with its own forums, guides, ethics, and identity
 debates
 ([Mikles and Laycock, 2015](https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87);
 [Laursen, 2019](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949983.003.0010);
 [Veissiere, 2015](https://somatosphere.com/2015/varieties-of-tulpa-experiences-sentient-imaginary-friends-embodied-joint-attention-and-hypnotic-sociality-in-a-wired-world.html/)).

 Read this page if you need a careful map of modern tulpamancy language, not a
 guide to creating a tulpa and not a clinical interpretation of inner others.

 The topic is easiest to read when its lanes stay separate. Tibetan
 and Himalayan translation history, Theosophical thought-forms,
 chaos-magic servitors, egregores, online tulpamancy, plurality and
 headmate discourse, imaginary companions, nonclinical voice-hearing,
 imposition, and AI companions can all be compared. Shared words about
 inner agency do not make them one lineage
 ([Besant and Leadbeater, 1901](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16269/16269-h/16269-h.htm);
 [Tulpa.info FAQ](https://www.tulpa.info/faq/);
 [Fernyhough et al., 2019](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665)).

 Available public sources do not establish that tulpas are externally
 real, independently sentient, clinically validated, therapeutic,
 harmful, or safely trainable. The strongest public claims are narrower:
 different communities report different kinds of experience, different
 sources support different kinds of claim, and the evidence stops
 before ontology or clinical efficacy
 ([Isler, 2017](https://pubs.sciepub.com/rpbs/5/2/1/index.html);
 [Luhrmann et al., 2023](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac005)).

 [Start with the basics](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/tulpas.html#field-guide)
 [Lineages](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/tulpas.html#lineages)
 [Imposition](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/tulpas.html#imposition)
 [Evidence](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/tulpas.html#evidence)
 [References](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/tulpas.html#references)

 Field guide

## What people mean by a tulpa

 In current community language, tulpamancy usually means deliberately
 developing a relationship with an imagined or inner companion. The
 practice vocabulary includes forcing, or directed attention toward
 the tulpa; narration and conversation; a wonderland or paracosm-like
 inner setting; vocality, when the tulpa is experienced as responding;
 and imposition, when the tulpa is experienced as present in ordinary
 space. Community pages are useful for this vocabulary, but they are
 not clinical or experimental validation
 ([Tulpa.info](https://www.tulpa.info/);
 [Tulpa.info FAQ](https://www.tulpa.info/faq/);
 [Tulpanomicon, Visualization](https://tulpanomicon.guide/visualization.html)).

 The words around tulpas are uneven because the topic crosses several
 speech communities. A thoughtform can mean an imagined or occultly
 charged mental construct. A servitor is often described in chaos-magic
 sources as a task-oriented construct. An egregore usually points to a
 group-scale or collectively sustained entity in occult vocabulary. A
 headmate is a person-like other in plural community language. A tulpa
 can overlap with those words, but each word carries a different source
 history
 ([Besant and Leadbeater, 1901](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16269/16269-h/16269-h.htm);
 [Chaos Matrix](https://web.archive.org/web/20251113041912/https://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/servitors.html);
 [Laursen, 2019](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949983.003.0010)).

 Two cautions keep the definition honest. First, tulpamancy is not
 only visual. Some people emphasize mental dialogue, felt presence,
 identity, writing, dreams, or inner-world interaction rather than
 projected imagery. Second, tulpamancy should not be pathologized by
 default. Comparison with voice-hearing, imaginary companions, and
 felt presence can make the experiences more legible, but those
 comparisons do not turn tulpas into symptoms
 ([Fernyhough et al., 2019](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665);
 [Alderson-Day et al., 2020](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaa095);
 [Alderson-Day et al., 2023](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291722000344)).

### Terms to keep distinct

- Tulpa: modern community term for a cultivated inner companion or headmate.

- Thought-form: Theosophical and occult vocabulary for forms produced by thought or feeling.

- Servitor: chaos-magic vocabulary for a task-oriented constructed entity.

- Egregore: occult vocabulary for a group-scale or collectively sustained agency.

- Imposition: community term for experiencing a tulpa as present in ordinary space.

### Evidence boundaries

- External reality remains outside the evidence base.

- Independent sentience remains unresolved.

- Clinical benefit, safety, harm, and efficacy need separate evidence.

- Community guide claims remain practice sources rather than research findings.

- Inner others remain a family of comparison cases, not one phenomenon.

 Lineages

## The word travelled through more than one history

 The modern tulpa is easier to understand as a set of crossings than
 as a single origin story.

### Tibetan and Himalayan terms are not the whole story

 The word "tulpa" points toward Tibetan and Himalayan terms often
 translated through ideas of emanation or manifestation, but the
 contemporary paranormal and internet term did not arrive as a stable,
 unbroken Buddhist practice. Mikles and Laycock trace a hybrid Western
 reception history in which travel writing, Theosophy, paranormal
 literature, and Tibetan vocabulary were braided together. That is why
 both facts have to stay visible: the word carries a Tibetan-facing
 translation history, and modern online tulpamancy is a separate
 internet-era formation
 ([Mikles and Laycock, 2015](https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87)).

 This boundary matters because "Tibetan origins" can sound more direct
 than the sources allow. A careful account should ask which claim is
 being made: a claim about Tibetan vocabulary, a claim about Western
 occult reception, a claim about online community practice, or a claim
 about present-day identity. Those are different evidentiary lanes.

### Theosophical thought-forms supplied a powerful image

 Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater's Thought-Forms gave
 Western esotericism a vivid model of thoughts and emotions as forms
 with color, shape, and force. That source does not validate modern
 tulpamancy, and it should not be treated as Tibetan Buddhism. Its
 role is historical and lexical: it helps explain why "thought-form"
 became such a durable bridge term in later occult and paranormal
 writing
 ([Besant and Leadbeater, 1901](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16269/16269-h/16269-h.htm);
 [Mikles and Laycock, 2015](https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87)).

### Servitors and egregores belong in an occult practice lane

 Chaos-magic servitor writing and occult egregore writing describe
 deliberately made, named, or collectively sustained agencies. Those
 sources are useful because they show another way people have talked
 about constructed agency, task-specific inner figures, and group-fed
 entities. They should be used as occult vocabulary and practice
 history, not as proof that all such figures are the same thing
 ([Chaos Matrix](https://web.archive.org/web/20251113041912/https://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/servitors.html);
 [Quest Magazine](https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/egregores-the-occult-entities-that-watch-over-human-destiny)).

### Modern online tulpamancy is its own community formation

 Internet tulpamancy developed through forums, guides, Reddit
 discussions, glossary work, ethics debates, and plurality-adjacent
 identity language. Laursen treats it as participatory identity work
 built through imagination, community, and plural self-understanding.
 Veissiere reads it as a wired-world practice of embodied joint
 attention and hypnotic sociality. Both accounts help explain why the
 modern tulpa is neither a transplanted religious concept nor a lone
 private fantasy
 ([Laursen, 2019](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949983.003.0010);
 [Veissiere, 2015](https://somatosphere.com/2015/varieties-of-tulpa-experiences-sentient-imaginary-friends-embodied-joint-attention-and-hypnotic-sociality-in-a-wired-world.html/)).

 Community guide sites are part of that formation. They show how
 tulpamancers define terms, debate methods, route newcomers, warn
 about practice expectations, and distinguish visualization from imposition.
 Their evidentiary role is narrow but important: they document
 practice vocabulary and community norms
 ([Tulpa.info](https://www.tulpa.info/);
 [Tulpa.info FAQ](https://www.tulpa.info/faq/);
 [Tulpanomicon, Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/imposition.html)).

 Practice ecology

## How a made inner other becomes socially organized

 Tulpamancy is both a claim about unusual experience and a social
 technology for noticing, naming, repeating, and discussing inner
 events. A person may narrate to a tulpa, imagine a shared
 setting, wait for responses, build a form or voice, keep notes,
 compare progress with community guides, and negotiate boundaries
 around personhood and consent. That social layer helps turn scattered
 inner events into a recognizable practice
 ([Laursen, 2019](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949983.003.0010);
 [Tulpa.info FAQ](https://www.tulpa.info/faq/)).

 The same point makes mental-health claims difficult. Isler's article
 is useful because it records self-reported and perceived associations
 around tulpas and mental health, especially in a non-traumagenic
 plurality context. It should not be stretched into a claim that
 tulpamancy is clinically validated, therapeutic, safe, harmful, or
 causally beneficial. Claims should stay at the level of reports,
 associations, and open questions
 ([Isler, 2017](https://pubs.sciepub.com/rpbs/5/2/1/index.html)).

 Plurality and headmate language also changes the ethics of the topic.
 A tulpa is not always treated as a fictional character or a technique;
 many community members describe relationship, respect, autonomy, and
 shared life. Public writing can describe that identity language
 without deciding the metaphysics for readers
 ([Laursen, 2019](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949983.003.0010);
 [Tulpa.info](https://www.tulpa.info/)).

### Community sources can support

- Practice vocabulary: forcing, narration, form, vocality, wonderland, imposition.

- Norms and cautions used by a community.

- Disagreements over visualization, personhood, plurality, and progress.

- How newcomers are taught to describe experiences.

### Community sources need support for

- Clinical benefit or harm.

- Objective sentience.

- External reality.

- Reliable training outcomes.

- Population-level prevalence.

 Imposition

## The strongest Prophantasia bridge is real but narrow

 Imposition is where tulpamancy most clearly touches projected imagery.

### What imposition adds

 In tulpamancy sources, imposition names practices and reports in
 which a tulpa is experienced as if present in ordinary space. Some
 guides focus on visual imposition, where the goal is to see a form in
 the environment. Others include presence, touch, sound, or other
 senses. That makes imposition the clearest overlap with
 [Prophantasia](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html): both topics
 care about internally generated content described as spatial,
 world-placed, or perception-like
 ([Tulpanomicon, Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/imposition.html);
 [Malfael, Visual Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/mal-imposition.html)).

 Hale's comparison between prayer and tulpamancy is useful here
 because it puts mental conversation, visualization, and imposition
 into a broader family of imaginal techniques rather than treating
 tulpas as an isolated internet oddity. Luhrmann and colleagues add a
 related discernment frame: people can learn to notice, interpret, and
 sort voices or presences associated with gods, spirits, tulpas, and
 the dead without those examples collapsing into one category
 ([Hale, 2024](https://journals.colorado.edu/index.php/next/article/view/2685);
 [Luhrmann et al., 2023](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac005)).

### Where the bridge stops

 Imposition should not make all tulpamancy visual. Tulpa.info's FAQ
 distinguishes visualization from imposition and notes that
 visualization is not necessary for creating a tulpa. A person can
 experience a tulpa through dialogue, felt presence, writing,
 nonvisual knowing, dreams, or inner-world interaction without
 reporting projected imagery
 ([Tulpa.info FAQ](https://www.tulpa.info/faq/);
 [Tulpanomicon, Visualization](https://tulpanomicon.guide/visualization.html)).

 That limit matters for research design. Prophantasia can help map
 imposition and projected imagery. It cannot stand in for tulpamancy
 as a whole. The better comparison is edge-specific: projected visual
 or multisensory presence on one side, broader inner sociality and
 headmate discourse on the other.

 Voice and presence

## Phenomenological Control supplies variables, not a reduction

 [Phenomenological Control](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/phenomenological-control.html)
 is useful here because it names variables that can shape experience:
 absorption, expectancy, porosity, trained attention, source
 monitoring, discernment, inner speech, voice-like events, and felt
 presence. Those variables can make tulpamancy comparable to prayer,
 hypnosis, imaginary companions, and nonclinical voice-hearing without
 reducing tulpas to suggestion or hallucination
 ([Alderson-Day and Fernyhough, 2015](https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000021);
 [Luhrmann et al., 2023](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac005)).

 Imaginary-companion research helps keep the comparison nonclinical.
 Fernyhough and colleagues compare imaginary companions, inner speech,
 and auditory verbal hallucinations to understand shared and different
 features of person-like inner experience. Alderson-Day and colleagues
 likewise show that voice-hearing can involve personification,
 conversation, companionship, and presence. Those sources are not
 tulpamancy studies, but they help explain why inner others need a
 language richer than either "make-believe" or pathology
 ([Fernyhough et al., 2019](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665);
 [Alderson-Day et al., 2020](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaa095);
 [Alderson-Day et al., 2023](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291722000344)).

 The point is not to settle what a tulpa really is. The point is to
 break a broad report into more testable pieces: what modality it has,
 how voluntary it feels, whether it is dialogic, how stable it is,
 whether it feels socially responsive, and how the person and
 community interpret it.

### Useful variables

- Absorption and attentional depth.

- Expectancy and community scripts.

- Imagery vividness and sensory modality.

- Dialogic inner speech and personification.

- Felt presence, discernment, and source monitoring.

### Source rules

- Clinical voice-hearing literature should not imply pathology by default.

- Prayer studies should not turn tulpas into religion by default.

- Hypnosis and expectancy should not explain the whole practice on their own.

- Nonvisual tulpas remain central to the topic, not weaker evidence.

 Adjacent analogies

## Psychofauna and AI companions belong nearby, with labels attached

 Modern agency-like experiences now include both inner companions and
 external systems that answer back.

### SANE psychofauna is local framework language

 In [SANE](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/sane.html), psychofauna names a local
 framework for the felt population of inner voices, drives, presences,
 characters, roles, habits, and semi-autonomous tendencies. Tulpas,
 thoughtforms, headmates, servitors, egregores, and fictional
 characters are useful test cases for that vocabulary because each one
 asks when a pattern of attention, memory, role, response, and
 relationship becomes agency-like enough to need its own practice
 language.

 That frame is useful for synthesis, but it is not outside proof. A
 public article can use psychofauna to name a local analytic lens; it
 should not present the word as an established clinical, religious, or
 scientific category.

### AI companions are an analogy, not an origin

 AI companions and digital familiars add a modern comparison point:
 people can build relationships with responsive, named, memory-like
 conversational systems that feel socially present. That does not make
 an AI companion a tulpa, and it does not make a tulpa an AI system.
 The analogy is about social recognition, recursive interaction, and
 the human tendency to organize response into agency
 ([Jacobs, 2024](https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2024.1281037)).

 The comparison is strongest when it stays modest. Tulpamancy is an
 inner-practice and community phenomenon. AI companions are technical,
 commercial, and interface-mediated systems. Both can pressure the
 boundary between authored response and encountered otherness, but the
 sources for one do not automatically validate claims about the other.

 Evidence state

## What is solid, partial, community-reported, speculative, and open

 This current-state map is dated May 22, 2026. It separates source
 types so weak claims do not carry strong conclusions.

### Solid enough for public prose

- Modern tulpamancy should be separated from Tibetan and Himalayan source history, even when the word points back through that translation channel ([Mikles and Laycock, 2015](https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87)).

- Online tulpamancy has a documented forum, guide, and plurality-adjacent practice culture ([Laursen, 2019](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949983.003.0010); [Veissiere, 2015](https://somatosphere.com/2015/varieties-of-tulpa-experiences-sentient-imaginary-friends-embodied-joint-attention-and-hypnotic-sociality-in-a-wired-world.html/)).

- Imposition is the strongest bridge to Prophantasia because it names world-placed or perception-like tulpa presence ([Tulpanomicon, Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/imposition.html)).

- Inner speech, imaginary companions, personified voices, and felt presence offer comparison categories without forcing pathology ([Fernyhough et al., 2019](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665); [Alderson-Day et al., 2020](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaa095)).

### Partial or narrow

- Mental-health claims are self-report or perceived-association claims unless stronger causal evidence is available ([Isler, 2017](https://pubs.sciepub.com/rpbs/5/2/1/index.html)).

- Prayer, spirit, and tulpa comparisons are useful for discernment and imaginal technique, not for collapsing religions and tulpamancy into one practice ([Hale, 2024](https://journals.colorado.edu/index.php/next/article/view/2685); [Luhrmann et al., 2023](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac005)).

- Theosophical, servitor, and egregore materials support vocabulary and genealogy, not validation ([Besant and Leadbeater, 1901](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16269/16269-h/16269-h.htm); [Chaos Matrix](https://web.archive.org/web/20251113041912/https://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/servitors.html)).

### Community-reported

- Forcing, narration, wonderlands, vocality, form, imposition, switching, and guide sequences are community practice vocabulary ([Tulpa.info FAQ](https://www.tulpa.info/faq/); [Tulpanomicon, Visualization](https://tulpanomicon.guide/visualization.html)).

- Visual imposition guides show a specific projected-imagery practice lane, not the whole of tulpamancy ([Malfael, Visual Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/mal-imposition.html)).

- Community sources can define how practitioners speak about sentience or autonomy, but they cannot settle those claims for readers.

### Speculative or local

- Psychofauna is SANE framework vocabulary, useful for comparison but not an established external category.

- Digital familiars and AI companions are adjacent analogies about social recognition and responsive systems ([Jacobs, 2024](https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2024.1281037)).

- Brainhack, OSF, and public-talk artifacts show active research interest. They should not be reported as settled neuroimaging results ([Brainhack, 2024](https://2024-school-brainhack.github.io/project/tulpa/); [OSF project](https://osf.io/6wkjp/); [Lifshitz talk](https://av.mandala.library.virginia.edu/video/cultivating-relationships-invisible-beings-phenomenology-and-cognitive-mechanisms-tulpamancy)).

 Open questions

## What still needs better evidence

 The highest-risk claims are exactly the ones readers often want most:
 whether tulpas are independently sentient, whether tulpamancy is good
 or bad for mental health, whether specific methods reliably work, how
 common the practice is, and whether imposition shares mechanisms with
 other forms of projected imagery. The current public evidence does
 not settle those questions.

 A better evidence base would separate primary historical claims from
 community chronology, compare visual and nonvisual tulpamancy instead
 of centering only imposition, handle plural identity language with
 care, and treat clinical and nonclinical voice-hearing literature as
 comparison material rather than a diagnosis engine.

### Needs primary-source work

- Exact wording around Tibetan and Himalayan terms.

- Western reception through travel writing and Theosophy.

- Early internet circulation across forums, /x/, Tulpa.info, Reddit, and adjacent fandoms.

- Occult servitor and egregore genealogy.

### Needs stronger study designs

- Mental-health benefit, harm, and safety claims.

- Prevalence and demographic claims.

- Comparisons between visual, auditory, dialogic, and felt-presence tulpas.

- Mechanistic claims about imagery, absorption, expectancy, or source monitoring.

 References

## Sources used here

 Community sources are cited for vocabulary, norms, and guide ecology.
 Self-report sources are cited for reported associations. Research
 artifacts are cited as evidence of current activity, not settled
 results.

### Genealogy, thought-forms, and occult vocabulary

- Mikles and Laycock. "[Tracking the Tulpa: Exploring the 'Tibetan' Origins of a Contemporary Paranormal Idea](https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87)." Nova Religio 19(1), 2015.

- Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater. "[Thought-Forms](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16269/16269-h/16269-h.htm)." Theosophical Publishing House, 1901; Project Gutenberg edition.

- Chaos Matrix. "[Sigils, Servitors, and Godforms, Part II: Servitors](https://web.archive.org/web/20251113041912/https://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/texts/servitors.html)." Archived copy of the occult grey-literature source for servitor vocabulary.

- Quest Magazine. "[Egregores: The Occult Entities That Watch over Human Destiny](https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/egregores-the-occult-entities-that-watch-over-human-destiny)." Contextual source for egregore vocabulary.

### Online tulpamancy, plurality, and community practice

- Christopher Laursen. "[Plurality Through Imagination: Tulpamancy and the Internet](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190949983.003.0010)." In Believing in Bits , Oxford University Press, 2019.

- Samuel Veissiere. "[Varieties of Tulpa Experiences: Sentient Imaginary Friends, Embodied Joint Attention, and Hypnotic Sociality in a Wired World](https://somatosphere.com/2015/varieties-of-tulpa-experiences-sentient-imaginary-friends-embodied-joint-attention-and-hypnotic-sociality-in-a-wired-world.html/)." Somatosphere , 2015.

- Jacob J. Isler. "[Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experiences](https://pubs.sciepub.com/rpbs/5/2/1/index.html)." Research in Psychology and Behavioral Sciences 5(2), 2017.

- Tulpa.info. "[Tulpa.info](https://www.tulpa.info/)." Community home page for modern tulpamancy.

- Tulpa.info. "[FAQ](https://www.tulpa.info/faq/)." Community FAQ for definitions, visualization, wonderlands, and imposition.

- Tulpanomicon. "[Visualization](https://tulpanomicon.guide/visualization.html)." Community guide index.

- Tulpanomicon. "[Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/imposition.html)." Community guide index.

- Malfael. "[Malfael's Guide to Visual Imposition](https://tulpanomicon.guide/mal-imposition.html)." Community guide hosted by Tulpanomicon.

### Imagination, prayer, voices, and felt presence

- Elizabeth Hale. "[The Inner Vehicle: Prayer, Tulpamancy, and the Magic of the Mind](https://journals.colorado.edu/index.php/next/article/view/2685)." NEXT , 2024.

- Tanya M. Luhrmann et al. "[Learning to Discern the Voices of Gods, Spirits, Tulpas, and the Dead](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbac005)." Schizophrenia Bulletin , 2023.

- Ben Alderson-Day and Charles Fernyhough. "[Inner Speech: Development, Cognitive Functions, Phenomenology, and Neurobiology](https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000021)." Psychological Bulletin , 2015.

- Charles Fernyhough et al. "[Imaginary Companions, Inner Speech, and Auditory Verbal Hallucinations](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01665)." Frontiers in Psychology , 2019.

- Ben Alderson-Day et al. "[Voice-Hearing and Personification: Characterizing Social Qualities of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Early Psychosis](https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaa095)." Schizophrenia Bulletin , 2020.

- Ben Alderson-Day et al. "[Varieties of Felt Presence? Three Surveys of Presence Phenomena and Their Relations to Psychopathology](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291722000344)." Psychological Medicine , 2023.

### Current research artifacts and adjacent analogies

- Michael Lifshitz. "[Cultivating Relationships with Invisible Beings: Phenomenology and Cognitive Mechanisms of Tulpamancy](https://av.mandala.library.virginia.edu/video/cultivating-relationships-invisible-beings-phenomenology-and-cognitive-mechanisms-tulpamancy)." Public talk artifact.

- Michael Lifshitz. "[Online Survey of Tulpa Experiences](https://osf.io/6wkjp/)." OSF project page.

- Jonas Mago / Brainhack School. "[Tulpas: Invisible Friends in the Brain](https://2024-school-brainhack.github.io/project/tulpa/)." Public analysis artifact, 2024.

- Katharina A. Jacobs. "[Digital Loneliness: Emerging Technologies and Their Impact on Personal Relationships](https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2024.1281037)." Frontiers in Digital Health , 2024.

- Related Mesmer Prism pages. [Prophantasia](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/prophantasia.html), [Phenomenological Control](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/phenomenological-control.html), [SANE](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/sane.html), and [Deep Dream](https://mesmerprism.com/projects/deep-dream.html).
