Tulpamancy research: what the evidence shows

The practice of cultivating autonomous imagined companions, connecting to research on voluntary hallucination, agency, and plurality of self.

State of the evidence

Synthesized October 25, 2026

Synthesized from 8 studies in the library · AI-generated, grounded in the abstracts below

Found by searching the library for Tulpamancy, tulpa, tulpas, thoughtform, imaginary companion, then ranked by relevance.

The directly relevant research on tulpamancy is small and mostly cross-sectional survey work. It consistently reports that tulpamancers describe their practice as beneficial — perceived improvements in mental health and cognition, positive host–tulpa relationships, and no clear link to psychopathology — while one observational study found higher hallucination-proneness in a tulpamancer subgroup, though without elevated delusion-proneness or metacognitive beliefs. The main caveats are that samples are self-selected online community members, measures are self-report, and no longitudinal or controlled designs establish causation or durability.

Evidence by study

Direction is which way each study's own result points, not our rating of the study. All 15 matching studies were reviewed; the 8 that directly address the question are shown here.

What the directions mean

Supports:: the study found the intervention worked, or its hypothesis held.
Opposes:: it found the opposite, no benefit or a harm.
No effect:: no significant difference either way.
Mixed:: effects in both directions within the same study.
Unclear:: the abstract does not report a direction.

Study	Design	Sample size	Direction	Finding
Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experiences 2017	survey		Supports	Survey results reinforced a correlation between tulpa creation and perceived improvements in mental health and cognition, and the authors judged there likely to be no causal relation between tulpamancy and psychopathology.
Unusual experiences and their association with metacognition: investigating ASMR and Tulpamancy 2021	observational study	243	Mixed	A tulpamancer-plus-ASMR group scored higher on hallucination-proneness and tulpamancers endorsed fewer metacognitive beliefs, while there were no group differences in delusion-proneness, self-reflection, or self-schemas.
Personality Characteristics of Tulpamancers and Their Tulpas 2020	cross-sectional survey		Supports	Hosts reported positive experiences with their tulpas, host and tulpa personalities were more similar than complementary, and certain personality traits predicted relationship satisfaction.
A Review of Imaginary Companions and Prospects of Research on Adolescents and Adults 2023	review		Unclear	Reviews evidence that imaginary companions are not uncommon in children and that a proportion of adolescents and adults also report them, introducing tulpas as a novel adult form and outlining future research prospects.
Learning to Discern the Voices of Gods, Spirits, Tulpas, and the Dead. 2023	theoretical or philosophical paper		Unclear	Argues that communities where hearing voices is common share cultural models teaching discernment, trained attention, and repeated speech, and that practice shapes voice-hearing experience, with individual variation that may or may not reflect psychotic process.
Tracking the Tulpa 2015	historical analysis		Unclear	Argues that the tulpa concept emerged from an East–West dialogue combining Theosophical metaphysics with terms adapted from Tibetan Buddhism rather than being purely a Tibetan Buddhist concept.
Spatial Aspects of Felt Presence and the Phenomenon of Childhood Imaginary Companions: Peripersonal Space, Embodied Perspective, and Continuity of Agent Propensity 2026	observational study	185	Supports	Adults with a childhood imaginary companion scored higher on sensed presence and most recalled a body-referenced companion perspective, while dissociation scores did not differ, offering partial support for a bodily self-consciousness account.
Imaginary companions and young children's responses to ambiguous auditory stimuli: implications for typical and atypical development. 2007	cross-sectional	80	Supports	Reporting hearing words in an ambiguous speech task was associated with having a parentally corroborated imaginary companion, consistent with a general susceptibility to imaginary verbal experiences.

Points of agreement

Tulpamancers and people with imaginary companions report the experiences as positive and sought after rather than distressing.
Survey and observational work finds no clear elevation in delusion-proneness or psychopathology among non-clinical tulpamancers.
Tulpamancy is treated as a learned, practiced skill involving attention to inner experience and repeated interaction with an imagined other.
The tulpa concept has historical roots in Western Theosophy and Tibetan-derived terminology rather than a single tradition.

Conflicts

One observational study found higher hallucination-proneness in a tulpamancer subgroup, whereas survey work emphasizes perceived mental-health benefits and no causal link to psychopathology.
Host–tulpa personality similarity was found where complementarity had been predicted.

Gaps

No longitudinal or controlled designs, so causation and durability of reported benefits are unknown.
Samples are self-selected online community members with self-report measures.
Little on dose, practice intensity, or clinical populations.
Blinding and objective outcome measures are absent.
Adolescent and adult imaginary-companion research is described as still emerging.

Browse these studies in the library

Common questions

What does the research agree on about tulpamancy?

Tulpamancers and people with imaginary companions report the experiences as positive and sought after rather than distressing.
Survey and observational work finds no clear elevation in delusion-proneness or psychopathology among non-clinical tulpamancers.
Tulpamancy is treated as a learned, practiced skill involving attention to inner experience and repeated interaction with an imagined other.
The tulpa concept has historical roots in Western Theosophy and Tibetan-derived terminology rather than a single tradition.

Where do studies on tulpamancy conflict?

One observational study found higher hallucination-proneness in a tulpamancer subgroup, whereas survey work emphasizes perceived mental-health benefits and no causal link to psychopathology.
Host–tulpa personality similarity was found where complementarity had been predicted.

What is still unknown about tulpamancy?

No longitudinal or controlled designs, so causation and durability of reported benefits are unknown.
Samples are self-selected online community members with self-report measures.
Little on dose, practice intensity, or clinical populations.
Blinding and objective outcome measures are absent.
Adolescent and adult imaginary-companion research is described as still emerging.

How we analyze this

This synthesis reads the 15 most-cited and 10 most recent studies whose primary subject is Tulpamancy, up to 25 in all. The most-cited set anchors the established evidence, and the recent set surfaces work that is too new to have gathered citations yet.

A study qualifies only when Tulpamancy or a known alias appears in its title or keywords, so broad reviews that mention it only in passing are left out. Each study is read from its abstract, strongest evidence first, and the summary reports the direction of the results along with any conflicts and gaps.

The full method, including what a person does and does not review, is on the methods page.

Ask your own question in the Research Synthesis Tool

30 articles · 10 from the last two years · 610 participants across 6 studies reporting sample size

Common study designs

qualitative study 2 historical analysis 2 observational study 2 autoethnographic study 1 theoretical or philosophical paper 17

Research volume by year

Compare topics →

14 studies whose primary subject is tulpamancy since 2007

2026 is partial

Show the numbers

Studies about tulpamancy per year, 2007 to 2026, peaking at 3 in 2023
Year	Studies
2007	1
2008	0
2009	0
2010	0
2011	0
2012	0
2013	0
2014	1
2015	1
2016	1
2017	1
2018	0
2019	0
2020	1
2021	1
2022	0
2023	3
2024	1
2025	0
2026	3

Research

Synthesize the evidence → Search all →

Spatial Aspects of Felt Presence and the Phenomenon of Childhood Imaginary Companions: Peripersonal Space, Embodied Perspective, and Continuity of Agent Propensity

PsyArXiv Preprints October 20, 2026 preprint

Felt presence (FP), the sense that another agent is nearby without corresponding sensory evidence, occurs across neurological, psychiatric and non-clinical populations. Prior work links childhood imaginary companions (ICs) to anomalous and presence-related experience; we asked whether this link carries the spatial and perspectival signature predicted by a bodily self-consciousness (BSC)...

DOI: osf:7fsem_v4 Full text

The Point at Which We Break: Thoughtforms, Egregoric Masculinity, and Cognitive Aikido in Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break

September 2, 2026 Michael W Ross

Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break (1991) is often remembered as a cult action film about surfing, bank robbery, and the strange spiritual magnetism of Bodhi. This article argues that the film is also a sophisticated study of liminality, thoughtforms, egregoric masculinity, and contested agency. Johnny Utah’s undercover assignment is not simply a law-enforcement operation; it is a threshold passage...

DOI: 10.33767/osf.io/jqxza_v1

Learning to Discern the Voices of Gods, Spirits, Tulpas, and the Dead.

Schizophrenia Bulletin February 1, 2023 Tanya M Luhrmann, Ben Alderson-Day, Ann Chen et al.

AbstractThere are communities in which hearing voices frequently is common and expected, and in which participants are not expected to have a need for care. This paper compares the ideas and practices of these communities. We observe that these communities utilize cultural models to identify and to explain voice-like events—and that there are some common features to these models across...

DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbac005 Full text

“This has all happened before”: Intergenerational Trauma, Tulpas, and Tackling Lovecraft’s Cultural Legacy in America in Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated

Monstrum January 31, 2023 Aiden Tait

“This has all happened before”: Intergenerational Trauma, Tulpas, and Tackling Lovecraft’s Cultural Legacy in America in Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated. Un article de la revue Monstrum (Short-Form Horror: History, Pedagogy, and Practice) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

DOI: 10.7202/1096037ar Full text Art history

A Review of Imaginary Companions and Prospects of Research on Adolescents and Adults

Psychology of China 2023 Mi Jiawen, Jia Peiyu

Imaginary companions refer to an unseen character or object that a child names and refersto during direct play or conversations with others. Research on imaginary companions originated inthe early 20th century and has continued to the present day. A plethora of studies, primarily focusingon children, indicates that imaginary companions are not uncommon among them. However, recentforeign...

DOI: 10.35534/pc.0508102 The imaginary Psychoanalysis

Unusual experiences and their association with metacognition: investigating ASMR and Tulpamancy

Cognitive Neuropsychiatry November 8, 2021 Emma Palmer‐cooper, Nicola Mcguire, Abigail C. Wright 6 citations

BACKGROUND: Unusual experiences in Tulpamancer and Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) communities are generally positive and sought after, unlike hallucinations and delusions in clinical populations. Metacognition, the ability to reflect on self-referential experiences, may aid sense-making around unusual experiences, reducing distress. This study investigated group differences in...

DOI: 10.1080/13546805.2021.1999798 Metacognition Delusion Schema genetic algorithms Distress +4

Personality Characteristics of Tulpamancers and Their Tulpas

May 11, 2020 Anna E Martin, Bailey Thompson, Steven L. Lancaster preprint

Tulpamancy is a practice that involves the creation of imagined sentient companions, tulpas, who abide within their human host's mind. The primary aim of our study was to examine the personality characteristics of tulpas and their hosts. Further, we examined the role of personality similarity in predicting relationship satisfaction. Individuals with tulpas completed an online questionnaire of...

DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/5t3xk Personality psychology Similarity geometry Perspective graphical Host biology +2

Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experiences

Research in psychology and behavioral sciences September 24, 2017 Jacob J. Isler 8 citations

Current models of mental health rely heavily on the assumption that only one agent of self exists in every one brain. Deviations from this model of singularity in mind are heavily stigmatized and often considered disordered. This paper opposes this bias by analyzing one form of plurality in consciousness: tulpamancy. Tulpamancy is a collection of meditative techniques used to create and...

DOI: 10.12691/rpbs-5-2-1 Full text Plural Mental health Psychopathology Happiness +6

From Visual Thoughtforms to Bauharoque: Paul Laffoley’s Renegade Science Fiction Art

Peter Lang eBooks July 11, 2016 Jerzy Kamionowski, Jacek Partyka

Reaching far beyond the boundaries of original agenda (Edwin Ardener’s and Elaine Showalter’s), the term’s applicability has been significantly enlarged. Its fluidity or fuzziness, however, ought to be taken as a blessing: in the rapidly changing contemporary («liquid») world it is the language that needs to keep up with new circumstances and developments, not the other way round.

DOI: 10.3726/978-3-653-05388-3/25 Art history Visual arts

Tracking the Tulpa

Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions August 1, 2015 Natasha L. Mikles, Joseph P. Laycock

Since the 1970s, tulpas have been a feature of Western paranormal lore. In contemporary paranormal discourse, a tulpa is a being that begins in the imagination but acquires a tangible reality and sentience. Tulpas are created either through a deliberate act of individual will or unintentionally from the thoughts of numerous people. The tulpa was first described by Alexandra David-Néel...

DOI: 10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.87