April 25, 2018 • 40 mins
From imaginary friends to tulpas, the idea that that the human mind can create life through focused thought alone is as old as recorded civilization. But what does science have to say about imaginary friends? Are they pure hallucinations, part of a healthy psychological process, or something else? Join the gang as they delve into the fact and fiction surrounding the strange idea of a living thought.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the show. My name is Noel.
Sitting here to my left is Matt the Invisible Matt.
He's a mattagineary for this episode or imaginary yep uh.
And if they called me Ben, we're joined with our
long suffering super producer Paul decons. Most importantly, you are
(00:46):
you and that makes this stuff they don't want you
to know. Noel, did you ever have an imaginary friend
growing up? Serious question? Yeah? No, I I've thought about
that and I've I've ultimately decided that I did not,
and it made me sad. But is it more sad
to have one or to not have one? You tell me, Yeah,
(01:06):
it's a It's a question that I think depends on
people's perspective. Earlier, before he went on the air, we
were asking Paul whether he had an imaginary friend, and
he he told us that by the time he growing
up realized what that concept was, maybe he had already
sort of missed the window and realized that you know,
(01:27):
there was a difference between what is real and what
is imagined. And did you know anybody who said they
had an imaginary friend? I knew some people when I
was you know, my younger days, who said that they
knew someone, and sometimes it was uncreative. I grew up
in preschool there was a kid who had an imaginary friend.
(01:50):
You know. His name was Ethan. That's just not very
You know what happened to like Admiral squack in tops? Yeah?
What was the one from inside out? Mm hmm, I
don't remember. I think mainly have dropped dead Fred. Oh,
that was a good Now the one from inside I
was bing Bong Um and he's like a magical elephants
(02:10):
and it is one of the most heart wrenching sequences
and any film, animated or otherwise. And I will stand
by that to my dying breath. When Bing Bong something
happens to Bing Bong just put it that way. Has
to do with growing up. Oh gosh. Yes, And some
of this episode touches upon the very same rites of passage.
We could call them today, friends and neighbors, imaginary friends,
(02:33):
those non corporeal, non physical associates, confidence family members, loved
by children across the world and throughout the ages or
often than not, they're regarded as a phase of sorts. Right, yeah,
it's true. Um, so today we're here to work out
exactly what it means when we say imaginary friend, Matt,
what do you think? Matt says that. According to developmental
(02:56):
psychologist Tracy Gleeson, Uh, it is tough to predict or
even measure quantify what a child will actually say. Um,
when asked this question, what is your imaginary friend? We've
said do you have an imaginary companion? And they respond
that sounds awesome, So they go, yes, yes, of course
I do. That's like me, I wish I did. Sure,
(03:16):
I don't think I did, but I you know, I
would like to have had that, And they begin to improvise.
Maybe I wasn't creative enough as a child. Don't beat
yourself up. But it's a great point. They will begin
to confirm what they want to have. True, guess I
do have a friend. His name is Ethan. He wears
a red jumpsuit, you know. And then it's easy once
(03:40):
you have that basis to explore and create details. So
for psychologists, it's difficult to know whether a child is
improvising this as we said, or whether they're describing, you know,
someone as real as Matt standing here right, totally nodding.
He's nodding, And you make a great point, Matt. Psychologists
(04:02):
divvy up the broad category of imaginary friends into two groups.
They're completely invisible pals and then they're personified objects. And
this is this is where we see stuff like a
favorite stuffed animal or the horror trope of the haunted doll. Well,
and sometimes don't those things merge? Couldn't you have an
(04:23):
imaginary friend that embodies said favorite stuffed toy totally? Right?
Like Ethan used to not have a home, but now
he lives inside this VHS cassette. I had this thing.
It was. His name was Teddy Ruxpan and he I
swear to you, he talked, and I've been familiar with
Teddy Roxman. Did you ever put a like a heavy
(04:44):
metal album or some underground hip hop into his cassette player?
Cassette player? Right, Well, I guess mine came with a
cassette player. But I don't want to ruin this for you.
Teddy Teddy was my pal. He probably still is, you know,
maybe he can maybe he can reach out to him.
They'll actually, I'm joking, But then you hear that the
new Teddy Ruxpan is like Internet connected and can like
(05:05):
pull phrases and stuff off the web. It's almost like
an Alexa in toy form. That's spooky cool. No, not cool.
Stop normalizing constant surveillance, right. According to Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler,
an imaginary friend is a made up or unreal companion
that typically provides comfort or support to a child. When
(05:27):
it's an invisible friend, they'll say something along the lines
of Annie is my pal. She goes everywhere with me,
and you can't see her, but I can see her.
And then there are also these imaginary friends that are
these personified objects, so to Noel's example, like a Teddy Ruxpan.
And according to Dr Ziegler, the relationship there is more
(05:48):
of a caretaking thing, like I am taking my stuffed
animal with me because they only like particular things and
only I know how to make these sandwiches for them
or put them to bed. It's like a way of
developing um qualities of nurturing. Maybe you know that's a
really good point. Yeah, And when Ziegler says, these can
(06:09):
be imaginary friends. It's it's exactly the way that you
just describe it and older assigning these animate qualities to
an object, right, And I'm no psychologist, but it occurs
to me that you know, um, young girls, and I'm
you know, my my daughter is is a is a
young girl. Um, maybe focus a little more on that
(06:31):
nurturing lesson and the boys maybe are a little more
lighting and learning how to be more rough and tumble
and like, you know, fighting and stuff. And we have
to wonder how much of that is society, you know,
I'm sure it's like all society. It's just an observation,
totally totally off the cuff. But because we remember, you know,
I'd be very interested in the history of toys, uh,
(06:53):
to find who made the decision to call to call
something an action figure. If it's for a boy and
a doll, if it's for a girl, you know, that's
maybe a story for a different show, or a little
bit of an Edward Burnet show. So these objects aren't,
of course limited to things like dolls or stuffed animals.
(07:15):
There's an expert who says she once heard about a
child who formed get this a close relationship with a
can of tomato paste and separable bonds. Appealing looking can
I mean you're talking about the smaller ones. They that's
what I would want to be friends. The regular sized
ones just seemed too aggressive, So the smaller ones a
(07:36):
little more endearing anything to me? Yeah, it's cute. And
although there is some levity in this, it's also true
that imaginary friends are more common than we might wait
for it. Imagine, I know it's a rough one. Go on. Well,
approximately of American children between the ages of three and
(07:57):
six developed some sort of imaginary companion. And that's just
counting the ones that are invisible friends, totally non comporeal
entities that aren't tied to you know, a ruck, spin
or a a boot. I don't know why. That's the
only other example. I had a boot, Yeah, like like
(08:19):
the way Canadians say about oh no, no, like a shoe. Yes,
there are other studies to Nolan. They argue that more
broad investigation reveals over fifty percent of children have had
some sort of imaginary friend in their childhood. And that's
a little that's a little difficult for me because you
(08:40):
and Paul and Matt and I don't, you know, we
we can maybe recall wanting to have an imaginary friend.
But I unless something traumatic happened and we've blocked it out,
it doesn't seem like any of us made the leap,
So I wonder how they're defining it there. And often
it's an important to note. Often these imaginary friends are
(09:02):
not crucial to a child's social sphere. You know, um,
Professor Lizard is cool, right, but Professor Lizard isn't around
all the time. Professor Lizard is cold blooded. That's true,
literally true. But the child will have other real life friends.
And you know, in Hollywood, because we talked about pop
(09:25):
culture and how it applies to stuff on this show. Right,
in Hollywood, imaginary friends are often portrayed as a sign
of a personality disorder or a horror trope, or even
mental illness. Yeah, like in a Beautiful Mind? Is that?
Can I spoil a beautiful mind? Yeah? Go for it.
He has an imaginary friend that you think is real
and then spoiler alert, turns out it's all in his
(09:46):
beautiful mind. Oh wow, I still haven't seen it. It's one. Sorry, No,
don't apologize. I'll still watch it. I love I think
the statute of limitations. It's at least five years old now.
It's about a you know, a brilliant mathematician and who
um struggles with mental illness and it is personified in
this character who you meet and then find out, you know,
(10:08):
with the twist that that he's not he's not real
or like a fight club kind of situation, kind of
spoil fight club for everybody. I think I I think
that's well past the statue, just say that, the whole
multiple personality thing, and it has become kind of a
toxic trope in that it's a little bit clich and
lazy writing in a lot of ways, you know, and
in a way without actually exploring someone struggle, um, you know,
(10:31):
in a character driven way. It's more and like this
kind of this Shamalonian twist that's sort of been done
to death. Yeah, Luke, what I can plot? Right? We
we spent so long wondering whether we could make a
plot twist that we never asked ourselves whether we should.
And thankfully, in real life this is not the case.
(10:51):
Imaginary friends experts find are potentially beneficial to a kid's
mental health. According to family therapist, imaginary friends or often
found amongst children who are well adjusted socially even prone
to smiling and laughing slightly more than their peers, which
I note, I know could sound kindness sinister, because now
we all have the picture of you know, little Lisa
(11:15):
or little Bart just sitting by themselves in a classroom
and occasionally going well, what's the difference between having an
imaginary friend and just having an imagination? That's true, right?
Is it? Is it a symptom there? Because we know
that this occurs with children most often, right, just like
your example from inside out. At some point, children typically
(11:36):
grow out of and away from the imaginary child phase,
and around the age of seven, the imaginary friend either
goes away, might stick around a little bit longer. But
in some cases, these invisible friends or again objects imbued
with personality, follow someone into adulthood. I'm sorry, Matt, what Yeah, totally,
(11:58):
And we'll be back after a word from our sponsor.
So the earlier question, what's the difference between an imaginary
friend and just having an imagination or just imbuing uh?
Your your playthings with personality? You know, like I definitely
(12:18):
played with action figures and there we go again, and
then dolls whatever what have you, and you know, I
would have them talk to each other. I would um
pretend to that what I was doing was in some
way and you had a real outcome or whatever. How
you know is imaginary friends specifically? One? Can you have
a stable of them? Like I don't know? Yeah? And
then you know, Lest we be too quick to judge people,
(12:42):
we have to ask ourselves who among us has imbued
some sort of personality into a common everyday object. People
name their cars, right, I used to do it with spoons.
Used to do it with spoons, No kidding? What could
you tell me about one? It was? It was Ethan,
Ethan the spoon in its red jumper. Yes, so we
(13:06):
often ask ourselves whether an imaginary friend is a form
of hallucination. Right, But as it turns out, this isn't
the case. Experts argue instead the perceived beings of vivid
fantasy and it helps the child address emotional concerns or
pursue play, practice sympathy, and most importantly, model later social behaviors.
(13:29):
And we have a quote about this from Ellen Giralda.
That's right. She is a professor of Child and adolescent
psychiatry at Imperial College, London UM and she says they
do not have the actual perceptual experience of seeing and hearing.
Another key difference, she says, is that quote hallucinations feel
imposed and children cannot exercise a direct control over them.
(13:52):
This came from the Guardian, Okay, So in that case,
it means that if we had an imaginary friend who
you know, Professor Lizard, right, you could interact with Professor Lizard.
But you could also escape Professor Lizard if you wanted
to shut it off. It's like a switch. And you know,
(14:15):
people that suffer from genuine hallucinations, there is no escape,
and they require medication to make them go away. You know,
Sedation or other psychoactive drugs that have be prescribed to
deal with these hallucinations can be symptoms of serious mental illness. Yeah. Absolutely.
(14:35):
And the strange thing is that here that hallucinations do
appear to be, let's say, not common, but less uncommon
than one might think. Recent studies pointing out some surprising
statistics about how common hallucinations can be. One study in
the United Kingdom found that almost two thirds of children
(14:55):
reported having at least one quote psychotic like experience in
their lives. And that's a category that also includes unshiftable,
unrealistic beliefs and fears. You know, I can't go into
the closet ever, I can't go under the bed, or
the blender is evil. Yeah I made up that last one,
(15:16):
but I'm sure it happened to someone. So when you
focus purely on hallucinations, a review of the research out
there found that seventeen percent of nine to twelve year
olds have these experiences at any given time. Um. The
number roughly gets cut in half with teenagers and then
drops again in adults. And it's interesting because nine to
(15:38):
twelve is maybe a little bit older in terms of
what we would expect to encounter regarding an imaginary friends.
So again we see that hallucinations are different. And the
research on this is is very tricky, Not quite as
tricky as Shamalan plot twists, but still tricky all the same,
(15:58):
since this research tends to focus on experiences that are
selected because they can appear in mental health problems and adults,
such as, for instance, hearing voices right, which has been
the subject of a lot of investigation in the past, right,
which hunts even I mean, like you know, it being
a sign of possession or something like that. You know
very outdated notions of um some sort of demonic malevolent
(16:24):
force at work right, right, or a divine supernatural force
such as Joan of art claiming to hear voices yea,
as it ultimately resulted in the same outcome though didn't it.
It's true, It's true, but does mean that she was,
you know, vilified for having this because she claimed to
know things that only high priests should know, like someone
very high up in in the religious order, right, especially
(16:46):
when this was in a religion that required uh intercession,
right and wherein somebody could not speak directly to a
god needed a liaison in the form of someone who
was learned and had the the proper pedigree exactly that communication,
which I still just find funny. But your your point
remains there when when we say, when we're looking at
(17:09):
this research, we have to remember that these things that
could also be pained as mental health issues are only
a small part of the possible range of hallucinations, which
means the figures that No quoted earlier are likely to
be a lower conservative estimate. And it's true that in
rare cases medical problems could be the cause. Epilepsy can
(17:32):
cause hallucinations. How what's the longest time you've ever stayed
awake that you remember. Oh, no, I'm a sleeper. I
mean you know, I stayed up all night once when
I was a kid. I'm kidding. No, no, no no, no,
later than you know, five in the morning, and then
I slept most of the day. Probably I have experimented
(17:52):
in the past, pushing myself to see how long I
can stay awake. Uh, And at a certain point, yeah,
reality gets fuzzy, the edges blur. I would like to
encounter you in one of these experimental places. I hear
them a lot of fun, bet, but but I don't
remember quite a bit of it. Luckily, those severe psychoses
(18:15):
other medical conditions, represented perhaps by diagnoses such as schizophrenia. Luckily,
they're extremely rare in young children. People aren't completely sure
why this happens, but it's winning a brutal and terrible
lottery for a young child to exhibit those sorts of uh,
(18:36):
those sorts of conditions. But of course when they occur,
they can be striking and terrifying. And this leads us
to a question for today's episode, or an interesting twist,
because you see, some people believe friends and neighbors that
there is more to the story. What if imaginary friends
(18:57):
and other non corporeal, nonphysical, perceived entities are not just
make believe models for addressing emotions and social behavior. What
if they're not hallucinations brought about by stress or some
sort of medical condition. What if these largely non physical
beings are real? Yeah? I don't know, Ben, You want
(19:21):
to get crazy, Here's where it gets crazy. Research on
the subject is surprisingly sparse, but it's safe to say
that for many children or even adults experiencing this phenomenon,
imaginary friends are to some degree real, and the people
who believe there's more to the story will typically argue
something along these lines. One of the first would be
(19:44):
allegations of psychic powers. This is one of those very
popular tropes in fiction, and might be familiar with it
from stories like The Shining. You know, let's go ahead
and spoil the Shining. Remember when the little Torrents kid
has always going rat wrap. It's not really a spoiler,
is it. I hope not everybody knows that. You know,
(20:04):
somebody might if if that's a spoiler for the Shining,
then they probably don't know what the Shining is to
begin with. Ye that is uh, that is his imaginary friend.
It's Tony And in the book something comes up in
the movie, but he says he lives inside his mouth,
and in the movie he uses his finger to represents
him talking, and in the book someone correct me on this.
(20:27):
In the book, I believe it's implied that the imaginary
friend is actually Danny Torrence from the future or something
talking to himself. I'm not clear, it's been years since
I read it, but that's an example of a supposedly
imaginary friend being a real, independent, separate entity, despite the
(20:51):
fact he lives in his mouth. I'm glad you pointed
that out. And then, of course there's the excellent, the
superb Cindy Lauper Jeff gold Bloom vehicle for the lad eighties.
The eighties, I want to say, Vibes. I do not
know Vibes Ben Vibes. Vibes is a terrible film, Okay, So,
(21:11):
just to set the stage, there is this group of
people with some sort of differing specialization as far as
psychic powers go. Jeff Goldbloom plays one of the main
characters who has psychometry, which means he touches things and
he's able to know stuff about them, And yes, before
(21:33):
you ask, he is just being Jeff Goldblum. So it's
you know, that's kind of all Jeff Goldblum ever does. Right.
I just want to say, he's not you know, he's
not doing a German accent or anything. I've yet to
see Jeff Goldblum play anything outside of just a Jeff
Goldblum type character. But what happens, advice? What are we
talking about here? What? How does the psychic powers enter
into this? Uh imaginary friend a phenomenon Cindy Lauper, the
(21:57):
romantic interest in the co lead has the ability to
no thing she would not normally know, stuff from the future,
stuff that's happening far away because she has an imaginary friend.
And in this story, her imaginary friend that she kind
of grew up with or I think it happened after
(22:17):
an accident is actually a ghost, right. And that's that's
something we see so often in fiction, the idea that
someone with an imaginary friend is in fact mistaking their relationship.
They're not speaking with a figment of their own uh
younger in archetypes or subconscious, They're communicating with another worldly form. Yeah,
like the little Forrest Gump kid that's he's dead people. Yeah, yeah,
(22:43):
I'm not gonna spoil that out. That's where I draw
the line. That's all that film maths. Yeah. You'll also find,
interestingly enough, outside the realm of fiction, you'll find a
wealth of anecdotes arguing this point of view. People claiming
that their kid from a very young age spoke to
a deceased relative or displayed knowledge of some event or
(23:06):
skill or language it was impossible for them to know.
So what would some examples of these types of anecdotes be,
you mean, in terms of like malevolent forces at work? Sure,
just something you know, creepy, right, for people who believe
that they or their child has been in contact with
some sort of entity. Actually, we found a list of
(23:27):
some encounters I guess you could say of this variety. UM,
can't confirm that these are real or not, but some
of them really ring true and have a very sinister
vibe to them. And here's one that's titled evil is Coming. Um.
When my older daughter was two or three, she used
to have a couple of imaginary friends, Dodo and Deed.
They were typical imaginary friends. She would talk to them
(23:48):
and play with them and tell me about their lives.
Then one day she was about three, Um, she was
talking on her play phone. When I walked into the room,
she quote hung up her phone and said to me
with a completely flat, void and dead pan expression, the
evil is coming. I want to know more. That's I mean,
that sounds like a set up for a story, doesn't it.
(24:09):
You know? The thing is that in most cases you
can't really verify these reports there there what do you
call it? Creep creepy pasta? A little creepy pastas on us? Yeah, yeah,
because there's not there's not a clear attribution. They have
the tone of campfire stories. In some cases these were
(24:29):
found to be the ones that were actually investigated were
found to be mistakes of an entirely understandable sort. You know,
the kid heard something on television and repeated it, right,
isn't The thing about creepy pasta to the pasta comes
from the fact that it's paste. It's like cut and
pasted from somewhere. It implies that it was like it
(24:50):
existed in a real form, or like it was from
a blog or some like actual encounter, but you can't
really tell, right. Yeah, It's like many urban legends. It's
always a friend of a friend I met passed through
a town where there's a story that's real about a killer,
and sometimes those stories do turn out to have a
(25:10):
grain of truth that's sort of made a pearl of
wisdom in the oyster of legend Boy walked a long
way for that comparison. But in many other cases they're
also found just to be hoaxes, trolling attempts, maybe just
uh an endeavor to disguise fiction as fact for an
(25:30):
added scare factor. But this leads us to another strange
twist in the story, and we'll get to it after
a word from our sponsor. There's another aspect here that developed,
or we should say, encountered, a renaissance of sorts in
(25:51):
the digital age, and that's the idea that some imaginary
friends might be what's called a tulpa. Yeah. I I
only just discovered that recently in watching the new Twin Peaks. Uh,
the return um, it comes up a lot, and and
it's really almost impossible to spoil the new Twin Peaks. Uh.
(26:12):
There's one spoiler I could give for the original Twin Peaks,
which I will not to um. But the new one
is so dreamy and strange, and there are like, you know,
created entities that are kind of referred to as talpa,
but that they never actually call them then in the show,
but in people writing about it and Lynch talking about it,
that's what they are. They're sort of these like, um,
(26:34):
almost facsimiles of people that take their place in reality
and then but they're not actually them, and they're in
some way malevolent and and meant to do harm at
least in the world of Twin Peaks. Um. But that
is the first time I ever encountered that term. But
what let's talk more about what it means in in
uh In traditionally for sure. Yeah, the the term talpa
(26:57):
comes from a later Western at uptation of a much
older concept of the mind made body where emanation body
also known as the tolku, the sprule pa, the narmita
and others, and these are found in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism.
Uh theosophists, the Westerners who adapted and someone say, appropriated
(27:19):
this idea. We're calling these things thought forms as early
as nineteen And the essential gist is this that if
you meditate, if you concretely visualize a entity, if you
spend enough mental energy imagining and picturing this thing, then
(27:40):
it can become real and acquire an increasing degree of
sentience and agency. There's a Belgian French explorer named Alexandra
David Neil who said that once the tolpa is endowed
with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part
of a real being, it tends to be itself from
its maker's control. And this, say Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically,
(28:06):
just as a child when their body is completed and
able to live apart from the mother, leaves the womb. Well,
then I completely glossed over the fact that you too
have seen Twin Peaks The Return. What did you think
about the way this this concept plays into it um,
this idea of a manufactured on an effect simile of
a person that exists in some other form. My favorite
(28:26):
part about the newest Twin Peaks series was reading the
reviewers increasingly surreal attempts to explain to themselves what was
going on. And you have to because there are times
where there's gorgeous cinematography. There's an obvious mythology and cosmology
at play here, but it has the logic of a dream,
(28:49):
you know, like, why are these why are these facsimiles?
And I appreciate that word these doppelgangers for lack of
a better term. Why are these inherently malevolent? Right? Why
are they here just a mess stuff up? Do they
want to supplant the actual people? Right? That's that's a
(29:09):
common theme we see. But I do want to point
out one of the things I found the most interesting
is that, no, you're correct, they don't. Don't believe in
the story anybody actually calls anyone else at Tulpa. No,
they don't. But like I said, in reading about it,
and even in hearing, I think Lynch himself used that
word um, but especially referencing the character of Diane, who
(29:33):
in the first season, the first two seasons of Twin
Peaks you only ever experienced um in the form of
Agent Dale Cooper talking to his tape recorder. And in
the Return we get to meet Diane, who was played
beautifully by Laura Dern. But and this is a little
bit of spoilers for Twin Peaks Return, So I'm gonna
give you three five four, three two one five seconds.
(29:54):
That cool five years five seconds. The character that you
actually meet eat is a topa is a facsimile of
the real Diane. And you again, some of it's pretty
hard to wrap your head around, you she does, she
kind of disappears and then like there's a there's a
(30:15):
version of reality where Dale Cooper is with the real
Diane and then they end up going back in time
or something and they have they end up having a
tryst in a hotel room. But then they walk out
and there in another version of reality and that but
that's the real Diane. I think the tulpa Diane when
she whips out that gun and then she ultimately kind
(30:36):
of turns into smoke and a little gold ball. Yeah,
just bringing a bell. Yeah, this is it's a very
it's very strange um a strange interaction, especially when we
consider the symbolism of it and the the idea still
remains the same that a tulpa can be generated by
concentrated thought. Right, So for Alexandra David neil Uh, this
(31:01):
explorer believe that she had created a tulpa in get this,
though in the image of a friar tuck like monk,
which later developed a life all its own, and despite
its raucous um raucous Dionysian nature, it had to be destroyed,
(31:23):
And in her defense, Alexander David Neil does say that
this may have all been a hallucination. Yet she adds
other people saw this friar tuck tulpa too strange. No, um,
perhaps it's just a branch of spirituality that will be
relegated to history along with other, you know, somewhat pseudo
(31:47):
mystical movements of the time. But if we fast forward
to the modern day, we'll see that. The concept of
tulpas is mentioned in as we said earlier, twin Peaks.
It's also mentioned in The X Men and the comic
The x Men, It's mentioned in the novel It, and
perhaps most intriguingly, it's mentioned in forums on the Internet,
(32:09):
where people argue that they have either come into contact
with the tulpa or created their own. And they are serious,
they're not trolling, they're not joking. In two thousand and nine,
the subject appeared on the discussion boards of four Chan.
A couple of anonymous members started to experiment with creating tulpas.
(32:29):
That's right, uh. And then in twelve things took a
turn when adult fans of My Little Pony Friendship is magic. Um,
I count myself among them, not not in the same way.
My kid really likes the show. So you're talking about
brownies brownish, I'm not. I'm not a legit brownie though,
but um, these brownies um created a new forum on
(32:50):
Reddit and crafted tulpas based on their favorite characters from
this show. Ben, I need some more information here. How
do you craft a tulpa on Reddit? Well, unread it,
this would just be where they talk about it, right,
But from what we understand, at least in the Buddhist tradition,
there are meditative techniques that are actually complex and demand
(33:14):
quite a bit of time. So we you know, we
can't assume that those same spiritual techniques are being applied
to this amalgamation of pop culture, right and the idea
of a created thing. But we do know that these
tubas are typically described in great detail, and there appear
(33:38):
to be relatively few commonalities. Right, So, for someone who
believes in non physical sentient entities, it's not like in
The Exorcist, where the eponymous exorcist actually says, don't believe anything.
It's not a different demon, it's not all these voices.
There's only one thing pretending to be many many other things.
(34:00):
To people who believe this, these are individuated, discrete entities,
And at this point there's no proof that such an
entity could exist, uh, something built entirely of energy or thought.
And yes, yes, we know all matter is essentially just energy.
(34:21):
But then the question is are these adults maybe only
hearing themselves and translating it differently like in the bicameral
minds like that idea? What about reports of d MT
machine elves? And that's the idea that when people ingest
certain hallucinogens they end up encountering these entities. I've heard
(34:44):
them called machine elves. And like you know, drug literature
circles circle people on arrowin nailed it. Yes absolutely, no,
um I I don't know about that. But what are these?
Are they like manifestations of thought that are given form
or are they right? Are they your own thoughts looking
(35:08):
back at you? Or are you somehow in tune with
an entity or entities that you can not usually see.
And this opens the door to a wealth of speculation,
also several layers of skepticism. I'm sure for many people listening,
(35:30):
but for people who believe that these non corporeal entities
can exist, what we what they typically present. His proof
is the idea that these hallucinations all share certain common
traits regardless of who takes a certain drug win. So
for people who believe it's d m T, they might
say that every d MT trip has the potential to
(35:53):
obey the same plot points almost which is fascinating. But
you have to wonder is there a confirmation us there?
And it leads us to another bigger question. Is it
possible for a meme, an emotion, or an idea to
become sentient? Mm hmm, that's a I think that's spooky
because I have a lot of weird ideas. I don't
(36:14):
know if I want them coming back. Yeah. I mean,
isn't that just, you know, singularity in a different form
of singularity kind of? I don't know what's interesting. Yeah,
And this is a question that we want to uh
hear your opinion about. To conclude today's episode, we do
have to say whenever we address issues of mental health
(36:36):
or mental wellness, wants you to know that if you
have concerns or worries, there are people waiting to help
you address those concerns, answer questions you're not alone. You
can call the SAMSA Treatment Referral helpline at one eight
seven seven seven to six four seven to seven. You
(36:56):
can also visit mental health dot gov for a me
get assistance and if you want more information. And we
talked about the top of the show. In terms of
imaginary friends and their effects on children and their development,
there is a group of researchers at the University of
Oregon um collectively working at a place called the Imagination
(37:16):
Research Lab, and they pretty exclusively study that very thing.
From their website, it says they look into the development
of imagination and children and it's a relation to social understanding, creativity,
inhibitory control, and narrative skills, but specifically children's creation of
imaginary companions and the role they play in social and
(37:37):
cognitive development. You can find links to their work at
their site Imaginary Companions dot you or again dot E,
d U slash lab. It's fantastic and it's important work
because again, current research is relatively sparse. It's difficult to
understand the answers that young children would give in interviews. However,
(37:59):
right now, it's like cologists who don't believe that these
are separate entities of any sort. I do believe that
there's a cover up or conspiracy of sorts, and it's
an inner conspiracy and internal cover up. They believe that
imaginary friends seem to function at times as an emotional
(38:19):
stand in, a sort of mannequin personality upon which a
child could place and otherwise uncomfortable or difficult emotion. And
this is a little bit cheeky. Several psychologists also argue
that children might foist agency for bad behavior upon this
other entity. I didn't decide to eat all the cookies.
(38:40):
Dr Pants smack bubble meant told me to do it,
and then, well, you know, honey, dr pants back bubble
ment is not real the way that you are. No,
you don't understand, mom, She made me do it. So
you know it's not my fault that this bad thing happened.
I still that I still do that to this day.
(39:00):
So right, right, so Oddly enough, if there is a conspiracy,
it may be simply children juveniles using the concept of
an imaginary entity to cover up or remove themselves from
their own fears, emotions, or consequences of action. And again,
the fortunate bottom line here is that for the vast
majority of cases, it doesn't seem harmful to children at all,
(39:24):
and we have to ask if we apply this same
reasoning to adults, Well, if it's not harmful, is there
a reason to ask people to stop? I mean, if
it's making them happy, it's not hurting them or someone else,
should they be allowed their imaginary companions? Yeah? I mean
if they're not the flavor of imaginary companion that allows
them to write off any responsibility for their actions, that
(39:47):
I say, a Okay, what do you think listeners? Um
write us. You can find us on social media at
Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram or just Conspiracy Stuff on
Facebook and Twitter. And if you don't want to do
any of that, you can write it's a good old
fashioned email where we are conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com m
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M
(00:24):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the show. My name is Noel.
Sitting here to my left is Matt the Invisible Matt.
He's a mattagineary for this episode or imaginary yep uh.
And if they called me Ben, we're joined with our
long suffering super producer Paul decons. Most importantly, you are
(00:46):
you and that makes this stuff they don't want you
to know. Noel, did you ever have an imaginary friend
growing up? Serious question? Yeah? No, I I've thought about
that and I've I've ultimately decided that I did not,
and it made me sad. But is it more sad
to have one or to not have one? You tell me, Yeah,
(01:06):
it's a It's a question that I think depends on
people's perspective. Earlier, before he went on the air, we
were asking Paul whether he had an imaginary friend, and
he he told us that by the time he growing
up realized what that concept was, maybe he had already
sort of missed the window and realized that you know,
(01:27):
there was a difference between what is real and what
is imagined. And did you know anybody who said they
had an imaginary friend? I knew some people when I
was you know, my younger days, who said that they
knew someone, and sometimes it was uncreative. I grew up
in preschool there was a kid who had an imaginary friend.
(01:50):
You know. His name was Ethan. That's just not very
You know what happened to like Admiral squack in tops? Yeah?
What was the one from inside out? Mm hmm, I
don't remember. I think mainly have dropped dead Fred. Oh,
that was a good Now the one from inside I
was bing Bong Um and he's like a magical elephants
(02:10):
and it is one of the most heart wrenching sequences
and any film, animated or otherwise. And I will stand
by that to my dying breath. When Bing Bong something
happens to Bing Bong just put it that way. Has
to do with growing up. Oh gosh. Yes, And some
of this episode touches upon the very same rites of passage.
We could call them today, friends and neighbors, imaginary friends,
(02:33):
those non corporeal, non physical associates, confidence family members, loved
by children across the world and throughout the ages or
often than not, they're regarded as a phase of sorts. Right, yeah,
it's true. Um, so today we're here to work out
exactly what it means when we say imaginary friend, Matt,
what do you think? Matt says that. According to developmental
(02:56):
psychologist Tracy Gleeson, Uh, it is tough to predict or
even measure quantify what a child will actually say. Um,
when asked this question, what is your imaginary friend? We've
said do you have an imaginary companion? And they respond
that sounds awesome, So they go, yes, yes, of course
I do. That's like me, I wish I did. Sure,
(03:16):
I don't think I did, but I you know, I
would like to have had that, And they begin to improvise.
Maybe I wasn't creative enough as a child. Don't beat
yourself up. But it's a great point. They will begin
to confirm what they want to have. True, guess I
do have a friend. His name is Ethan. He wears
a red jumpsuit, you know. And then it's easy once
(03:40):
you have that basis to explore and create details. So
for psychologists, it's difficult to know whether a child is
improvising this as we said, or whether they're describing, you know,
someone as real as Matt standing here right, totally nodding.
He's nodding, And you make a great point, Matt. Psychologists
(04:02):
divvy up the broad category of imaginary friends into two groups.
They're completely invisible pals and then they're personified objects. And
this is this is where we see stuff like a
favorite stuffed animal or the horror trope of the haunted doll. Well,
and sometimes don't those things merge? Couldn't you have an
(04:23):
imaginary friend that embodies said favorite stuffed toy totally? Right?
Like Ethan used to not have a home, but now
he lives inside this VHS cassette. I had this thing.
It was. His name was Teddy Ruxpan and he I
swear to you, he talked, and I've been familiar with
Teddy Roxman. Did you ever put a like a heavy
(04:44):
metal album or some underground hip hop into his cassette player?
Cassette player? Right, Well, I guess mine came with a
cassette player. But I don't want to ruin this for you.
Teddy Teddy was my pal. He probably still is, you know,
maybe he can maybe he can reach out to him.
They'll actually, I'm joking, But then you hear that the
new Teddy Ruxpan is like Internet connected and can like
(05:05):
pull phrases and stuff off the web. It's almost like
an Alexa in toy form. That's spooky cool. No, not cool.
Stop normalizing constant surveillance, right. According to Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler,
an imaginary friend is a made up or unreal companion
that typically provides comfort or support to a child. When
(05:27):
it's an invisible friend, they'll say something along the lines
of Annie is my pal. She goes everywhere with me,
and you can't see her, but I can see her.
And then there are also these imaginary friends that are
these personified objects, so to Noel's example, like a Teddy Ruxpan.
And according to Dr Ziegler, the relationship there is more
(05:48):
of a caretaking thing, like I am taking my stuffed
animal with me because they only like particular things and
only I know how to make these sandwiches for them
or put them to bed. It's like a way of
developing um qualities of nurturing. Maybe you know that's a
really good point. Yeah, And when Ziegler says, these can
(06:09):
be imaginary friends. It's it's exactly the way that you
just describe it and older assigning these animate qualities to
an object, right, And I'm no psychologist, but it occurs
to me that you know, um, young girls, and I'm
you know, my my daughter is is a is a
young girl. Um, maybe focus a little more on that
(06:31):
nurturing lesson and the boys maybe are a little more
lighting and learning how to be more rough and tumble
and like, you know, fighting and stuff. And we have
to wonder how much of that is society, you know,
I'm sure it's like all society. It's just an observation,
totally totally off the cuff. But because we remember, you know,
I'd be very interested in the history of toys, uh,
(06:53):
to find who made the decision to call to call
something an action figure. If it's for a boy and
a doll, if it's for a girl, you know, that's
maybe a story for a different show, or a little
bit of an Edward Burnet show. So these objects aren't,
of course limited to things like dolls or stuffed animals.
(07:15):
There's an expert who says she once heard about a
child who formed get this a close relationship with a
can of tomato paste and separable bonds. Appealing looking can
I mean you're talking about the smaller ones. They that's
what I would want to be friends. The regular sized
ones just seemed too aggressive, So the smaller ones a
(07:36):
little more endearing anything to me? Yeah, it's cute. And
although there is some levity in this, it's also true
that imaginary friends are more common than we might wait
for it. Imagine, I know it's a rough one. Go on. Well,
approximately of American children between the ages of three and
(07:57):
six developed some sort of imaginary companion. And that's just
counting the ones that are invisible friends, totally non comporeal
entities that aren't tied to you know, a ruck, spin
or a a boot. I don't know why. That's the
only other example. I had a boot, Yeah, like like
(08:19):
the way Canadians say about oh no, no, like a shoe. Yes,
there are other studies to Nolan. They argue that more
broad investigation reveals over fifty percent of children have had
some sort of imaginary friend in their childhood. And that's
a little that's a little difficult for me because you
(08:40):
and Paul and Matt and I don't, you know, we
we can maybe recall wanting to have an imaginary friend.
But I unless something traumatic happened and we've blocked it out,
it doesn't seem like any of us made the leap,
So I wonder how they're defining it there. And often
it's an important to note. Often these imaginary friends are
(09:02):
not crucial to a child's social sphere. You know, um,
Professor Lizard is cool, right, but Professor Lizard isn't around
all the time. Professor Lizard is cold blooded. That's true,
literally true. But the child will have other real life friends.
And you know, in Hollywood, because we talked about pop
(09:25):
culture and how it applies to stuff on this show. Right,
in Hollywood, imaginary friends are often portrayed as a sign
of a personality disorder or a horror trope, or even
mental illness. Yeah, like in a Beautiful Mind? Is that?
Can I spoil a beautiful mind? Yeah? Go for it.
He has an imaginary friend that you think is real
and then spoiler alert, turns out it's all in his
(09:46):
beautiful mind. Oh wow, I still haven't seen it. It's one. Sorry, No,
don't apologize. I'll still watch it. I love I think
the statute of limitations. It's at least five years old now.
It's about a you know, a brilliant mathematician and who
um struggles with mental illness and it is personified in
this character who you meet and then find out, you know,
(10:08):
with the twist that that he's not he's not real
or like a fight club kind of situation, kind of
spoil fight club for everybody. I think I I think
that's well past the statue, just say that, the whole
multiple personality thing, and it has become kind of a
toxic trope in that it's a little bit clich and
lazy writing in a lot of ways, you know, and
in a way without actually exploring someone struggle, um, you know,
(10:31):
in a character driven way. It's more and like this
kind of this Shamalonian twist that's sort of been done
to death. Yeah, Luke, what I can plot? Right? We
we spent so long wondering whether we could make a
plot twist that we never asked ourselves whether we should.
And thankfully, in real life this is not the case.
(10:51):
Imaginary friends experts find are potentially beneficial to a kid's
mental health. According to family therapist, imaginary friends or often
found amongst children who are well adjusted socially even prone
to smiling and laughing slightly more than their peers, which
I note, I know could sound kindness sinister, because now
we all have the picture of you know, little Lisa
(11:15):
or little Bart just sitting by themselves in a classroom
and occasionally going well, what's the difference between having an
imaginary friend and just having an imagination? That's true, right?
Is it? Is it a symptom there? Because we know
that this occurs with children most often, right, just like
your example from inside out. At some point, children typically
(11:36):
grow out of and away from the imaginary child phase,
and around the age of seven, the imaginary friend either
goes away, might stick around a little bit longer. But
in some cases, these invisible friends or again objects imbued
with personality, follow someone into adulthood. I'm sorry, Matt, what Yeah, totally,
(11:58):
And we'll be back after a word from our sponsor.
So the earlier question, what's the difference between an imaginary
friend and just having an imagination or just imbuing uh?
Your your playthings with personality? You know, like I definitely
(12:18):
played with action figures and there we go again, and
then dolls whatever what have you, and you know, I
would have them talk to each other. I would um
pretend to that what I was doing was in some
way and you had a real outcome or whatever. How
you know is imaginary friends specifically? One? Can you have
a stable of them? Like I don't know? Yeah? And
then you know, Lest we be too quick to judge people,
(12:42):
we have to ask ourselves who among us has imbued
some sort of personality into a common everyday object. People
name their cars, right, I used to do it with spoons.
Used to do it with spoons, No kidding? What could
you tell me about one? It was? It was Ethan,
Ethan the spoon in its red jumper. Yes, so we
(13:06):
often ask ourselves whether an imaginary friend is a form
of hallucination. Right, But as it turns out, this isn't
the case. Experts argue instead the perceived beings of vivid
fantasy and it helps the child address emotional concerns or
pursue play, practice sympathy, and most importantly, model later social behaviors.
(13:29):
And we have a quote about this from Ellen Giralda.
That's right. She is a professor of Child and adolescent
psychiatry at Imperial College, London UM and she says they
do not have the actual perceptual experience of seeing and hearing.
Another key difference, she says, is that quote hallucinations feel
imposed and children cannot exercise a direct control over them.
(13:52):
This came from the Guardian, Okay, So in that case,
it means that if we had an imaginary friend who
you know, Professor Lizard, right, you could interact with Professor Lizard.
But you could also escape Professor Lizard if you wanted
to shut it off. It's like a switch. And you know,
(14:15):
people that suffer from genuine hallucinations, there is no escape,
and they require medication to make them go away. You know,
Sedation or other psychoactive drugs that have be prescribed to
deal with these hallucinations can be symptoms of serious mental illness. Yeah. Absolutely.
(14:35):
And the strange thing is that here that hallucinations do
appear to be, let's say, not common, but less uncommon
than one might think. Recent studies pointing out some surprising
statistics about how common hallucinations can be. One study in
the United Kingdom found that almost two thirds of children
(14:55):
reported having at least one quote psychotic like experience in
their lives. And that's a category that also includes unshiftable,
unrealistic beliefs and fears. You know, I can't go into
the closet ever, I can't go under the bed, or
the blender is evil. Yeah I made up that last one,
(15:16):
but I'm sure it happened to someone. So when you
focus purely on hallucinations, a review of the research out
there found that seventeen percent of nine to twelve year
olds have these experiences at any given time. Um. The
number roughly gets cut in half with teenagers and then
drops again in adults. And it's interesting because nine to
(15:38):
twelve is maybe a little bit older in terms of
what we would expect to encounter regarding an imaginary friends.
So again we see that hallucinations are different. And the
research on this is is very tricky, Not quite as
tricky as Shamalan plot twists, but still tricky all the same,
(15:58):
since this research tends to focus on experiences that are
selected because they can appear in mental health problems and adults,
such as, for instance, hearing voices right, which has been
the subject of a lot of investigation in the past, right,
which hunts even I mean, like you know, it being
a sign of possession or something like that. You know
very outdated notions of um some sort of demonic malevolent
(16:24):
force at work right, right, or a divine supernatural force
such as Joan of art claiming to hear voices yea,
as it ultimately resulted in the same outcome though didn't it.
It's true, It's true, but does mean that she was,
you know, vilified for having this because she claimed to
know things that only high priests should know, like someone
very high up in in the religious order, right, especially
(16:46):
when this was in a religion that required uh intercession,
right and wherein somebody could not speak directly to a
god needed a liaison in the form of someone who
was learned and had the the proper pedigree exactly that communication,
which I still just find funny. But your your point
remains there when when we say, when we're looking at
(17:09):
this research, we have to remember that these things that
could also be pained as mental health issues are only
a small part of the possible range of hallucinations, which
means the figures that No quoted earlier are likely to
be a lower conservative estimate. And it's true that in
rare cases medical problems could be the cause. Epilepsy can
(17:32):
cause hallucinations. How what's the longest time you've ever stayed
awake that you remember. Oh, no, I'm a sleeper. I
mean you know, I stayed up all night once when
I was a kid. I'm kidding. No, no, no no, no,
later than you know, five in the morning, and then
I slept most of the day. Probably I have experimented
(17:52):
in the past, pushing myself to see how long I
can stay awake. Uh, And at a certain point, yeah,
reality gets fuzzy, the edges blur. I would like to
encounter you in one of these experimental places. I hear
them a lot of fun, bet, but but I don't
remember quite a bit of it. Luckily, those severe psychoses
(18:15):
other medical conditions, represented perhaps by diagnoses such as schizophrenia. Luckily,
they're extremely rare in young children. People aren't completely sure
why this happens, but it's winning a brutal and terrible
lottery for a young child to exhibit those sorts of uh,
(18:36):
those sorts of conditions. But of course when they occur,
they can be striking and terrifying. And this leads us
to a question for today's episode, or an interesting twist,
because you see, some people believe friends and neighbors that
there is more to the story. What if imaginary friends
(18:57):
and other non corporeal, nonphysical, perceived entities are not just
make believe models for addressing emotions and social behavior. What
if they're not hallucinations brought about by stress or some
sort of medical condition. What if these largely non physical
beings are real? Yeah? I don't know, Ben, You want
(19:21):
to get crazy, Here's where it gets crazy. Research on
the subject is surprisingly sparse, but it's safe to say
that for many children or even adults experiencing this phenomenon,
imaginary friends are to some degree real, and the people
who believe there's more to the story will typically argue
something along these lines. One of the first would be
(19:44):
allegations of psychic powers. This is one of those very
popular tropes in fiction, and might be familiar with it
from stories like The Shining. You know, let's go ahead
and spoil the Shining. Remember when the little Torrents kid
has always going rat wrap. It's not really a spoiler,
is it. I hope not everybody knows that. You know,
(20:04):
somebody might if if that's a spoiler for the Shining,
then they probably don't know what the Shining is to
begin with. Ye that is uh, that is his imaginary friend.
It's Tony And in the book something comes up in
the movie, but he says he lives inside his mouth,
and in the movie he uses his finger to represents
him talking, and in the book someone correct me on this.
(20:27):
In the book, I believe it's implied that the imaginary
friend is actually Danny Torrence from the future or something
talking to himself. I'm not clear, it's been years since
I read it, but that's an example of a supposedly
imaginary friend being a real, independent, separate entity, despite the
(20:51):
fact he lives in his mouth. I'm glad you pointed
that out. And then, of course there's the excellent, the
superb Cindy Lauper Jeff gold Bloom vehicle for the lad eighties.
The eighties, I want to say, Vibes. I do not
know Vibes Ben Vibes. Vibes is a terrible film, Okay, So,
(21:11):
just to set the stage, there is this group of
people with some sort of differing specialization as far as
psychic powers go. Jeff Goldbloom plays one of the main
characters who has psychometry, which means he touches things and
he's able to know stuff about them, And yes, before
(21:33):
you ask, he is just being Jeff Goldblum. So it's
you know, that's kind of all Jeff Goldblum ever does. Right.
I just want to say, he's not you know, he's
not doing a German accent or anything. I've yet to
see Jeff Goldblum play anything outside of just a Jeff
Goldblum type character. But what happens, advice? What are we
talking about here? What? How does the psychic powers enter
into this? Uh imaginary friend a phenomenon Cindy Lauper, the
(21:57):
romantic interest in the co lead has the ability to
no thing she would not normally know, stuff from the future,
stuff that's happening far away because she has an imaginary friend.
And in this story, her imaginary friend that she kind
of grew up with or I think it happened after
(22:17):
an accident is actually a ghost, right. And that's that's
something we see so often in fiction, the idea that
someone with an imaginary friend is in fact mistaking their relationship.
They're not speaking with a figment of their own uh
younger in archetypes or subconscious, They're communicating with another worldly form. Yeah,
like the little Forrest Gump kid that's he's dead people. Yeah, yeah,
(22:43):
I'm not gonna spoil that out. That's where I draw
the line. That's all that film maths. Yeah. You'll also find,
interestingly enough, outside the realm of fiction, you'll find a
wealth of anecdotes arguing this point of view. People claiming
that their kid from a very young age spoke to
a deceased relative or displayed knowledge of some event or
(23:06):
skill or language it was impossible for them to know.
So what would some examples of these types of anecdotes be,
you mean, in terms of like malevolent forces at work? Sure,
just something you know, creepy, right, for people who believe
that they or their child has been in contact with
some sort of entity. Actually, we found a list of
(23:27):
some encounters I guess you could say of this variety. UM,
can't confirm that these are real or not, but some
of them really ring true and have a very sinister
vibe to them. And here's one that's titled evil is Coming. Um.
When my older daughter was two or three, she used
to have a couple of imaginary friends, Dodo and Deed.
They were typical imaginary friends. She would talk to them
(23:48):
and play with them and tell me about their lives.
Then one day she was about three, Um, she was
talking on her play phone. When I walked into the room,
she quote hung up her phone and said to me
with a completely flat, void and dead pan expression, the
evil is coming. I want to know more. That's I mean,
that sounds like a set up for a story, doesn't it.
(24:09):
You know? The thing is that in most cases you
can't really verify these reports there there what do you
call it? Creep creepy pasta? A little creepy pastas on us? Yeah, yeah,
because there's not there's not a clear attribution. They have
the tone of campfire stories. In some cases these were
(24:29):
found to be the ones that were actually investigated were
found to be mistakes of an entirely understandable sort. You know,
the kid heard something on television and repeated it, right,
isn't The thing about creepy pasta to the pasta comes
from the fact that it's paste. It's like cut and
pasted from somewhere. It implies that it was like it
(24:50):
existed in a real form, or like it was from
a blog or some like actual encounter, but you can't
really tell, right. Yeah, It's like many urban legends. It's
always a friend of a friend I met passed through
a town where there's a story that's real about a killer,
and sometimes those stories do turn out to have a
(25:10):
grain of truth that's sort of made a pearl of
wisdom in the oyster of legend Boy walked a long
way for that comparison. But in many other cases they're
also found just to be hoaxes, trolling attempts, maybe just
uh an endeavor to disguise fiction as fact for an
(25:30):
added scare factor. But this leads us to another strange
twist in the story, and we'll get to it after
a word from our sponsor. There's another aspect here that developed,
or we should say, encountered, a renaissance of sorts in
(25:51):
the digital age, and that's the idea that some imaginary
friends might be what's called a tulpa. Yeah. I I
only just discovered that recently in watching the new Twin Peaks. Uh,
the return um, it comes up a lot, and and
it's really almost impossible to spoil the new Twin Peaks. Uh.
(26:12):
There's one spoiler I could give for the original Twin Peaks,
which I will not to um. But the new one
is so dreamy and strange, and there are like, you know,
created entities that are kind of referred to as talpa,
but that they never actually call them then in the show,
but in people writing about it and Lynch talking about it,
that's what they are. They're sort of these like, um,
(26:34):
almost facsimiles of people that take their place in reality
and then but they're not actually them, and they're in
some way malevolent and and meant to do harm at
least in the world of Twin Peaks. Um. But that
is the first time I ever encountered that term. But
what let's talk more about what it means in in
uh In traditionally for sure. Yeah, the the term talpa
(26:57):
comes from a later Western at uptation of a much
older concept of the mind made body where emanation body
also known as the tolku, the sprule pa, the narmita
and others, and these are found in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism.
Uh theosophists, the Westerners who adapted and someone say, appropriated
(27:19):
this idea. We're calling these things thought forms as early
as nineteen And the essential gist is this that if
you meditate, if you concretely visualize a entity, if you
spend enough mental energy imagining and picturing this thing, then
(27:40):
it can become real and acquire an increasing degree of
sentience and agency. There's a Belgian French explorer named Alexandra
David Neil who said that once the tolpa is endowed
with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part
of a real being, it tends to be itself from
its maker's control. And this, say Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically,
(28:06):
just as a child when their body is completed and
able to live apart from the mother, leaves the womb. Well,
then I completely glossed over the fact that you too
have seen Twin Peaks The Return. What did you think
about the way this this concept plays into it um,
this idea of a manufactured on an effect simile of
a person that exists in some other form. My favorite
(28:26):
part about the newest Twin Peaks series was reading the
reviewers increasingly surreal attempts to explain to themselves what was
going on. And you have to because there are times
where there's gorgeous cinematography. There's an obvious mythology and cosmology
at play here, but it has the logic of a dream,
(28:49):
you know, like, why are these why are these facsimiles?
And I appreciate that word these doppelgangers for lack of
a better term. Why are these inherently malevolent? Right? Why
are they here just a mess stuff up? Do they
want to supplant the actual people? Right? That's that's a
(29:09):
common theme we see. But I do want to point
out one of the things I found the most interesting
is that, no, you're correct, they don't. Don't believe in
the story anybody actually calls anyone else at Tulpa. No,
they don't. But like I said, in reading about it,
and even in hearing, I think Lynch himself used that
word um, but especially referencing the character of Diane, who
(29:33):
in the first season, the first two seasons of Twin
Peaks you only ever experienced um in the form of
Agent Dale Cooper talking to his tape recorder. And in
the Return we get to meet Diane, who was played
beautifully by Laura Dern. But and this is a little
bit of spoilers for Twin Peaks Return, So I'm gonna
give you three five four, three two one five seconds.
(29:54):
That cool five years five seconds. The character that you
actually meet eat is a topa is a facsimile of
the real Diane. And you again, some of it's pretty
hard to wrap your head around, you she does, she
kind of disappears and then like there's a there's a
(30:15):
version of reality where Dale Cooper is with the real
Diane and then they end up going back in time
or something and they have they end up having a
tryst in a hotel room. But then they walk out
and there in another version of reality and that but
that's the real Diane. I think the tulpa Diane when
she whips out that gun and then she ultimately kind
(30:36):
of turns into smoke and a little gold ball. Yeah,
just bringing a bell. Yeah, this is it's a very
it's very strange um a strange interaction, especially when we
consider the symbolism of it and the the idea still
remains the same that a tulpa can be generated by
concentrated thought. Right, So for Alexandra David neil Uh, this
(31:01):
explorer believe that she had created a tulpa in get this,
though in the image of a friar tuck like monk,
which later developed a life all its own, and despite
its raucous um raucous Dionysian nature, it had to be destroyed,
(31:23):
And in her defense, Alexander David Neil does say that
this may have all been a hallucination. Yet she adds
other people saw this friar tuck tulpa too strange. No, um,
perhaps it's just a branch of spirituality that will be
relegated to history along with other, you know, somewhat pseudo
(31:47):
mystical movements of the time. But if we fast forward
to the modern day, we'll see that. The concept of
tulpas is mentioned in as we said earlier, twin Peaks.
It's also mentioned in The X Men and the comic
The x Men, It's mentioned in the novel It, and
perhaps most intriguingly, it's mentioned in forums on the Internet,
(32:09):
where people argue that they have either come into contact
with the tulpa or created their own. And they are serious,
they're not trolling, they're not joking. In two thousand and nine,
the subject appeared on the discussion boards of four Chan.
A couple of anonymous members started to experiment with creating tulpas.
(32:29):
That's right, uh. And then in twelve things took a
turn when adult fans of My Little Pony Friendship is magic. Um,
I count myself among them, not not in the same way.
My kid really likes the show. So you're talking about
brownies brownish, I'm not. I'm not a legit brownie though,
but um, these brownies um created a new forum on
(32:50):
Reddit and crafted tulpas based on their favorite characters from
this show. Ben, I need some more information here. How
do you craft a tulpa on Reddit? Well, unread it,
this would just be where they talk about it, right,
But from what we understand, at least in the Buddhist tradition,
there are meditative techniques that are actually complex and demand
(33:14):
quite a bit of time. So we you know, we
can't assume that those same spiritual techniques are being applied
to this amalgamation of pop culture, right and the idea
of a created thing. But we do know that these
tubas are typically described in great detail, and there appear
(33:38):
to be relatively few commonalities. Right, So, for someone who
believes in non physical sentient entities, it's not like in
The Exorcist, where the eponymous exorcist actually says, don't believe anything.
It's not a different demon, it's not all these voices.
There's only one thing pretending to be many many other things.
(34:00):
To people who believe this, these are individuated, discrete entities,
And at this point there's no proof that such an
entity could exist, uh, something built entirely of energy or thought.
And yes, yes, we know all matter is essentially just energy.
(34:21):
But then the question is are these adults maybe only
hearing themselves and translating it differently like in the bicameral
minds like that idea? What about reports of d MT
machine elves? And that's the idea that when people ingest
certain hallucinogens they end up encountering these entities. I've heard
(34:44):
them called machine elves. And like you know, drug literature
circles circle people on arrowin nailed it. Yes absolutely, no,
um I I don't know about that. But what are these?
Are they like manifestations of thought that are given form
or are they right? Are they your own thoughts looking
(35:08):
back at you? Or are you somehow in tune with
an entity or entities that you can not usually see.
And this opens the door to a wealth of speculation,
also several layers of skepticism. I'm sure for many people listening,
(35:30):
but for people who believe that these non corporeal entities
can exist, what we what they typically present. His proof
is the idea that these hallucinations all share certain common
traits regardless of who takes a certain drug win. So
for people who believe it's d m T, they might
say that every d MT trip has the potential to
(35:53):
obey the same plot points almost which is fascinating. But
you have to wonder is there a confirmation us there?
And it leads us to another bigger question. Is it
possible for a meme, an emotion, or an idea to
become sentient? Mm hmm, that's a I think that's spooky
because I have a lot of weird ideas. I don't
(36:14):
know if I want them coming back. Yeah. I mean,
isn't that just, you know, singularity in a different form
of singularity kind of? I don't know what's interesting. Yeah,
And this is a question that we want to uh
hear your opinion about. To conclude today's episode, we do
have to say whenever we address issues of mental health
(36:36):
or mental wellness, wants you to know that if you
have concerns or worries, there are people waiting to help
you address those concerns, answer questions you're not alone. You
can call the SAMSA Treatment Referral helpline at one eight
seven seven seven to six four seven to seven. You
(36:56):
can also visit mental health dot gov for a me
get assistance and if you want more information. And we
talked about the top of the show. In terms of
imaginary friends and their effects on children and their development,
there is a group of researchers at the University of
Oregon um collectively working at a place called the Imagination
(37:16):
Research Lab, and they pretty exclusively study that very thing.
From their website, it says they look into the development
of imagination and children and it's a relation to social understanding, creativity,
inhibitory control, and narrative skills, but specifically children's creation of
imaginary companions and the role they play in social and
(37:37):
cognitive development. You can find links to their work at
their site Imaginary Companions dot you or again dot E,
d U slash lab. It's fantastic and it's important work
because again, current research is relatively sparse. It's difficult to
understand the answers that young children would give in interviews. However,
(37:59):
right now, it's like cologists who don't believe that these
are separate entities of any sort. I do believe that
there's a cover up or conspiracy of sorts, and it's
an inner conspiracy and internal cover up. They believe that
imaginary friends seem to function at times as an emotional
(38:19):
stand in, a sort of mannequin personality upon which a
child could place and otherwise uncomfortable or difficult emotion. And
this is a little bit cheeky. Several psychologists also argue
that children might foist agency for bad behavior upon this
other entity. I didn't decide to eat all the cookies.
(38:40):
Dr Pants smack bubble meant told me to do it,
and then, well, you know, honey, dr pants back bubble
ment is not real the way that you are. No,
you don't understand, mom, She made me do it. So
you know it's not my fault that this bad thing happened.
I still that I still do that to this day.
(39:00):
So right, right, so Oddly enough, if there is a conspiracy,
it may be simply children juveniles using the concept of
an imaginary entity to cover up or remove themselves from
their own fears, emotions, or consequences of action. And again,
the fortunate bottom line here is that for the vast
majority of cases, it doesn't seem harmful to children at all,
(39:24):
and we have to ask if we apply this same
reasoning to adults, Well, if it's not harmful, is there
a reason to ask people to stop? I mean, if
it's making them happy, it's not hurting them or someone else,
should they be allowed their imaginary companions? Yeah? I mean
if they're not the flavor of imaginary companion that allows
them to write off any responsibility for their actions, that
(39:47):
I say, a Okay, what do you think listeners? Um
write us. You can find us on social media at
Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram or just Conspiracy Stuff on
Facebook and Twitter. And if you don't want to do
any of that, you can write it's a good old
fashioned email where we are conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com m
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