The Slender Man

[Konsciencia]

Yes, if you’ve heard of the Slender Man. Then stick around. Has anyone had an encounter with the Slender Man before? I just heard about it yesterday. I didn't know about the Slender Man hysteria. Until now. I was amazed at how this Demon looked like.

So, let me know, did you had an encounter with the Slender Man before? I would love to know.

 

[Thebes]

Based on the little bit I read on Wikipedia, the lesson of here seems to be: "Don't create an egregore of something you wouldn't want walking down the street." I've started one dubious spirit interaction, and I was lucky the lesson was more humility than lethality. I tend to stick to inviting things in I wouldn't mind staying for a bit.

 

[LionheartG]

So before Slender man became a serious thing. I had a similar experience with a differing version of it, in my dreams. Blackened face, no eyes, no visible features, in a identical suit, but it wasn't tall, and it didn't have long arms. I interpreted it way differently than it's perceived in the mainstream.
I was having a dream and suddenly became lucid within the dream. Two of these black faced men appeared and watched me from the distance. I got the distinct impression in the dream, my subconscious knew I was awake and decided to observe me. I changed the dream back to what I had liked and continued on with the plot of the dream. The two figures observed and then they eventually got bored, and decided to pop up randomly me in my face, which forced me to wake up with a start.
I didn't get any sense of dread or horror that people usually feel. I rather got the feeling that I was being tested and evaluated.

I didn't see it as a scary thing but instead saw it as a representation of the collective or individual subconscious mind, when encountered. Knudsen's Slenderman is based off the Tall Man/Shadowman/Hatman. This is entity, phantom or being is seen frequently in nightmares in the dreamscape and is part of the shadow people lore if your into that. Slenderman is more off an offshoot of the real character.

I believe it has something to do with the collective subconscious for certain group of people but it also manifests differently for others.

 

[Sabbatius]

...saw it as a representation of the collective or individual subconscious mind, when encountered. Knudsen's Slenderman is based off the Tall Man/Shadowman/Hatman. This is entity, phantom or being is seen frequently in nightmares in the dreamscape and is part of the shadow people lore if your into that. Slenderman is more off an offshoot of the real character.

So, as @Thebes stated, an egregore.

 

[LionheartG]

So, as @Thebes stated, an egregore.

Egregores are thoughtforms, similar to tulpas. I would have to investigate it further before I labeled Slender Man an egregore, personally. There are many spirits in my tradition and other spiritual traditions around the world that are linked to a collective ethnic group's spiritual subconscious, not as a product of it, but as a presence that works through it and they are genuine spirits. Succubus and Incubus are also astral dream spirits and also do not fit under the egregore label. Shared psychic archetypes can be specific to many different cultures and subcultures. Cultural connection is important so I can't overlook it.

Spirits also can evolve. First there was Shadowman, then there was the Hatman variant, which means Slender Man could be potentially a new variant as well. I see this in my culture and other cultures with a variety of different spirits and even deities. Because Slender Man and its origin variant are also associated with sleep paralysis, I would currently place them in the category of nocturnal spirits. Sleep paralysis reports of these variants predate Slender Man and recur in people with no exposure to the creepypasta, which is at least prima facie evidence the source isn't purely attention-generated, even if the current avatar is culturally shaped.

I'm not comfortable labeling them simply as an egregore yet because the mechanism hasn't been demonstrated. I'm not claiming it's not potentially egregore class, but the details are just too muddy. If we let the term 'egregore' mean 'anything a group believes in,' we've lost the ability to tell manufactured thoughtforms from actual given presences, which is exactly the distinction the term was invented to preserve. Slender Man requires further research and refinement.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Slenderman was literally invented, and became a thing after thousands of people started talking and writing about it as if it were real. If that's not an egregore, I don't know what is.

 

[Konsciencia]

So before Slender man became a serious thing. I had a similar experience with a differing version of it, in my dreams. Blackened face, no eyes, no visible features, in a identical suit, but it wasn't tall, and it didn't have long arms. I interpreted it way differently than it's perceived in the mainstream.
I was having a dream and suddenly became lucid within the dream. Two of these black faced men appeared and watched me from the distance. I got the distinct impression in the dream, my subconscious knew I was awake and decided to observe me. I changed the dream back to what I had liked and continued on with the plot of the dream. The two figures observed and then they eventually got bored, and decided to pop up randomly me in my face, which forced me to wake up with a start.
I didn't get any sense of dread or horror that people usually feel. I rather got the feeling that I was being tested and evaluated.

I didn't see it as a scary thing but instead saw it as a representation of the collective or individual subconscious mind, when encountered. Knudsen's Slenderman is based off the Tall Man/Shadowman/Hatman. This is entity, phantom or being is seen frequently in nightmares in the dreamscape and is part of the shadow people lore if your into that. Slenderman is more off an offshoot of the real character.

I believe it has something to do with the collective subconscious for certain group of people but it also manifests differently for others.

Wow!!! Impressive!