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Imaginary Childhood Friends

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Anonymous

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Not sure if there are any other threads relating to this topic but it's something I'm fascinated by.
Everyone seems to know a child who has imaginary friends - insists on a place being set for them at dinner etc. However, the detail in some of these friends seems amazing. A friend of mine who is a very "normal" guy (whatever that might be) remembers having 2 such friends called "Bode" & "Kink". He can even recall seeing them sitting on the edge of the bath whilst his mother bathed him. He tells me one wore a top hat (which a child of 2 would be pretty unfamiliar with in the mid - 60's) and the other a flamboyant waistcoat. They both vanished just as his younger sister was born when he was about 2-3 years old.
I've heard various theories about these being spirit companions or guardian angels etc. The more I think about it though, the more it unnerves me, especially the detail that my friend can recall in his "friends". Are they imaginary or are they something that comes into the world with a child as companions/ protectors?
Anyone else have any examples or theories about it?
 
Go to www.ghosts.org and look up the 'Mr Kangaroo' story. Not sure how dodgy it is, but lends a rather disturbing edge to the whole business.

Or Grant Morrison's early days on 'Doom Patrol', featuring a genuinely scary lot of invisible friends who weren't too happy about being left behind as their human pal got older...

As for what they really are; who knows? 'Genuine' entities? Mental functions given abstracted forms? Thoughts, folks?
 
I think we learn to be single-minded. If we experience anything
akin to these entities later on, we don't encourage them. :eek:
 
My little friend, 'Barley', lived under the bed and was responsible for all the naughty things I was accused of. But he was always there to talk to - until I was 6 we lived in rural isolation and my little brother was still a baby.

So there's no mystery and so long as the family don't deride or think you have gone peculiar, an imaginary companion can be a bonus.

As James says, we grow out of it as we gather 'real' people around us.

Professional writers must have no end of imaginary people around them.

H. :)
 
My friends' name was George--burnt orange skin, buck teeth & three horns on his head (real goofy guy)--he taught me not to be afraid of the dark. Lost 'im one day after watching an episode of "Family Affair" in which the little girl outgrows her imaginary pal and 'lets him go'-- I imitated this, and strange to say, I don't remember ever having him around again; and I was[ I]really[/I] disappointed about it. Don't know what this says about the imagination of children. I do find it interesting, though, that I did'nt just pretend he was still around.
 
I only came into this thread because of my amazement at discovering Jerry 'Spudboy' Garcia alive again and posting on the board... :D

I will now leave this thread because I never had an imaginary childhood friend. (I did, however, have an imaginary childhood enemy. I know this to be true as I was far too young to be 'just paranoid' despite what the doctor told my mum...) :nonplus:
 
There was a really good film about imaginary friends, which had Rik Mayall in it. As an imaginary friend. It was a very disturbing film, and I therefore enjoyed it thoroughly as a child, along with other semi-Fortean films such as "Big" and "Flight of Dragons". :D

I didn't have an imaginary friend, but as an only child growing up in the countryside I ended up speaking to myslef all the time. I still do it to this day, and it does begin to worry me on the rare occasions when I start discussing something in depth with myself out loud!
 
taras said:
There was a really good film about imaginary friends, which had Rik Mayall in it.

that would be "Drop Dead Fred", tidy film that :D

I didn't have an imaginary friend but the skeletons in the porch by the stairs were so real I always used to run up the stairs. I never saw them and don't remember why I first started imagineing they were there but my brother (same age as me) also recalls them even though to both of our knolage we never spoke about them, untill I brought up the subject a few months back...
 
I know you weren't asking but the film with Rik Mayall was called Drop Dead Fred in case anyone was wondering.

More to topic, can anyone give us a first hand account of actually remembering childhood imaginary friends as if they were real people like Spudboy's friend in the first post. It would just be interesting if anyone recalls seeing their IF like they were a tangible being rather than their imagination.
 
Harvey

Harvey was a little boy with whom I would have animated conversations when I about 3 or 4 (pre-school, anyway). He was as real to me as anyone else, and I used to get quite upset (read tantrums!) if anyone suggested he wasn't real.

I don't recall ever conciously "letting him go", but he just seemed to be around less after I started school.

I'm not an only child (far from it!), but am the youngest and my brother is 2 1/2 years older than me, which makes a lot of difference at that age... maybe I yearned for someone to talk to me at my level?

I must have been well into my teenage years before I saw the James Stewart film of the same name (it's still one of my favourites), but could of course have picked up the name through perfectly normal (!) non-paranormal means.

Jane.
 
I used to have an imaginary dog named Rocky. He was a German Sheppard. Supposedly when I was really little I had an imaginary flying turtle. I can't really remember when they stopped showing up.
 
I wonder if really vivid imaginary friends in early childhood have any connection to poltergeists in adolescence?
 
I had an imaginary friend named Jamie, used to make my Mom set a place at the table for him, etc. Can't remember what he looked like though.....

sureshot
 
I have a little friend who is now 5 yrs old, but when she was 3 she had an imaginary sister Sally. She would get very upset when her mother told her that she didn't really have a sister (or any other siblings for that matter). She no longer believes that Sally is real, but now instead of playing "house" we play "Sister Sally". There is a good sister Sally and a bad sister Sally, depending on her mood. I actually play an excellant bad sister Sally - I was even pushed out of the imaginary moving car! :eek:
 
My daughter had two IF ,named Tanky, and Jewel. She told us that they lived in the wall of her room, that they only came out at night and that they lived on air. They also told her that only kids could see them and that they were supposed to watch out for her. Afew days after she gave me this info avery heavy shelf fell from her wall missing her by inches. Ithanked Tanky and Jewel for being there. My daughter is now nine, gets uncomfortable if her friends are mentioned, but insists they were/are real.
 
And who are we say they weren't real? What a lovely idea to have something watching over children. :)
 
taras said:
I didn't have an imaginary friend, but as an only child growing up in the countryside I ended up speaking to myslef all the time. I still do it to this day, and it does begin to worry me on the rare occasions when I start discussing something in depth with myself out loud!

OMG, that's what I do! I'm not an only child but I am the youngest by several years ... I like the idea that sometimes deceased siblings "return" as invisible/imaginary friends ... and spookily enough my Mother had a misscarriage when I was 3 :eek!!!!:
 
Spooky angel said:
And who are we say they weren't real? What a lovely idea to have something watching over children. :)

I quite agree spooky,instead of parents telling children not to be silly etc,this provides a great opportunity for Fortean investigation.Get a child to ask questions to their "imaginary friends".Certain answers might give proof of a real phenomena.Ask questions that for example a 3 year old wouldn't know,possibly about past family members or even the parents past experiences.
 
In the book The Shining, the boy's "imaginary friend" was actually himself from the future. Interesting idea. The book Chocky, the IF was another intelligence (can't remember the details now, long time since I read that one).
 
What, you mean...Tony?

R-e-d-r-u-m
R-e-d-r-u-m

Tony, Harvey (the rabbit), Drop Dead Fred and Chocky are the only IFs in the media I can think of. Oh, and Captain Howdy, of course. But I don't really want to go there.
 
Has anyone heard of a whole imaginary family member? I have four sisters and there is roughly-give or take 6 months-two years beween us all apart from a four year gap between the third and fourth sister. Me and my sisters filled this gap with an imaginary sister called (please don't ask why cause I don't know) 'Andrex' or 'Andrex the Ghost Child'. Me and my sisters often go out for pizzas and if you book a table for five you tend to get one set for six so we say the sixth place is for Andrex.She also gets blamed for things going missing or any unexplained sister related event.
She would be 34 now and is still very much with us!
 
Study looks at benefits of imaginary friends

Mark Oliver
Tuesday March 1, 2005

The days when concerned parents refuse to set a dinner place for their child's imaginary friend may be numbered.

Researchers are investigating whether having an imaginary friend might help children to develop language skills, boost creativity and retain knowledge.

Research suggests that as many as one in four children may have an invisible friend or one that takes the form of a toy or doll.

Anna Roby, a research assistant at the Max Planck Child Study Centre in Manchester, is looking for parents from the region who have children with imaginary companions.

"We are getting together a group of 20 children with imaginary friends and 20 without. Then for the study we will ask them to do tasks to try and establish whether there are differences in language skills and other areas," she said.

"Children with these kinds of companions have strong imaginations and are often very creative, which can be really useful to them as they develop."

Ms Roby is also a part-time masters student at the University of Manchester's school of psychological sciences.

One of her supervisors, Dr Evan Kidd, said: "We are very interested in the outcome of this study ... if Anna's theories are correct they will help reverse common misconceptions about children with imaginary friends, as they come to be seen as having an advantage rather than anything to worry about."

Ms Roby said that it was difficult to tell in young children where the realms of fantasy and play ended, where reality began, and how real imaginary friends were to them.

"Some of them definitely appear to see them ... I think that they are not a problem in general although I can see that a parent may be worried if someone was 15 still had an imaginary friend."

Ms Roby said that imaginary friends "come in all shapes and sizes, some live in castles, some in the forest ... they become consistent characters, and mum will know what their names are".

Ms Roby did not have an invisible friend when she was growing up, but her brother did. She conceded that imaginary friends might not be assets for a child in a confrontation with a bully.

-----------------
· If you live in the Manchester area and have a child with an imaginary friend and might want to take part in the study you can contact Anna Roby by emailing [email protected].

Source
 
I had quite vivid imaginary friends when I was young. One, Sherry, was a bit older than me, with straight red hair worn parted on the side and fastened back with a barette, blue eyes, and the sort of teeth children have when they're somewhere between baby teeth and adult teeth. I knew no "real" person named Sherry, nor did I have any neighborhood friends with red hair.

The others were Jokey -- who was a small, wiry boy with curly, wirish black hair and big eyebrows of the sort that make someone look up to no good. His head was very pointed. And Hoppy, who was part man, part frog, but not alarming at all. I can't really say if they were "real" or not, not in the sense that people speculate about them. I can say that Sherry seemed more real than the other two, but that's about it.

I'm not an only child, but was at the time I had imaginary friends, and also was the youngest kid in the neighborhood, so "alone" (I stayed with my grandmother in the afternoon after my dad went to work until my mom got home from work -- alone only the playmate sense) while everyone else was at school. I had both real and imaginary friends at the same time, which I guess is somewhat odd, but then the neighborhood kids were always playing odd games anyway, involving fairies and spirits and things -- pretend games with intricate plots. We had a fairy called Evie who led us on adventures, and who the oldest girl would "talk" to in order to figure out what to play that day.
 
I have a question for those of you who had imaginary friends: how did it start? Was it a matter of becoming "aware" of them, or do you think they were consciously created? (a little of both?) When did they leave your life? I'm wondering if there's any sort of pattern here.

I never had an imaginary friend as a kid, although I had a very rich, rather Walter Mittyesque fantasy life which was ongoing and consistent, i.e. in my head I was living this other life. Still am, to some extent. :(
 
Emperor said:
Study looks at benefits of imaginary friends

Mark Oliver
Tuesday March 1, 2005

The days when concerned parents refuse to set a dinner place for their child's imaginary friend may be numbered.

Researchers are investigating whether having an imaginary friend might help children to develop language skills, boost creativity and retain knowledge.
...

Damn, I always wanted this to be MY Phd topic!
:shock:

Great Science!!!
:D
 
sunsplash said:
Damn, I always wanted this to be MY Phd topic!
:shock:

Great Science!!!
:D
Maybe...

But there's the implicit assumption that these friends are imaginary - but perhaps they are real, like guardian angels or other alleged spirits. Science only asks questions, and accepts answers, within its own restricted areas, because this is how science works.

So the results of this study will be either that 'imaginary' friends do or don't help a child's development, but will cast no light on whether these 'friends' are real, because this question has already been dismissed in the researcher's assumptions.

I hope I'm wrong, and that she turns up something really freaky! :shock:
 
I had a IF when I was a kid. Can't remember him being around after my sister was born, so it must have been when I was around 2-4 years of age. Anyway, I never saw him, have no idea that he looked like, and have never spoken to him. He was merely the guy I blamed everything on. :) His name was Bajje, which isn't any name I've ever heard. The clostet you come in swedish is "bajs" which means "poo" and given how kids can be at that age, I guess that's there it comes from... :oops:

I spoke of Bajje only then I was blamed for something, and then I always said "Bajje stupid to answer" which meant everything was HIS fault. My parents never brought it, strangely enough....
 
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