Imaginary Friends

I never had any imaginary friends. I feel like I was missing out.

All of my friends were real. Maybe they had imaginary friends. I don't know.

Never had an imaginary friend. There was this imaginary lion, however ... Aw, he was vicious. A magnificent golden male, with the greatest mane ever. Anytime after dark, if he saw me outside and alone, he was at my heels. Right before he made the fatal strike, I always managed to get inside the door and shut him out. I knew in the recess of my mind he was not real, but the terror was palpable ...

Nope, never had imaginary friends.

Naw, i never had no imaginary friends. In fact, i found the idea so preposterous, that the first time i read of such a thing, i thought the author had an over-active imagination, and that it made the story implausible. It was only much later that people finally convinced me that their children had imaginary friends, and that it was not uncommon. I always have thought, though, that it was a comment on the child's environment--when i was a kid, we were too busy with real people to have time to imagine a companion.

I must confess, when i first saw this thread title, i thought: "Imaginary friend . . . shouldn't that be in Spirituality and Religion?"

When Clive was very young he got the idea for an imaginary friend from TV.
For while he drove us crazy. Had to make room for his imaginary friend,
had to have a snack for his imaginary friend, had to say hello to his
imaginary friend...

Finally his younger brother Nigel had had it.

"HE DOESN'T REALLY HAVE AN IMAGINARY FRIEND. HE'S JUST MAKING IT UP!"

i'm pretty sure i must have

i could play alone and imagine other people as characters in my whatever situation i was involved in, if i was a soldier i had troops with me who were imaginary

Mo has an imaginary sister.

It gets really confusing because he talks about his sister all the time at school. He talked to our neighbor about her the other day.

People ask me if Mo has a sister -- he does, actually, he has two. They're his mOther's kids but they live with their father who is not Mo's father. We only see them once or twice a year.

So yeah, Mo has a sister but the sister he talks about is imaginary.

My own imaginary friend, Orey, was much less complicated. He was an excellent listener.

yeah when there is talk of imaginary friends i think psychos.



its is really odd for me to contemplate....



i def had ZERO of them

i do feel jealous tho...

i want one.

I had two. Pickles and Poppolock. I had forgotten them until my brother reminded me. It was astounding to me that I could have forgotten such special friends and even moreso, that my brother actually remembered their names.

I had an imaginary dog--a German shepherd named King. No one knew about him, though. I was afraid people would think I was crazy. He was one good dog.

Nope - always had plenty of real people around...was pretty happy with them too.

My imaginary enemies have real friends!

I had been thinking about this thread for about a week now. Thoughts of the friends had appeared in my head and I wondered why some kids have (some people say need) imaginary friends and others do not. Some kids actively share their imaginary friend (got to have a snack for the friend? I never did that.) and others, the cool ones like me, don't.

I once told some of my family about the three friends. They were, (wait, it was just my older brother and mother, the rest of them didn't say or do anything) they were immediately suspicious and critical. My brother wanted to see the stump. As if he hadn't seen that stump two million times by the time he was six. I think my Irish mother believed a bit in the myths of Ireland, so, while professing annoyance, she didn't say anything else.

The friends, well, one of them, told me not to mind, that they didn't care who knew about them. Once my brother came to the stump then that was that. He never asked about them again.

Some children take on talisman dolls. My younger brother had to have Prunie, his doll along with him everywhere. My youngest son had a Snoopy beagle who got dragged along to store and church and daycare.(There were actually a couple of them because we would replace them as they fell apart with wear.)

And now, I see Lars and the Real Girl and I was struck not so much about Lar's need for his imaginary friend, but by the townspeople's embrace of her, and thereby, him.

Joe(I'm not surprised that eoe's brother remembered hers. They can become very real.)Nation

I did that kind of stuff . . . the first motion picture i remember seeing in the theater was Disney's Davey Crockett, and i had all the paraphernalia--a "coonskin" hat and a plastic "Kentucky long rifle." I would pay imaginary "Alamo," and of course, there was a cast of thousands. A lot of us kids would play "World War Two" in those years, as well.

But none of them were recurring characters. They only existed a long as was necessary for playtime, and disappeared as soon as the dinner bell rang.

I have a friend whose little girl has an imaginary friend named Hannah. Hannah is a stinker. She gets little Mags to do all kinds of things she is not suppose to. I love Mags with all my heart. But I do not understand her...I do believe she is brilliant - on a level I could never be.

I just think I was never that creative.

My older daughter had an imaginary friend named Mitzey. When she had this friend, I did a bit of research on imaginary friends - it is most common is only children or the oldest child as they are only children at one point in their life - sort of replaces having a sibling. And it is completely healthy development phase - most likely in more creative children.

My daughter had an imaginary friend. She used to talk to 'herself' all the time and I'd ask her, 'Olivia- who are you talking to' and because she had hearing issues - her speech was sort of hard to understand and so for about a year or so I thought she was saying 'teacup'.
And I'd think - wow- talking to a teacup - alright...
Finally - she matured and her articulation got to the point that I could understand that she was talking to her imaginary friend, 'Jacob'.

She was the younger of my two children but my son was four years older, much less imaginative and into sports and would actually scoff at her at the age of five or six, saying, 'Oh no- Olivia's in there dictating to her secretary again...'
So she never really shared much about it with him. They never really played much together either - he was such an outside kid and she was more of the creative, imaginative, musical, artistic type. Still is.

She's always been very happy alone and able to entertain herself. I looked at it as a strength more/so than anything else.

I didn't have an imaginary friend myself because I had three sisters-so there were four of us girls born inside of six years. I would have been wrung through the wringer if I had - my older brother and sister would have teased me mercilessly about it. I got enough flack about naming my bicycle.