Do you have an imaginary friend?

[SDMBKL]

Do you have an imaginary friend? How often do you communicate with this imaginary friend? What is the imaginary friend's name? What species is the imaginary friend? Do you used to have an imaginary friend but now somehow you don't have any? If you do have an imaginary friend but now lost it, then how did you lose it?

I have nine imaginary friends and four imaginary enemies (seriously). They have been my friends and enemies since childhood, and we were playmates back in the day. Nowadays, I see my imaginary friends and enemies less frequently than I used to. I don't think I have seen or communicated with my imaginary friends and enemies in a long time... years, probably.

Here are a list of my imaginary friends:
1. Duck
2. Sheep
3. Rabbit
4. Unicorn
5. Rooster
6. Lamb
7. Dog
8. She-Dog
9. Baby-Dog

Here are a list of my imaginary enemies:
1. Three-eyed monster
2. Three-eyed monster
3. Three-eyed monster
4. Five-eyed monster

[Gagundathar]

You have TWO three-eyed monsters as imaginary enemies?
Are they both named 'three-eyed monster'?
If you have a Unicorn as an imaginary friend, then because the Unicorn is, in fact, an imaginary being then either that is a real friend or I need another drink.

[blondebear]

Originally Posted by SDMBKL

Here are a list of my imaginary friends:
9. Baby-Dog

Baby-Dog is MY imaginary friend, and I am not sharing him/her/it with you!

[SDMBKL]

Originally Posted by Gagundathar

You have TWO three-eyed monsters as imaginary enemies?
Are they both named 'three-eyed monster'?
If you have a Unicorn as an imaginary friend, then because the Unicorn is, in fact, an imaginary being then either that is a real friend or I need another drink.

Well, I have THREE three-eyed monsters as imaginary enemies. They are each named "Three-eyed monster", even though they appear differently from each other. My imaginary best friend was Duck. Duck looked like a duck, waddled like a duck, and ate like a duck. Duck was a duck. I played with my imaginary friends often and pretty much ignored my imaginary enemies, unless they wanted to fight me or my friends.

[don't ask]

I have no imaginary friends although there are a couple of imaginary people that hang around that belong to my imaginary therapist.

[Boyo Jim]

Did you grow up on a farm... with a lot of inbreeding among the animals? That might explain both your friends and the monsters.

[splatterpunk]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

Did you grow up on a farm... with a lot of inbreeding among the animals? That might explain both your friends and the monsters.

And the OP's posting history.

[The Man With The Golden Gun]

Reference to God being an imaginary friend in 3...2...1...

[Shagnasty]

I didn't until today but now I have one. I call him RELAJK. He just pops up on my monitor sometimes. Some of the stuff he asks is kind of trippy and childlike but loddly acking some essence of human emotion. That is how I know he is imaginary.

[Lanzy]

Are you talking to just the kids on the board? It seems this would be juvenile or a mental illness.

[SDMBKL]

Originally Posted by Lanzy

Are you talking to just the kids on the board? It seems this would be juvenile or a mental illness.

I am talking to anybody who has read this thread. The poll does ask if you have or have not an imaginary friend or used to have an imaginary friend.

[cochrane]

My imaginary friend says I'm not supposed to tell you about him or he's gonna beat me up.

[panache45]

I had an imaginary friend when I was about 5. Her name was Alice, and I used to pretend to call her on the phone. Other than that I don't think I ever talked to her, or did anything else for that matter.

At some point she moved away with her family.

[elfkin477]

Originally Posted by Lanzy

Are you talking to just the kids on the board? It seems this would be juvenile or a mental illness.

It's also common to adults with developmental disabilities.


They estimate that up to 60% of kids have imaginary friends between the ages of 4 & 10. I was among the 40 or so % never to have one. I still don't know if they're real to kids who have them or not.

[aruvqan]

I had an imaginary playmate that went away sometime just before I started kindergarden. We had moved back into the country and into one of the family houses, and a nice old man would sit on the stairs with me and tell me stories, and we would talk. He always got up and left if anybody came around to see who I was talking with. My parents called in a child shrink, this apparently being what one did in the early 60s

It turned out that he matched the description of my very dead great grandfather. I had never met him, he died around 40 years before i was born. He was distinctive looking, and I had not had a chance to see a picture of him either, the only pictures the family had were at my grandparents home in Florida and I had not gone there yet. He had built the house we were living in, and it had been his residence at the time he died as well. There had been some odd happenings in the house when my Mom lived there in the 50s before us kids arrived and Dad was duty stationed overseas where he had to be unaccompanied for safety reasons. One very memorable time my mother had been out to dinner with my grandparents, uncle and aunt and they came home to find every light in the house on from attic to cellar, even in areas normally left locked. At the time the maids were not live in, and nobody was there when they all left for dinner, and the house was locked up and nobody went in while she was gone [they asked around the next day.] It was not unknown for there to be the sounds of someone walking around in the attic[it was set up as my great grandfathers office and bathroom/dressing room when he lived there. It has the most lovely huge walk in dressing room with a huge cedar walk in closet.]

[secretsmile36]

Originally Posted by SDMBKL

Do you have an imaginary friend? How often do you communicate with this imaginary friend? What is the imaginary friend's name? What species is the imaginary friend? Do you used to have an imaginary friend but now somehow you don't have any? If you do have an imaginary friend but now lost it, then how did you lose it?

Yes.
I check in with it once a day.
It's name is freakazoid.
It's a certain troll species.
I can't seem to find the troll right now. I think it may have gotten lost in my dryer. Or perhaps it went into my wardrobe and fell into another world called Narnia.

Seriously dude, if you're an adult and have an imaginary friend you should be on some serious medication or be on a first name basis with a psychiatrist.

[secretsmile36]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

Did you grow up on a farm... with a lot of inbreeding among the animals? That might explain both your friends and the monsters.

Or perhaps a lot of interbreeding among relatives?

[Stauderhorse]

When I was little I assigned personalities to my favorite stuffed animals, and sometimes imagined that various fictional characters would hang out with me. Not so much now, though.

[PunditLisa]

Honestly, the whole imaginary friend thing creeps me out even in young kids, because it seems evidential of a mental illness. You're either honestly not distinguishing the difference between something real and imagined OR you can distinguish the difference, but that little fact is inconsequential to your agenda. Both seem alarming to me.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Some days it seems like all my friends have been imaginary.

[Shakes]

Originally Posted by PunditLisa

Honestly, the whole imaginary friend thing creeps me out even in young kids, because it seems evidential of a mental illness. You're either honestly not distinguishing the difference between something real and imagined OR you can distinguish the difference, but that little fact is inconsequential to your agenda. Both seem alarming to me.

Imaginary friends are good for a child's development. Here

Interesting read. The linked article didn't touch on this but I also remember reading that having imaginary friends helps a kid with problem solving skills as well.

[secretsmile36]

Originally Posted by PunditLisa

Honestly, the whole imaginary friend thing creeps me out even in young kids, because it seems evidential of a mental illness. You're either honestly not distinguishing the difference between something real and imagined OR you can distinguish the difference, but that little fact is inconsequential to your agenda. Both seem alarming to me.

It's completley normal in kids and is a sign of an active imagination. In adults....not so much.

[Missy2U]

Originally Posted by PunditLisa

Honestly, the whole imaginary friend thing creeps me out even in young kids, because it seems evidential of a mental illness. You're either honestly not distinguishing the difference between something real and imagined OR you can distinguish the difference, but that little fact is inconsequential to your agenda. Both seem alarming to me.

Got it in one.

Is it just me, or is this getting way stranger, with every passing day?

[DrFidelius]

I never had an imaginary friend, although I have been the imaginary friend to a number of young people.

[Docta G]

I did when I was little. His name was Jesus.

[pravnik]

Originally Posted by Docta G

I did when I was little. His name was Jesus.

Jesus wasn't imaginary. He was the gardener.

[Docta G]

Originally Posted by pravnik

Jesus wasn't imaginary. He was the gardener.

And a very naughty boy.

[Jman]

I had an imaginary friend when I was a little kid. Two actually. They were brother and sister, named Whistleclick (the boy) and Click (the girl). I remember that they were invisible, and I'm pretty sure I knew they were imaginary, but still had fun talking to them. My mom says I used to blame EVERYTHING bad that I did on one of them. I can't remember when I stopped the whole imaginary friend thing, but I think by 5 or 6, they were gone, maybe earlier.

One of my friends told me that she had a family of imaginary friends when she was little. They were originally from Joliet, IL and lived under the refrigerator. I am not making that up.

[Springtime for Spacers]

I couldn't vote because SDMBKL left off this option:

I think you are imaginary and irrational.

For those considering the issue of imaginary friends seriously. I never had any that I believed were real (and needed a place at the table and would get hurt if someone sat on them etc) but I did make up serial stories about the same group of characters from early childhood until well into my teens. Actually I probably last visited the milieu in my thirties -- I was a bit stressed at the time.

[Gagundathar]

OK, perhaps the OP meant to use a different tense for the verb 'have'.
Most, if not all, of the posters on this board are at least nominally adult (there are some notable questionable instances, but they are outliers) and therefore are beyond the age where imaginary friends normally disappear.

However, assuming that our extraterrestrial friend meant 'Did you have imaginary friend(s) when you were a child?" then the answer for this poster is, "Yes, I did. Their names were 'Fishy', 'Baby' and 'Arfy'. I created them subconsciously when I was about 3 and they were around until I was about 5 or so. Later, when I developed a fear of scorpions (about the age of 6) I deliberately created an imaginary scorpion friend that lived in the outside wall of my parent's habitat. His name was 'Scorpy' and he protected me from scorpions. Once my fear was allayed, he told me that he was going to go back to Scorpion Island, but that I could always call him if I needed him."

As an interesting aside, the irrational fear of scorpions is a form of arachnophobia, a phobia that is usually associated in most people's minds with spiders. I have never been afraid of spiders. There does not appear to be a specific term for 'irrational fear of scorpions' which is rather odd since we have made up terms for fears like Arachibutyrophobia - the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth, Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia - the fear of long words, and Pteronophobia - the fear of being tickled by feathers.

Obviously, there has to be some out-of-work psychiatrist who can coin a word for this.
I suggest Buthidaephobia since most of the scorpions with venom dangerous to humans are among the family Buthidae.

I wonder if there is an official registry for these terms wherein I might enter suggestions.

[casdave]

I don't get this imaginary friend thing at all, not in children, adults - only perhaps in a few disturbed individuals, but even they seem to tie personalities into real objects such as toys and dolls.

This is so far outside my frame of reference that if someone tried to explain their imaginary friend to me, I could never ever understand it at all. I have never taken any other view, and have only ever seen this as a bit if one of those strange Americanisms along with trick or treat..

No doubt someone will point out that its actually all over the world, maybe, but drugs are also widespread too, so maybe there is an overlap there.

[Anaamika]

I do. He's got a sonic screwdriver and great hair, and I'm just waiting for him to visit. Wait! is that him now...?

[Gagundathar]

I now realize the mistake in my last post. Somehow, I voted correctly and then forgot the dang question's actual wording. Oh well.

[Ellen Cherry]

CLosing thread.