Does anyones child have an imaginary friend who is 'already dead?'

[Rosybumpily]

My dd will be 4 in January. She has an imaginary friend called Emma who she has talked about since she could talk (which was early). She says Emma is already dead, she's not afraid of the dark because she is lighter than us, she can fly

can you rearrange this movie title?

Sense
The
Sixth

My word! I think there are people on MN who have had similar experiences, I hope some one will be along to offer proper advice.

I think that's totally normal, and probably a sign of intelligence and creativity. A friend of mine's little sister had an imaginary friend who even warranted a place at the dinner table, until one evening the sister informed the rest of the family that they only needed four places because "Annie" had died the day before. That sounds a lot weirder to me, and my friend's sister is perfectly normal and quite brilliant!

DD will be 4 in Dec and she's just started talking about an imaginary friend called Emily but she's only just started doing all this. I'm sure I read somewhere that the prime age for imaginary friends is about now. I'm not sure she would have had the imagination for this when she first started talking.

I'm kind of thinking along the same lines as suzywong but don't want to freak you out! Does she talk about Emma all the time or only in certain places, like at home?

My friend has a 5yo ds who told her that his grandad visits him some nights and takes him out. Grandad died before ds was born. He says he knows it is him as he has seen photos.

It doesnt scare him so no one is too worried about it.

Would you want to do anything about it if you thought it was true?

Message withdrawn

My DD (3.10) oftens talks about her brother and sister in heaven ( I had 2 stillbirths before she was born) and often says she's off to take Catriona a Cbeebies magazine or something " as they don't have that in heaven do they? and I don't want her to not know what I'm talking about"!!! - Andrew doesn't get a lot because "he's probably playing football with my grandads in the park in heaven" !!!

Incidentally about a year ago I was driving DD down to a friends Caravan in Devon and a little voice popped up - " Oooh I'm so excited - I'm going to see my grandads, other grandma and Catriona and Andrew" .... "Ummm Really darling - how's that?" said I ... " Well they're in Devon aren't they?" .... Bless - I had visions of them all in a static on a caravan park !!!

it's my 6-yr-old's job to feed the goldfish at school

I went in the other day and she wanted to show me how she did it cos she was proud of it

so she put the fish food in very carefully and smiled happily

the water was quite murky so I said 'where is he?' cos I couldn't see him

'Oh, I think he died' she said and wandered off, unperturbed, to play

(he wasn't dead at all, he appeared in a minute, but the fact that she was so proud and undisturbed by the fact she was feeding a dead fish made me and

I'm open minded about 'spirits' etc but I am not into chasing it up in anyway if that's what it was. She first told me Emma was 'deaded' about a year ago and I did think she was very young to be exploring the idea of death! Most of the time she mentions Emma in humdrum ways that are relevant to the conversation as if she just made it up so who knows.
Her cousin (now 15)used to have two imaginary friends called big mathew and little mathew and my son (now 15) once mentioned 'the white one' when he was very young, whoever that was! So it must run in the family!

Found this thread very interesting as have had a couple of things happen a bit similar.
My dd(also 4 in jan)last week pointed up at a blank wall and asked about the little boy.What little boy? i asked and she said the one that got run over by a car and he died!
Also my best friends son same age kept talking about two little girls he played with in his room at night.(he was 2.5 -3 at time)My friend listened to him 'talking' to them over a number of weeks .Then,one day she was working on her sewing machine and got up to make a drink and she thought she heard 'shhh she's going in the kitchen now', over the baby monitor.This continued for several weeks and got more scary when the cupboard doors started to open and shut in front of her.She's not a fanciful person and became so worried that she sold the house.Strangely enough when i told my sister of the strange goings on she said two young girls had died in a house fire around that row of houses.We never did research it though although we had the pretend girls names from the little boy.I think we were all thinking best to leave things be.

oooh, some fascinating stories here!!

Not an imaginary friend as such (neither of my dc have ever had an imaginary friend as such)

One day, when dd was around 2, I pulled up in front of our house. (a semi) Dd pointed to the house next door and babbled 'Lucy gone'.

Two years before Dd was born, the little girl next door died of leukaemia. She was called Lucy.
Now, whilst we are on pleasant terms with our neighbours, we don't see them much, dd has never been to their house, and has never been told about Lucy.

It made me go .....
Coincidence??
We do not know anyone else called Lucy...

Hi Peegee
Are you the peegee off fly threads btw?
I think children do have a sixth sense stories like this are quite common, we just don't tell them unless asked for fear of being called fruitcakes. BTW thanks for the memory jolt the little girls my friends son talked to were called Megan and Lucy.(Now that one is just co-incidence).

Hi squatchette, yep, I am to be found on FLY (although have not done much recently...)

I too believe it was some sort of sixth sense, dd has never mentioned Lucy since.

I love the idea of imaginary friends, but alas my two have not had them...

Don't remind me, I joined fly lady weeks ago and I haven't checked my messages since

There are definately things we don't understand yet but I think we will one day. I hate to think that there are little lost children around as depicted in 'the sixth sense' though.
When I was a child I was convinced that I had been joined by my sister while we both slept, she agreed (but she was only about 3) but since then in adulthood we have had loads of weird moments of telepathy.
Also my mother used to have out of body experiences as a child so I wonder if our minds are more connected and more fluent than we think?
With ghosts I tend to wonder if time is not as linear as we experience it.
Anyway I am presuming that my dd will grow out of her imaginary friend...
Did anyone see the film 'drop dead fred' with Rik Mayal about imaginary friends? Funny and sad.

I think its normal to have imaginary friends at her age. I suppose at her age children are learning about death and dying and that things dont last forever. They have such interesting fantasies about where people go when they die etc. At leasther friend has a normal name.....My imaginary friend was called "Niffy Boogle" and my sister had one equally as stange, "Big Arlist"

My dd had an imaginary friend who was a mouse called Christina who lived in her pocket. Christina was a big part of our lives and was a huge help to dd when she started school (she found school very difficult for some months, and Chrstina went with her and was a great comfort) I realized after a while that we hadn't heard about her for a while, and asked" Oh yes" says dd, it was so sad - she was playing in the garden and a cat caught her." I wasn't ready to let go of Christina (I had known her for years) so I said "Oh dear. Never mind, she's a very clever mouse, she probably escaped" "Oh no" says dd "the cat ate her"
She had served her purpose, and was never heard from again! Very healthy, I know, but I missed her!

That story is so sweet, children are just amazing!!!

lol at the friends names Oonaghbunagh
Kids are great, there's never a dull moment!