Did you have an imaginary friend as a child?

[ofwarren]

I did.
Mine was called Baby and was the size of my hand. My favourite book for a while was Thumbelina so I probably got the idea from there.

I used to take her out in my dolls pram and play with her all day long.

I have no recollection of when I stopped thinking about her.

I've read imaginary friends are really common in autistic children and some keep them into adulthood.

I started learning to read around 3 and the first school I went to (not till age 5, mind you - this was in the seventies) told my mum off for it!! 'Why have you taught her to read, she's making the other children feel stupid!'

She hadn't taught me (or at least not at first) - I'd started picking words up from watching adverts on TV!😀

'Well, you shouldn't have encouraged her,' was apparently the reply.

Blows my brain that a school would ever suggest a parent should deliberately hold a child back from learning!

I'm an only child and I did this too at the age of about 10, but I only had the one imaginary sister. Her name was Hyacinth. (This was well before 'Keeping Up Appearances, I should add. 😂) She was older than me and quite bossy and narky, as she was based on how my friends' older sisters talked to them. Unsurprisingly she disappeared after a while. She's probably working as an imaginary head teacher somewhere. 😂

This is in addition to having four imaginary friends and an imaginary horse as mentioned upthread.

Unsurprisingly, I grew up into someone who writes a lot of fiction and is generally considered odd. 😂

It's weird but then I guess they didn't know about hyperlexia — in a text-heavy society where parents are encouraged to read to their kids and TV presents text with spoken language, you can't stop a hyperlexic kid picking it up. After nursery, my infant school (80s/90s) just treated it as a minor curiosity, borrowed some books from the junior school, and let me get on with it.

They'd already had my brother through that infant school a few years earlier, who'd done things like 'correcting' the teacher when she said you can't take 8 away from 5 by informing her that the answer was -3, so I guess they were prepped for the second weird kid… (he was numbers-obsessed, so naturally my mum would chat away to him and answer his questions about how numbers worked, without necessarily thinking about how it might mess up a future teacher's attempts to introduce maths concepts to the class in a sensible order).

We're both fairly normal now, I promise 😅

Sorry for going off-topic — it was just a hypothesis about whether being hyperlexic had something to do with me not having imaginary friends, but I guess you'd need some kind of large-scale study to work it out

I still do have an imaginary friend. It gives me someone to bounce ideas and emotions off. Not sure I had one as a child though I've always had a good imagination and put myself into daydreams so that's similar. But now it's a comfort.

Thanks, you’ve renpminded my imaginary friend to come back! They were off playing because I was being all stressed and grown up. Now I’ve read this thread they’ve decided it’s time to return! I’m so glad!

Yay!!
Great news

They will happily meet all your imaginary friends too. ( visions of imaginary chums from all over meeting under the stars)

Yes, I had imaginary friends when I was a child and they have grown with me and are a very important part of my life, perhaps even a coping mechanism.

My imaginary friends, and one in particular, have been through a lot with me. I can switch points of view with them, for example, I can advise them about a situation, just as someone may advise me, and they can advise me. I can rehearse what to say, practice telling little anecdotes with them, gain comfort from them and basically not feel alone.

My imaginary friends are part of my internal life, but it is a life that links seamlessly with the external world, and fulfils my needs. For example, when I needed acceptance from peers, I had a group of imaginary friends and I explored all sorts of scenarios with them. I was always the one who advised others how to resolve conflicts, or how to comfort each other. Many of these strategies helped me in groups situations in real life.

I rehearsed interview questions with them and ran through presentations with them. There was no need to be fearful of unpredictable responses.

They help me laugh at situations that I am too sensitive about. They help me sort out complex situations. They are invaluable to me.

I am over sixty years old, and my world has been enriched through imaginary friends for as long as I can remember.

This is wonderful
Thank you so much for sharing

@feistyoneyouare ; Yay! I’m not the only one 😀. I had one sister and two brothers and a dog called Harley!

I couldn’t write for toffee but my daughter seems to have been gifted that gene 😀.

Like @Bergamotte I tried to imagine an imaginary friend when I first heard of the idea. I was in first school, so must have been around 7. I called her Vicky, which was also the name of my next-door neighbour who I'd been friends with and had moved away.

It didn't work, sadly as I was very lonely. But not surprised as I now realise I can only summon up very vague images in my mind and only of very familiar people/things etc.

That's actually a very interesting point.
Those people who cannot see images in their heads mustn't have had imaginary friends as children.

I don't know - I think you can have imaginary friends without 'seeing' them, you hear them instead when you talk to them. If anyone has read 'Chocky' by John Wyndham, it would work like that (obviously Chocky was real but only manifested herself as a voice and occasional power).

Yeah I never thought about that. I only thought about the way my own imaginary friend manifested to me.