I’ve always been under the impression that most kids have imaginary friends, but thinking back, I don’t ever remember having one. The closest I can remember is when I would play store as a little tyke and calling under the sofa to “Joe” who would give me price checks.
Did you ever have an imaginary friend?
Does s/he still talk to you? (this question you may want to answer with your shrink nearby…) -ram
Posted in Childhood Memories
Thom May 29, 2007, 11:04 am
Hi there,
My name is Thom and I am trying to contact adults with imaginary friends for a documentary that Electric Sky Productions is developing.
If you do have one, please get in touch on research@electricsky.com with your details and we will get back to you.
Any contact at this stage will remain confidential and we look forward to hearing from you.
Thom
i hope im not alone June 28, 2007, 4:23 am
i have imaginary friends and i talk to them on a daily basis…. that’s all i’m saying…i feel crazy just typing this…
Poppy August 20, 2007, 11:58 am
i want to know about imaginary friend at 8 years old. thank u.
LuLu September 4, 2007, 12:41 am
The soonest I can remember having imaginary friends (2) was around 11 or 12 yrs of age. My parents had gone through a nasty divorce around that time. Maybe that was my way of coping with the stress, as I felt I didn’t have anyone I felt I trusted enough to confide in. I still talk to them sometimes, and I’m a 40 yr old married female with one son. No one knows about this though. I want to make clear that I DO NOT hear voices in my head telling me to do things, thank goodness. Also, it’s not like multiple personality disorder, where one has many different personalities inside them. I just need to talk sometimes like if something’s upsetting me, and only if my husband isn’t around. Otherwise, my hubby and I always talk. If he knew about this though, I think he’d seriously consider shipping me off to the looney bin! Anyway, if this helps others feel less weird, I guess it’s worth it!
lili September 11, 2007, 8:07 pm
i still have imaginary friends and i am almost 50 years old…i entertain them…i act like they are sitting on my couch…i know that they are not really there…i just have conversations with myself as if four or five people are in the room with me…when a real person walks in the room. i stop talking or entertaining…
Jen October 12, 2007, 5:19 pm
I’m 34 and I’ve had imaginary friends since I was very little. My first friend was named Peter and he lived under my basement stairs. He never came out, I would just go sit on the stairs and talk to him.
I’ve always had vivid daydreams and unfortunetly have spent most of my life just dreaming. There have always been new friends for me to be with. Although I didn’t always talk to them.
Now at 34 I have an imaginary friend named Cassey. My life got real stressful a couple years back and it still is. Cassey helps me cope. I write to her a lot ( like a diary I guess) I can tell her anything that’s on my mind and I know she won’t laugh. I can ask questions and she gives me answers that were inside myself anway but maybe I just didn’t want to see.
For me it’s a way of coping. When life gets stressful I can slip off to dream world all too easily. I know it’s strange but I feel that my imaginary friend helps to keep me grounded during those rough times in my life.
Although I would never admit this to my husband. He knows about my first friend when I was little but that he thinks is normal. I’m afraid he would not think this was normal.
I do feel very lonely and unsure of myself most of the time and I don’t have a lot of friends and would be too afraid to ask for their help or advice most of the time any way. My husband expects me to be strong and totaly self sufficient so it’s hard to ask him for advice or help to because he just says to figure it out on my own. That’s where Cassey comes in. Maybe my imaginary friend actually helps to keep me sane rather than being a sign of insanity.
Anne October 24, 2007, 8:14 am
I don’t remember ever having imaginary friends until Jr High / High School when I started going through puberty. I mostly have imaginary boyfriends. They are always based on movie characters, and I imagine living in their fantasy world with them.
Leon November 15, 2007, 5:12 am
This is an update on my imaginary friends. I now have an imaginary girlfriend. Her name is Tyra from a planet called Iinsen. She is 200 years old but looks 30. She has sort of a technical personality which makes her good at the job she does as an engineer. I’ve known her a while before we even got together. I forgot how I met her, but I didn’t even know that we would get together. Now that since we are together, our relationship has gotten strong.
faiza March 20, 2008, 7:15 am
i had imaginary friends when i was a kid.now im 21 years old..now i have many imaginary friends..a whole imaginary world…i feel so lonely..
cody June 4, 2008, 4:22 am
Hello my name is Cody i’m 16 and I have imaginary friends. And a very active imagination. I can all most see my day dreams right before my eyes. I have a very high level of creativity or so I’m told. all my life i was a bit lonely.
I have three imaginary friends named Reggy, mumble, and twitch they look like normal people and have different personality’s. Some time they get into arguments and fights in side my head(most the time Reggy wins.) some times I join in and get in the argument I never win though. Some time I hurt myself because Reggy tells me to do it. I don’t know if that makes me insane or not im going to describe the three of them
Twitch is a optimistic child and all was has a smile on his face. He lifts me up when I’m down and makes me feel that every thing is going to be ok. And he’s a grate friend to have. He lives with his grandma because he real parents were killed in a car accident.
Mumble is a sad, sad, sad, little boy. He was abused as a small child and doesn’t ever talk he hides his face in a black scarf and hat. The only thing that he show is his deep brown eye and his other eye witch is dark blue. Ive seen his face about a few times and he has a scar on his left cheek.
Reggy is the mean one and he doesn’t mess around. He often tell me to do bad things like to steel or even murder (I never listen)…well a few times. He was bullied a lot because he was a nerd in elementary school and he has a lot of built up rage and takes it out on me and mumble. I some times fight back unlike mumble who jest cries over it. I know he’s not real but he scars me and I think he’s going to kill some one or some thing or hurt mumble or even me.
Reggy is not as bad as him the one that shouldn’t be named. He’s evil and dose evil things and I’m not going to talk about him!
Sometimes I wonder if I have schizophrenia or if my imaginary friend well develop into a split-personality.
Because some of reggy actions come out through me. ( same with mumble and twitch.) but if im crazy I’m crazy not much you can do about that.
Sarah August 31, 2008, 12:43 pm
I can identify with what Pete, Leelee and Lili above are saying.
I have a cast of probably twenty characters in total. I wouldn’t call them imaginary friends. I don’t talk to them myself but usually talk to them as one of them. Six of the characters are ‘central’ characters and I can be any one (or more) of these to interact with the others. Sometimes I crave spending time with them (I went theough a phase once of not being able to go to sleep at night except as one of them) and other times they’re always there (making comments when others are around then, the instant no-one is within ear shot, we speak to each other for real).
I have a good number of real friends, but I’m not very good at being emotionally close to people, so I think maybe the deep relationships that I can have with these people (who, after all, are all really just me) is sort of compensatory.
I do consider them my deepest, darkest secret. Like I say, I’m not good at emotional closeness, so there’s a lot I’d never tell my friends, but I can’t even envisage telling ‘a professional’ about these guys. Maybe being a grown up with imaginary friends is the ultimate taboo?
Lee July 12, 2009, 5:46 am
Wow, I’m commenting nearly a year after the last commenter. Oh well.
I’m a 28 year old female and have had imaginary friends all my life. As a kid, I used to have an imaginary Golden Retriever named “Bud” and a cat named “Stormy” (along with a Pokemon named Pikachu), and as a teenager I had 10 imaginary hamsters.
Now, as an adult, I have 13 friends. 12 are human, 1 is a deer.
My imaginary friends are never present all at once. They come and go depending on my situation and/or mood. The [humans] each have an assigned duty. One helps me cook, another helps me keep up-to-date on worldly news, one helps me keep to my exercise routine, another helps with my finances. I have one who helps me fix things around the house (without needing to call a repairman), another helps me step out of my comfort zone, and one inspires confidence in me. And that’s just naming 7 of the 13.
I can’t imagine life without my imaginary friends. They help, comfort, entertain, communicate, and offer me companionship (I have REAL friends too. 10 very close friends who’re like family and 18 others who I hang out with; mostly at work).
No one knows about my imaginary friends, however. I never speak to them (vocally) unless I know I’m “alone”, otherwise I just speak to them telepathically.
This is my deep, dark secret (and still is since none of you know who I am). I’m naturally an open book, but this is the only secret that will not be spoken of. A lot of people (friends, family, other) would likely assume I suffer mental illness, which I can assure all that I do not. I know what’s real and what’s not. I just like to keep my creations as friends, even whilst knowing they’re fake.
And I must answer the question that Sarah posed (08.31.2008). “Maybe being a grown up with imaginary friends is the ultimate taboo?” I’d say Yes. Definitely. The only place people speak of adults with imaginary friends [without mentioning “illness”] is on the internet (and even that is hard to come by).
Alas! I’ll end here before I write the Great American Novel. Writing this post (and reading other posts) has taken a weight from my shoulders and I feel wonderful!
freya December 6, 2009, 10:06 pm
oh well what an enlightening read. i understand all of you! im 23 and have had imaginary friends all my life. when im on my own (which is often) im contstantly nattering away with them! they have changed over the years, when i was 12 it was sid who was like the mischeivous older brother, tom was an old man, a doctor. then i had an african lady with loads of children, currently i have jenson a lad about my age who hangs out on the sofa. i also have pretty much been terrorized since i was 16 by the image of a girl who always sits in the blind spot, yknow just out of sight. doesnt help my anxiety much. i do suffer manic depression, genereal anxiety, social anxiety and depression so i am certified crazy! and yes..it is one of my deepest secrets. my partner of 5 years has just found out.
ps-cody you should speak to some1 professional
xx