I saw an ad on TV the other day for
a program that has recently started showing.
It’s called “Imaginary Mary.”
Now, I haven’t seen the program but the premise is listed as follows: “A
workaholic adult woman’s imaginary friend from childhood comes back to her, but
ends up being more of a troublemaker than a great companion.” Like I said, I haven’t seen the program, but
it did get me to thinking: Are there very many of us who had a childhood
“imaginary friend?” And is there
anything WRONG with us for having
one? So I did a little digging into this
subject and it is very interesting.
Most young children play “pretend”
games and interact with their stuffed animals, dolls, or other special toys as
if they were alive. According to
Marjorie Taylor and her colleagues at the University of Oregon, by age seven,
about 37% of children take imaginative play one step farther and create some
sort of imaginary friend.
The variety of forms that invisible
friends come in is a testament to the power of the human mind and its’
imaginative abilities. Tracy Gleason and
her associates cite the follow examples from their research on invisible
friends.
--- Star Friends and Heart Fan Club:
“Groups of
preschool-aged human friends with whom the child had birthdays, went to the
fair, and spoke a language called Hobotchi.”
--- Herd of Cows:
“Cows of many colors and
varying sizes who were often fed or diapered like infants. Discovered when the child’s father
accidentally stepped on one.”
--- Maybe:
“A human of varying gender
who the child routinely summoned by shouting out the front door of the family’s
house.”
Now I have to admit I really don’t
understand what all those examples are supposed to really mean, but as the
descriptions show, invisible friends can be human, animal, or fantasy
creatures. They may appear alone or in
groups. Boys tend to invent only male
imaginary friends, whereas girls have either male or female ones.
Children with imaginary friends can
readily describe, in detail, what these friends look like and how they
behave. Many children even offer details
about hearing or touching their invisible friends. Invisible friends can sometimes be a part of
the life of a child – or even a family – for years!
Taylor and her colleagues found that
children who create a friend out of a personified object tend to have a
parent-like relationship with their special toy friend, whereas children with
invisible friends tend to image that there is more of an equality relationship,
just like they would have with a REAL friend.
Like real friend, invisible friends
don’t always cooperate! Taylor’s studies
found about one third of the children with invisible friends complained that
their invisible friend didn’t always come when called, or didn’t always leave
when asked, or they often talked too loudly, didn’t share, or did other
annoying things. Sometimes the child
would BLAME their invisible friend for things that happened that they
didn’t want to be punished for: breaking a vase or taking something that they
shouldn’t have, as an example.
Children vividly experience
interactions with their invisible friends, but they almost always KNOW that these friends are not
real. Looking at the transcripts of
86 children with invisible friends, it was found that 77% of these children said
“yes” when asked if they have a invisible friend, and 40% spontaneously
remarked at some point during their interview that they were talking about a
pretend friend. The children offered
such statements such as, “Her is a fake animal,” “I just made him up in my
head,” and “He’s not in real life.” Only
ONE child was adamant that HER invisible friend was REAL!
Surprisingly, invisible friends
don’t necessarily disappear when childhood ends. One study that examined diaries of
adolescents plus questionnaire data concluded that socially competent and creative
adolescents were most likely to create an imaginary friend and that this type
of friend was not a substitute for relationships with real people. Adult fiction writers often talk about their
characters taking on a life of their own, which may be an analogous process to
children’s invisible friends.
So it appears that you really don’t
have to worry about your children and their imaginary friends. Just help them get through that period of
their lives and love them along the way.
It may be that you are that family who has the child, as mentioned
above, whose imaginary friend is REAL! You just don’t know.
After considering some of the
research done in this area I’m feeling much better about myself. Many times earlier in my life I was accused
of “talking to myself” and I was always admonished: “Don’t worry about it. Just don’t answer yourself.” Now I understand that they didn’t really
understand the conversations I had with MY
“imaginary friend.” Although I tried to
tell people that Stran was real! (At
least to me he was.) But when you start trying to explain a man from
another planet talking to you, people look at you very strangely. When you are trying to explain things, some
of which are not even possible for today’s science, people don’t want to take
the time to review your notes or even listen to your taped conversations. Of course, I don’t have conversations with
Stran anymore. He left back in 1986
during the return of Halley’s Comet:
Something about wanting to catch a ride to a black hole where his crew
mates were waiting to take him back to their home planet, Zylon. I think NASA has an idea where that is since back
in 1995 when they found an earth-like planet outside our solar system. But that is presently a subject that I can no
longer discuss or write about. All my
notes have been destroyed and any taped conversations that I had are no longer
available for review. What I know, I know. What I’ve seen, I’ve seen. And no further conversation is really
required concerning those things (things that may or may not have
happened.) So, that’s all I have to say
about that!
THOUGHTFUL GEM
"Opening your mind to new possibilities
may make the impossibilities possible."
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