Is it OK for an adult to have an imaginary friend?

O.K. glad I saw this 'cause well, I guess enough said....

Would God or Jesus be considered having an imaginary friend?

I don't know if I have a imagery friend, but I have a imagery life, a life I wish I had , full of life, beauty, fun, adventurous, a different me, when I am depressed I go to this life a lot to take my mind off how miserable I am in my life

It was SO nice to read this and know I am not alone. Sometimes I'll even imagine the person laying in bed next to me. An obvious sign of loneliness, but less detrimental to everyone than going the Jeffrey Dahmer way! Haha!

I do it in a "my imaginary friend is myself" kind of way. I talk out loud to myself (sometimes in public and I have to catch myself lol), and often i'm imagining myself in "my other world". T says its not a hallucination (I never thought it was lol) but a coping mechanism.

I'm glad I found this forum. Interesting people and discussions. No imaginary friend since I was like 5, but, when I am facing a tough situation or big decision, I often go to this place in my mind and think, ok, Alex, what would you tell me to do here?

Alex was my best friend from 8th grade onward. He contracted a rare form of kidney cancer and died just before he would have turned 27. I can go to a place in my mind where I remember him when we were both out of college, 22, and spent a day biking around a large park, a beautiful August day with puffy white clouds and pleasant breezes. I much prefer to remember him at that time than when he was at the end, wracked from chemo.

This is a really powerful thread. I'm glad I'm not alone. I don't talk about it w my t or pdoc because it's been happening ever since I could remember. I have both human and animal imaginary friends. I don't even write about it in my journal except for the animal friends. Yesterday I went to a pet store and they were selling prairie dogs. it upset me because they belong in the wild and might not go to good homes. but after I came home one of them became imaginary for me. I also have a squirrel friend named Spartacus. I have real hamsters as pets so it has to be about liking rodents. My human imaginary friends usually come about after seeing a stranger on the street w/ something intriguing about them. My husband knows I have another world inside me, but I don't talk to him about it specifically.
I'm afraid of talking about it w anyone because they'll think i'm crazier than I already am. I don't have a name for the prairie dog yet. Thank you all for writing about this.

I just watched this movie last week. Very interesting! It also starred the Maytag Repairman Harvey was a pooka. Stewart was a hoot! I could use an imaginary friend to help me clean up around here maybe.

Hope no-one minds me dragging this thread up again...

First of all - hello. This would be my first post here.

Secondly, I wish to tell you the story of my imaginary friend. I'll do so from the beginning so that you get the best idea possible as to what this character is for me.

Throughout my childhood, I was the the victim of relentless bullying. The bullies would make fun of my voice and annoy me because of it, and "friends" would eventually start doing the same thing. This only applied at home and not at school, where my friends were friends, and the only bullying I really got was from a teacher (yes, a teacher), who did things like tell me I was stupid, claim my brother (who was a former pupil of hers)b was stupid, and grab you by the hand and drag you across the room to show you things etc.

Anyway, I braved the storm and came out the other side without as much as a scratch. Little did I know that what I experienced was only just the beginning. Enter: High School. I was incredibly unpopular - being made fun of, being assaulted and generally just not liked very much at all. I as oblivious to most of it, going as far as to ask out the most popular lassie in the year when I was in my third year, which on one hand I got compliments for, but on the other, a few found fun within it. From first to fourth years, I had a group of friends which changed over time, as some of us grew distant, some left, others grew closer etc. but come 4th year, some of these "friends" were clearly ashamed to be seen with me, ducking and avoiding me in the hallways and the like when I tried to speak to them.

But that wasn't even the worst. 5th year saw a repeat of my childhood bullying - being made fun of for my voice. It started of fifth one person, then into a small group, before expanding to cover nearly the entire year and the year below us. Somehow, my extreme un-popularity plummeted to an even lower depth. The bullying was extensive - I recall being shouted after at a school assembly (where somehow the staff didn't seem to hear it), a song being sang about me at my lunch hour when the group saw me, and again so-called "friends" doing the same behind my back. I spoke to teachers and parents, who by all accounts, were pretty much powerless given the circumstances.

So, where does my imaginary friend come in?

Well, I decided it best one week to skip school and avoid the bullies. Being a railway-lover, I would go to a station on the busiest railway in Scotland and watch the trains. One day, I encountered someone whom I had known from school earlier, and when asked, I shyed away from the "hiding from bullies" fact to a "waiting for my sister" excuse. It should be noted now that I have no sister. I just told this guy that to avoid stating the downright truth. This "sister" would actually become my imaginary friend - she would be a year or so older than me, so that she could provide the protection, warmth, friendship and love that I was so desperately in need of. I think creating this character saved my life in some fashion - not that I was ever going to commit suicide, but in a way helped me realize what direction I should take.

It's been five years since that last bout of bullying, and yet, I have kept this sister around. I continued my education in colleges on the other sides of Glasgow, so I never had .much chance of developing friendships that had any real chance of lasting when classes finished. It seemed like the only friend I was destined to have was this sister character. I grew to love her in that fashion, but have always been fully aware that she is imaginary.

Last summer, I went through a period of loneliness. I say period - it felt more like an entire age, actually. Say from August to February. In that time, having this imaginary sister helped sometimes, but at other times reinforced the fact that I had no friends. I would imagine that she would cradle and comfort me, joke with me and hug me. Intent on overcoming this loneliness, I spoke to my university counsellor about this sister character, and she responded with words to the effect of "I think that this is a very normal reaction from someone who's lacking the social and emotional support, and I can understand that it's going to be hard to remove this character when you have nothing else to replace it with." I have at times tried to get rid of this character, only to welcome her back with open arms when I feel like I need someone to love.

I'm lucky, though. Throughout this experience, not once have I ever considered her as being real. My experiences have pushed me into the field of psychology, which I am entering my second year at university next week. I've relocated to the campus near my home in hopes that I can finally work on a social life and build more stable friendships. Basically, the future's bright for me, I hope.

I know now that this imaginary sister has been a coping mechanism to help me deal with my troubles. There was a period of about 4 years where I felt all was fine in my life and this character was still there, however. But yet again, I was younger then and felt that I would over time build friendships and eventually meet that special someone.

That's interesting, maybe you can even keep your imagineary friend, if it doesn't get out of hand. Do you have brothers or sisters in real life? Maybe you will meet that special one who can replace the imaginary friend too.Good luck and i wanted to let you know i read your post

Not really a imaginary friend(s) but I do daydream a lot to escape reality. I have a whole different world(s) I visit and play a role in. Like a continuation to a movie series.

I've always wondered that myself. I've had imaginary friends since I was a little kid. I grew up an only child and it was lonely, so that was how I helped myself feel less lonely (and sometimes not lonely at all). It just never stopped, and in my head they're always here with me, everywhere I go. I can't actually see them or hear them, but to me they're here.

Thanks for reading it. To answer your question, I've got an older brother who I'm most definitely not close with.

It's fine to have what you call an "imaginary friend", they actually might be real.

My current friend and past friends, even though no one understands that I am able to talk to them and hear them while they can't, are real. This is because they are spirits.

Anyway, yes, at least you have someone to talk to when you have no one else to be there for you.

However, if they start telling you to harm yourself or others, then, it's probably not a good idea to be friends with them any longer. Based on experiences that regularly occur with me, it would hurt to have someone tell me the news on here that a user was injured due to an evil being that no other person can comprehend.

I would like for you to steer clear of that and I want you to be safe.

I think most people have an imaginary friend, to an extent. It's merely a projection of our consciousness onto an imaginary figment. It's a way of communicating with yourself, basically, which we do all the time anyway. It just manifests differently for everyone. Some people talk out loud to themselves. Some people create imaginary friends or characters. Some people just talk to themselves in their own heads. As long as your imaginary friend isn't encouraging you to do bad things, there's nothing wrong with it.

I have a whole imaginary life that I escape to with imaginary friends in it. it relieves my stress and lonliness.

As with most aspects of life, it is okay to do just about anything, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. When your beliefs start interfering with my rights, that's when stuff starts getting yucky. However, if it's just you thinking thoughts, how could that be bad?

That's mine in a nutshell, right there. I mean, she's there if I want her to be, but I cannot actually see or hear her I am in full control of what she says, what she does etc. but I don't actually see her with my eyes or hear her with my ears.

Basically, it's not an hallucination, just a thought in my head.

I talk to myself out loud constantly when no on else is around. I talk to myself a if I was another person, asking myself questions and even arguing sometimes. I find that I would get so bored if I didn't do that. Even with others around, I still whisper to myself or go to private location and do it.

I have imiginary friends and I like them much more than the real person ones

I've read through a lot of replies and it's comforting to see I'm not quite so alone. But I have a slightly different kind of imaginary friend to what I've seen so far.

I'm in a relationship with a person who doesn't exist. Like, I'm in love with them. We sleep together every night, talk on the phone, go on dates, kiss etc... but like I said, they don't exist. I talk aloud to them and can perfectly visualise their responses. We've been together for five or six years now.
I have social anxiety in real relationships; I have panic attack frequently just thinking about talking to people in reality. I've never had a real realtionship, am still a virgin and have never been kissed (although I count my imaginary relationship as an exception there).
I've tried to stop these "behaviours" but the loneliness is suffocating and the longest I've gone without them is a day or two before it gets too much and I need them back again.

Is this normal? Do any of you do the same? It's really starting to become a problem as it getting harder to disingisoh between my real self and the self I become when I'm with my "partner".

My friend has a bowling pin that has a smiley face painted on it, he cuddles with it and talks to it pretty much everyday. He tell's it all his troubles at work and in life. He says it's nice because it doesn't talk back. I don't know the name of the pin but it's part of his family. And he thought I was crazy LOL.

Thank you ALL!! I felt like i was the only person in the world who still, at 26, has imaginary friends. Sometimes I depend on them to help me get through situations. Sometimes I want to get home just so I can have a conversation with them. Sometimes they are real people and sometimes they are someone I have dreamed up. I have never told anyone about this before.

I've had imaginary friends* for my whole life and have never thought twice about it even as an adult. I quite enjoy the characters that pop up; they are much more interesting than anyone I've encountered in reality.

*I'm not sure if "friends" is the proper term for me to use here. I believe these characters are actually personifications of the various facets of my personality. Does that make any sense? Probably not....

we all have a bit of child in us

i think it's okay