[DenisDonnacha]

Hi all,
This is my first post besides my intro one and I wasn't sure where exactly to post it, but I think this section is fairly appropriate. I'm basically wondering if any of you guys have/had an imaginary friend(s), and also what would you class as one? What I mean is, we often picture an imaginary friend as something that the person who has one can actually see and talks to out loud. This could be the case for many people, I don't really know. But for me it's more like a voice I talk to in my head, but it's not me, it's someone else who I like to share with.
I'm just wondering what you think.
Denis.
Ps, it's not a "burn the house down Timmy" type of voice :P

[Perna]

Hi, Denis, welcome to PsychCentral (PC). I use to have imaginary friends; "lived" in a boarding school in England (when I actually lived near Washington, D.C. and even had a horse named Thomas Aquinas who was smart and would come when I called him.

I don't recommend getting close to imaginary friends, for me, it made it much harder to learn to live life in the here-and-now and get to know other people, etc.

[Miss Laura]

Hey Denis,

I have had an "imaginary friend" since I was a kid. His name is Walter. I talk to him all the time. My family think I am crazy. I have had some crazy conversations with him and some really not so good ones. I also use to talk to flowers..... this was when I was a kid crazy or what lol!

Originally Posted by deniswazere

Hi all,
What I mean is, we often picture an imaginary friend as something that the person who has one can actually see and talks to out loud. This could be the case for many people, I don't really know. But for me it's more like a voice I talk to in my head, but it's not me, it's someone else who I like to share with.
I'm just wondering what you think.
Denis.
Ps, it's not a "burn the house down Timmy" type of voice :P

I can relate to this. It happened to me before.

[Fresia]

I agree with Perna in that the imaginary friends helped keep me isolated from those around me and not always living life in the here and now. I could always count on them and they were sort of a safety away from the harsh things in the world so that I would turn to the imaginary friends and not interact with others.

As I got older though, a grandparent encouraged them and parents did not, I didn't know whether to be ashamed or proud of having such an imagination. I have since used the vivid imagination and friends as characters by using them in stories and also as I got older to journal about them. Several T's over the years have explained, as long as they are not harmful thoughts/friends, they don't start telling you to do things, or if you are not able to separate the real from the imagined, then imagination is fine. Other than those concerns, I don't think imagination should be squashed and am in further agreement with Einstein that, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” ~ Albert Einstein