Childhood imaginary friends

[Freezair]

When you were a child, what kind of imaginary friends did you have?

When I was little, I fell in love with the Care Bears (even though the 80's had been over for a few years), and I decided that I was going to make all the Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins my imaginary friends. Whenever I went anywhere, I had to round them all up into the car, and I would talk to random Care Bears in public places. Worse, I would actually talk back for the Care Bear I was speaking for, having entire Careversations with myself as I strolled leisurely with my mother down the cereal isle in the grocery store.

When I got older, I developed an imaginary nemesis called Ginger. I was entirely convinced that an anteater covered with feathers named Ginger lived in my TV, and he (yes, he was male) would come out of my TV every night when I was alseep in order to move my things around. His favorite thing to move was my hairbrush, and I often claimed that Ginger stole my hairbrush if I hadn't brushed my hair. (I had a real rat's nest when I was a kid.) I think I just didn't want to look for it, but I'm pretty sure I became convinced that Ginger really existed. (Cue a rousing round of "Oh Where Is My Hairbrush?") Eventually my friend Ashley and I devised a plan to capture Ginger using an old fruit crate during a sleepover one evening.

We failed.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Hehe the ol' blame it on the imaginary friend trick^^

Funny you should say Care Bears though, because when I was a toddler I LOVED the second Care Bear movie (heck, bought it on DVD last year^^) My favorite character ended up being Dark Heart, because of the whole evil-bad thing. Sooo he was my imaginary friend. I remember walking around with my grandma and saying what he was up to.

I wonder why children create imaginary friends? For me, I was an only children and was on my own alot, so I would create them not exactly to play games with, but to create stories with them in it (more on it in the Aspergers' thread). So I would like, be the voice for all the chars, and pretend that they were in this physical, but invisible story that I would constantly play on for years. Eventually ended it when I was around 9 I think, when I started to actually type out my stories (not those though), but they were fun to play, because you were IN the story^^ Of course, I always played those when I was by myself, which was very often :/

Somewhere in between, I made 2 other invisible friends named Croc and Gator that came out of some portal from another dimension or something like that. They eventually 'disappeared' because they got stuck in the portal and had to go back or something. When I brought to school them to tell my friend about, she told me about her friend named Missy: a tiny person who lived in a hole in her bathroom, and came to school to collect and bring home chunks of erasers.

*shrugs* We were all a bit crazy at one point :p

[Mangafanatic]

I didn't have an imaginary friend when I was a child. Imaginary friends were always so needy, and they'd call at the most inconvenient hours, hoping you'd bail them out of jail. No, I knew better to get mixed up with their lot.

Instead, I had an imaginary dog who lived in my gree-auhg (garage). However, my house didn't actually have a garage, so I guess I had an imaginary dog and an imaginary garage.

[AsianBlossom]

I had a short-lived imaginary friend who was supposed to be more of a 'pet' than a friend. It was a German shepherd named Nano; I came up with him because I wanted a dog but couldn't have one.

And sometimes I would pretend I had a random cartoon character with me, but those were short-lived as well.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Instead, I had an imaginary dog who lived in my gree-auhg (garage). However, my house didn't actually have a garage, so I guess I had an imaginary dog and an imaginary garage.

Hahaha, that's adorable.

I can't recall having any imaginary friends... =( I was a sad child. XD

[Okami]

I had two ghost-friends, Concentrate and Travis, and their dog, Hush Puppy.

I met them when I was in Pre-School/Kindergarden. Needless to say, my Kindergarden teacher didn't like it very much when I talked to Travis or Concentrate, lol. She tried to force my mom to make me get rid of them, iirc. At the time I pretended I was a male anthropomorphic superhero, a beaver, called "Super Beaver" Ahahahahahaaha. No wonder I later became such a tomboy!! Ah, I should draw the three of them as I remember them looking in my mind...

[teen4truth]

Childhood imaginery friends? I still have mine. I always will. I could never get myself to let them go >.>
My first ever was Think, a green smiley face. I don't remember NOT having him. When I was day dreaming once, he kept putting beards on the prince and princess. I got so mad at him XD Now I just adore the little guy <3

[KeybladeWarrior]

Never really had an imaginary frient from what I remember.

[CrimsonRyu17]

..... <.< ..... >.>

I had one when I was way little. It was a deer that would run beside the car when my mom was driving. It eventually and magically evolved into a parasaurolophus....

Then it got ran over.

[Freezair]

I wonder why children create imaginary friends? For me, I was an only children and was on my own alot, so I would create them not exactly to play games with, but to create stories with them in it (more on it in the Aspergers' thread). So I would like, be the voice for all the chars, and pretend that they were in this physical, but invisible story that I would constantly play on for years. Eventually ended it when I was around 9 I think, when I started to actually type out my stories (not those though), but they were fun to play, because you were IN the story^^ Of course, I always played those when I was by myself, which was very often :/

Sounds like me. When I got to about 3rd grade, I started writing "stories" with all my imaginary friends. I created a group of characters called the Knot's Crew who were 50 random characters, some of which I created and somoe of which I borrowed from TV and books. (I wonder if anybody here actually knows who Thornmallow, Willow, Tansy and Gorse are?) I even tried to write a novel with them: it was called "13 What?" All my characters turned a bed (apparently a very BIG bed) into a rocket ship (probably inspired by some Kid Pix shenanigans I had in school), and they sailed into space where they found a planet inhabited by buzzards and hippo people who decided all the characters were princes and princesses. But in order to prove it, they had to collect 13 rare flowers, 13 bars of gold, and 13 of something else in order to show that they were worthy or else they'd be jailed. Wow...

Funny you had an imaginary dog named Nano, AsianBlossom. When I was in middle school, my best friend and I created imaginary guardians for ourselves called "Nano Beasts." (I think I saw the word "nano" on a virtual pet and thought it sounded cool.) They were made to protect us from bullies, which we got a lot of. We made tons of them, just like in the Pokemon and Digimon we were obsessed with... but we had ten special ones who were our true friends. Blizzard, Phoenix Flash, Flaming Rage, Crystal Chameleon, and Burrow Boy were mine. (Gosh, Blizzard's name looks awfully out of place.) His were Shnow, Ogge, Ooga-Boo, Potter, and Eggster. I miss the li'l guys...

[Alice]

No, but since the age of 8 I was writing fiction, so I suppose the characters in those stories were my imaginary friends. ^^; I found one old story recently where a 9-year-old suspiciously similar to me made friends with a rather anthropomorphic* beaver.

*by anthropomorphic I mean "didn't act like a real wild animal."

[EricTheFred]

I had no imaginary friends. Instead, I was actively coming up with stories from an early age. It's kind of sad to think, but most of the early ones involved fictional accounts about my mother (she died before my memories begin, so I was pretty much filling in the blanks.) Later on, I graduated to making up Star Trek stories (the original series was on TV in my kindergarten and first grade years) and moved from there to inventing my own stuff.

Neat story about my son's imaginary friends. He had two, both girls, both living far away (one lived in California and the other in Mexico.) He knew all about them, the names of their family members, what they did for fun, games they played, etc., but he never imagined actually meeting them.

The Mexican friend disappeared at some point, but the California one stuck around about a year longer, long enough for it to occur to him he needed to buy her a Christmas gift. He insisted that Mom buy one (he picked a doll), so he could wrap it, tag it, and everything.

We didn't know what to do with it, until it occurred to me to bring it to a 'Toys for Tots' collection and drop it off. His imaginary friend might not have needed it, but I think some other girl her age made good use of it.

[USSRGirl]

Mao Zedong was my imaginary friend as a child...

[Puguni]

I never really had one. Once, I thought that I was very deficient in this area, when I was in first grade or something, and just randomly made up this girl named Judy. She lived only for an hour.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I never really had one. Once, I thought that I was very deficient in this area, when I was in first grade or something, and just randomly made up this girl named Judy. She lived only for an hour.

How did she die? XD

[LadyRushia]

Heh, imaginary friends. I had one named Wolf-Wolf; he was a wolf/dog thing that walked around on two legs. We had an enemy named Ghost who would always bother us. . .I can't really remember what he did, but in my child mind he was *bad.* Ghost had a little sister named Window who wore a pink bow(even though she didn't have any hair) and a pink dress and she was just annoying. Once I made a sign that said "No Ghosts Allowed" and stuck it on the wall in my basement. The sign was so epically cool that it kept Ghost and his people from going in the basement.

Later, I just made up huge three-hour-long stories with my toys, and these stories were all epic and emotional(people died and there were massive battles).

I remember having an imaginary "world" too, but that was mainly filled with Sailor Moon people. Actually, one of my friends had a "world" that she created after her grandfather died; it was a place where she could go visit him. Anyway, I liked that idea so I was like "I want a world, too!"

[bigsleepj]

I had an imaginary friend for a time, and he was somewhat short-lived; he was just like me only a bit more naughty, only I believed he was scheming to replace me at some time and never trusted him. No, I'm not making this up.

[SIZE="1"]No arm-chair psychoanalyzing this, please.[/SIZE]

[Alice]

Oo, I remember my brother made up an 'identical twin' who lived in Africa (they were seperated at birth, of course). His twin was brave and cheerful and always had adventures. He'd leave the room and come back as this guy. He had us all going along with it (and almost believing it).

[Freezair]

I had no imaginary friends. Instead, I was actively coming up with stories from an early age. It's kind of sad to think, but most of the early ones involved fictional accounts about my mother (she died before my memories begin, so I was pretty much filling in the blanks.) Later on, I graduated to making up Star Trek stories (the original series was on TV in my kindergarten and first grade years) and moved from there to inventing my own stuff.

Kids write fanfiction before they ever known what fanfiction is. I both wrote stories and had imaginary friends; I think my imagination is just overactive. If I lived in the Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends world, I would be Goo.

[AsianBlossom]

Funny you had an imaginary dog named Nano, AsianBlossom. When I was in middle school, my best friend and I created imaginary guardians for ourselves called "Nano Beasts." (I think I saw the word "nano" on a virtual pet and thought it sounded cool.) They were made to protect us from bullies, which we got a lot of. We made tons of them, just like in the Pokemon and Digimon we were obsessed with... but we had ten special ones who were our true friends. Blizzard, Phoenix Flash, Flaming Rage, Crystal Chameleon, and Burrow Boy were mine. (Gosh, Blizzard's name looks awfully out of place.) His were Shnow, Ogge, Ooga-Boo, Potter, and Eggster. I miss the li'l guys...

Yeah; actually, I think I got the name from the virtual pet as well. I still have a Nano Puppy toy, but I haven't turned it on in a long while...I guess after I left it with my mom and brother and they did nothing for it all day, I kind of lost my interest in it (the poor thing was very hungry, thirsty, and dirty by the time I got home!!) But anyways, goes to show how influential certain things are on the childhood imagination.

[Freezair]

I had tons of those things, but they all died. I'm a bad virtual pet owner. I bought a new-generation Giga Pet (...bad me) and poor Granite the Scorpion is probably starved for attention right now...

Worlds are awesome. I make worlds even to this day. Right now, I'm very heavy into my "Kliktz" world.

[Fantasy Dreamer]

I don't remember having an imaginary friend... I always played with my older brother. But we had quite the imagination, for sure. We'd pretend to be cartoon characters instead of having them as imaginary friends... I don't remember any though...

[mitsuki lover]

I really didn't need one because when we lived in Minnesota my best friend Dawn lived across the street and then also I had my various
pets,mainly dogs throughout the years.

[Raiden no Kishi]

I'm so lame.

Crowd: HOW LAME ARE YOU, RAIDEN!?

I'm so lame that, when I heard about imaginary friends, I tried to make one up and failed.

.rai//

[DaughterOfZion]

when i was little i guess i really liked winnie the pooh cause my imagenary friend was roo and i would baby sit him for kanga when she had to do things.
now i have multiple imagenary friends but i forgot most of them. the ones i have now are flauvic, estas from lodoss wars, orphen, and omlette. i have others but i always forget who they are.

[king atlantis]

[color="Red"]i had a 'dady long leg' called Sandy, who lived in door-knob-key-holes.

she (yes, she) wore a old-time lady hat, and had a friend who came over sometimes who was a bee.

i was an only child w/ an over active imagination....she was one of many XD
*no...im not *completely* skitzu XD*[/color]

[IantheGecko]

The imaginary friends I can remember were a dog of some kind, a raptor, and a small T-rex. They were all nice to me but mean to everyone else.

[Fish and Chips]

Growing up, I had a Tigger stuffed animal which I named "Hobbes."

Yes.

[Freezair]

I also sometimes pretend I have a certain anime character with me. Mainly Odd Della Robbia from Code Lyoko. He's a kitty-boy!

Are you my little sister? She's a HUGE Odd fan.

I remember when I was about... Ten? Eleven? Well, I got this Game Boy game called "Li'l Monster" for my birthday. To this day, I've never met anyone else who's ever heard of it... but I ADORED it, and it was my favorite thing for a while. In the game, if you put a gemstone in an empty can, it turns into a monster... Well, I have an extensive rock collection, and I cleaned out an old tin can and tried putting every one of my rocks in it, trying to make a monster! When that didn't work, I imagined that I had one of the monsters. It wasn't my favorite monster, oddly. It was one of the evil monsters named Kromar--he was mischevious, but I pretended that because I took good care of him and let him come to orchestra practice in my pocket, he turned good. I also told my little sister and the boy who lived next door about the monsters, and we each picked a monster to pretend to be. They never actually played the game, though.

I still own that game, actually. And it still rocks.

[Kaligraphic]

I once had an imaginary friend. I shot him in an imaginary Reno, just to watch him imaginary die.

(No, no imaginary friend here.)