Imaginary Childhood Friends and Adults who talk to themselves

I have a question that has been bothering me for sometime that I simply have no insight into and would like to the hear opinions of those on the board who are more familiar with topics of this type.

Many children have imaginary friends as they grow up. I realize that this is in most cases just the imagination of a child and perhaps a lonely one. I'm beginning to think that perhaps in some cases there is a lot more to it. Typically the kid after telling his parents/siblings/friends that he/she has an imaginary friend they get teased and just stop telling them. That in some cases, perhaps most does not eliminate the imaginary friend, the kids just does not tell anyone about it any longer.

Fast forward to adulthood and the person routinely talks to him/herself. Not simply verbal reminders to one's self "Don't forget to stop and get xxxxx at the store" kind of thing, but talking out loud as if there was someone there to speak to. Not a bi-directional conversation where the person is clearly talking to themselves and answering his own questions, but rather a one directional conversation where it is almost as if there is someone there to speak to and that perhaps the answers are being delivered sliently.

My example is of a friend who constantly talks to himself. I had noticed it before, but on a recent fishing trip, caught him really talking to himself a lot. I asked him about it and who he was talking to and his response was "I don't know, but there is someone I talk to and I have since I was a kid. When I was a kid I used to call him my "friend" but after a while stopped doing that but kept on talking to him". I asked him if his "friend" answered him and he responded "in a way, I think through validation of my thoughts or the discrediting of them. All I know is that it is a good and powerful thing".

What are your thoughts? Is he a bit crazy (totally normal and well functioning in every capacity), or does he have a spirit that has been with him since childhood? Thats what he thinks.

It could be either, that is to say it could be a mental tool he has developed (this doesnt make him crazy even if it isnt "normal"), or it could be a spirit. The only way to tell if its a spirit is to go to people who can see such things and see if they can interact with it, though that in itself has a lot of factors involved.

If it isnt harmful then it isnt harmful, it may even be beneficial. Theres a lot of things that happen in this world we dont understand, we dont need to put everything in a box and label it.

Funny you should mention it... I've been looking into this here and there.

It is a fact that kids can see things we can't. At some point they stop, perhaps because they're always being told it isn't there or the processing cycles are needed elsewhere.

I have a nephew who is most impressive. He was born never having met his maternal grandmother, who passed a year earlier. One night he was squalling in his crib. My brother got down a picture of the grandmother. As soon as the baby saw the picture, he lit up like Christmas. He seemed to *know* her.

At about four, he knew his aunt had multiple personalities. He didn't know what it was called or that it was not normal. He had never been told and none of the alters had ever come out in front of him. Yet he walked right up to her and asked where `the girl' was. She deflected and pretended she didn't know yet he kept insisting on talking to `the little girl inside or some of the others'. He knew exactly who he wanted to play with

Yes, kids have imaginary friends. I'm told I had one for a while, although I have no memory of him/her/it. He had a bizarre name that I've never heard before or since. I suspect, however, that some children are seeing things we long ago lost the ability to perceive.

A psychologist friend told me there are studies on this.

Imagine being told repeatedly that what you're seeing does not exist....


As for your friend, he might be multiple. My understanding is that schizophrenic voices come from outside and don't have to make sense. Multiple voices come from inside and can carry on quite a reasonable conversation. Watching a multiple talk to someone inside is straight out of a cartoon - especially if they're having an argument



Great topic - thanks for starting it.



[edit on 12/17/2009 by leftystrat]

I know he could just be thinking outloud. I don't see it being a bad thing.
There are a lot of people who do that, but you said it has more direction then that though. Unless it embarasses you, or annoys you, I would just
have fun with it. Make it a part of being around him. To make a big deal
about it, might make it a big a deal. Joke about it once in while. If the
guy is your friend, remember that first, above everything else and you
will both be great.

[edit on 17-12-2009 by randyvs]

I don't have any of my own memories of this, but my mother says that as a young child in my crib, I used to talk to someone all the time, laughing and carrying on all night. When asked, I apparently told her he was an Angel with a cigar. Thinking I must have confused a trumpet for smokes, she kept trying to correct me. But I was adamant and described in detail.... an angel smoking a cigar. What would Freud think!?

As an older child I heard about all this invisible friend business and felt left out, so invented one. But it was just me, so I felt silly and dropped it shortly. And as an adult I am infamous for having long conversations with myself, but I think that is more a reaction to having spent to much time alone as a child.

To throw another wrench in the works, psychiatry is starting to recognize that perfectly normal people, without anything resembling the syndrome of psychosis, hallucinate a lot more than is generally realized. Many MD's think it is a mild form of temporal epilepsy.

Never could explain the whole cigar business though...

When I do it, I'm speaking to a "deeper" part of my psyche. It works, I do it constantly, I've never been diagnosed with a mental incompetency, and I often find myself "embarassed" when I realize I'm rambling.

It usually happens mostly when I'm angry, or frustrated. Mostly never when the other range of emotions come into play.

Any ideas?

reply to post by dolphinfan


It's probably not a "spirit", but rather some folks with advanced technology trying to make him look nutty.

He probably wouldn't be able to figure that out since he can't tell anyone without them teasing him or tossing him in the nut house, so he wouldn't have anything to listen to about it except for his so-called "friend" that happens to be up in his head.

And, yeah, believe it or not, some kind of way they can put stuff in people's heads all day and all night for years and years. It sounds impossible, and I have no idea why folks with the technology would expend that kind of effort, and I haven't got the slightest clue as to how it works.

It's definitely some aliens playing around in the lab, though..

I don't know what I did as a child, but as an adult, I talk to myself all the time. I'd say in the past few years, I've had more conversations with myself than I have had with people. I know it drives my husband nuts. He gets on me about it sometimes, but what really gets him going is when he catches me arguing with the dog. He doesn't let that slip by. When I'm talking to myself, no one answers me but me. No imaginary friend.

I had an imaginary "ghost" named BeBe, when I was young. I do still talk to myself quite often aloud, along with the dog, the fish in the aquarium and even my cars. I find it normal. Maybe the people that don't do this are the abnormal ones... Just joking.

My son had 2 imaginary friends for awhile, one was Rex (he was a boy) and then he had another one, which was a dog named Terrance. He doesn't talk about them any more, but I never told him that they weren't there, and always encouraged him to use his "extra sense" as I'd call it.

I was an only child until age 9 and my son is an only child. I don't know if this would play into the "imaginary friend" scheme or not, but wondered about the others that had one or more. Could this be the link to the imagination working in overdrive?

I'll be hangin with my ghosts and keep talkin to to them. They keep me company when I'm alone (and I'll still claim I'm talking to the dog if anyone asks).

A_L

reply to post by dolphinfan



He's talking to his higher self. Nothing unusual about that.
The question is, why does that bother you?
I am asking because I had a friend who was very annoyed when he saw people doing that and he didn't even know what the reason was (they could have been actors rehearsing their lines, as one of them turned out to be). He was very annoyed by it because he was himself very frail psychologically. I'd rather talk to those people than to him any day. At least *they* had an intelligent person to talk to!

I would usually one liner this thread, but I have witness a person and still witness this person today talking to himself or invisible friend.

The guy is in his forties or fifties and he converse with some invisible friend or being, and it's almost like he's really talking to someone. One day I saw him storming down the street yelling at his invisible friend and saying things along the line as "get away from me" and "stay back" and from my point of view no one was there. Then the next week he made up with his friend and they converse like nothing happened, I guess he forgave his friend.

This is a huge paradox that bother me.

My youngest son has an imaginary friend. His name is Shaun. I personally have many theories on why Shaun came about and I might be right and I might be wrong.

One, unfortunately, my wife and I are divorced. For a 3 year period I was still in the military and my wife moved away with my two son's. Obviously I wished to remain close, but the military doesn't see family separation due to divorce as an extraneous enough reason to move me closer.

So my theories on where Shaun came about are as following:

My youngest son is 3 years the younger to his older brother. His older brother can do a lot more than what he himself can do. Shaun, as told by my 4 year old son, can do anything and everything better than my older son.

Shaun also doesn't visit my house, again, as told by my son. He only lives with his mom.

So for me, I look at my son's imaginary friend as a coping mechanism. One that he has created that 'replaces' me and contends with his older brother.

As it is right now, that imaginary friend has been dwindling because I have moved closer to them and see them nearly everyday. A mind is a powerful thing and it is amazing what it will create.

One thing for sure is I do not criticize my son for his imaginary friend nor do I allow his older brother to make light of it. To my youngest son, that friend is important.

reply to post by virraszto

when he catches me arguing with the dog

That is so funny.I was sitting here reading these posts when I read yours and thought how silly it was.

But,then I realized that I had just gotten done telling my Chihuahua she was getting her toe nails trimmed tomorrow if she liked it or not!

It has been said that everyone is actually 3 persons.

The one you think you are,one everybody else thinks you are and the one you actually are.

[edit on 17-12-2009 by calcoastseeker]

[edit on 17-12-2009 by calcoastseeker]

My youngest granddaughter had an imaginary friend or spirit that she talked to. Her friend helped her clean her room when she visited.

I not only talk to myself I also answer myself.

My worst critic is myself but my biggest fan is also myself

There are many times that I question why I am inside this body. It's as if my soul and my body are separate.

Since I have to have blood work weekly and injections everyday it has been a blessing to separate myself from my body. When it works, I feel no pain.

I don't understand what I am experiencing but it is a welcome gift.

It does take concentration but seems to be coming easier as I age.

I do it to think out loud. Now I don't do others the disservice of thinking out loud in front of them, I only do it when I'm alone and there is nobody else there to annoy. Your mind can come up with paragraphs to say in a second, let it run free and it gets way too far ahead for you to make any sense when you are thinking about things. So I talk to myself, and it allows me to slow down my attention.

As a child I had an invisible friend. Well no one else saw him but I did. I quickly stopped trying to get anyone else to acknowledge him. I thought he was the guy on the Quaker Oats box. I would tell him about what we were studying in school. He laughed a lot but not in an offensive way. I talked to him all the way through my PhD about technology and science. At some point I decided he was really Ben Franklin. He made me question a lot of the stuff I was taught - rightly so more often than not. Don't know how many times a little research on my part revealed errors in High school science teachers and even college professors unfounded statements.

To this day on long late night drives i find myself discussing latest science theories with Ben. He likes the eleven dimensional universe of string theory so it is probably worth pursuing (;-)>

i'm convinced that when someone hears voices or sees things others can't, that it's real on some level. Where is it coming from? It must come from somewhere? The person's "imagination" some might say, but where does that come from?

Maybe some people hear voices we can't hear, or see things we can't see.

Originally posted by urwatu8
As a child I had an invisible friend. Well no one else saw him but I did. I quickly stopped trying to get anyone else to acknowledge him. I thought he was the guy on the Quaker Oats box. I would tell him about what we were studying in school. He laughed a lot but not in an offensive way. I talked to him all the way through my PhD about technology and science. At some point I decided he was really Ben Franklin. He made me question a lot of the stuff I was taught - rightly so more often than not. Don't know how many times a little research on my part revealed errors in High school science teachers and even college professors unfounded statements.

To this day on long late night drives i find myself discussing latest science theories with Ben. He likes the eleven dimensional universe of string theory so it is probably worth pursuing (;-)>

Whoa . and . Whoa.

Ben, huh?

OK, I'll bite. How much drugs did you do as a teenager? (NOT how many.)

I never has an imaginary friend but I do talk to myself a lot.. but not as if I expect anyone to answer.

If people really believe there is someone there listening or thinks they get conversational answers then I would have to say it's either a mental disorder that has not developed into something more serious or that person is being answered by demons, which the bible tell us talks to us through our thoughts.

There are tons of nut jobs in mental hospitals locked away that they know with brain scans do have mental disorders.. then there are tons of them who have normal brain scans and these are the ones who are in contact with demons. Since science does not acknowledge the existence of demons these poor souls get no help for their "problem". They say "this person does not respond to treatment." where they can find noticeable treatments for the ones who do have legit brain scan anomalies.

When I was little, I used to have a ton of imaginary friends, but I can remember clearly that they were real!. I can remember them as "solid" beings...
Then I stopped to see them, like when I was 9. And started to talk to myself out loud. I've think all my life it's a response of being an only child and also a loner, I talk even to pets, objects, etc. but mainly to my own self. When doing it on the street I pretend I'm talking by phone now hahahaha some years ago I didn't do it.