My imaginary friend

When I was younger I had an imaginary friend named Benson. I was told I was three years old when I first met Benson. I would do all sorts of stuff with Benson such as coloring, playing with cars and various activities a three year old would do. My mom would be in the other room and she would always hear me talking to someone. When she confronted me I always told her I was talking to Benson. There would be many times when I told my mother I wanted her to meet Benson. When she came into the room I would turn to her and ask her to greet Benson but when I turned back around he would be gone. When asked what he looked like I would say he was white, eight years old and had short blonde hair. I would also say he was very smart and he knew a lot. It wasn't too long before Benson said he had to go away. One day all communication ceased and I never saw Benson again.

This all seems ordinary for a small child. Many kids have imaginary friends and it's usually beneficial.

I've discussed this topic with my mother recently and we've both thought that maybe Benson wasn't exactly imaginary. I am wondering if it's possible that Benson was an entity i.e. ghost.

The trailer house we lived in at the time had a lot of paranormal activity. When my parents first purchased the trailer house they parked it in a trailer park. They lived at this location for roughly three years. My mother has told me a few stories about her experiences in this house. There were times when their bed would start shaking during the night and wake them up. Many times during the night the stereo in the living room would come. While vacuuming one day something flipped the on/off switch and turned the vacuum off. My mother turned it back on and proceeded to continue vacuuming but then it turned off again, this happened three times before she was finally freaked out and walked away.

My parents purchased six acres out in the country and they had the trailer house moved to this new location. The paranormal activity didn't stop after the move. I was getting a little older and I was starting to witness the happenings. Perhaps the one instance that stands out the most in my mind happened while I was outside playing with my Tonka trucks in the backyard. My sister was at school and my dad was at work and my mother was lounging on a chair near me. We both heard it, it was if someone was running up and down the hallway that connected my bedroom with the living room. Since this was a trailer house it was easy to hear the sound it made as it was running down the hallway. We were both puzzled and my mom went inside to investigate. The front door was locked, all windows were closed and locked and there was absolutely no one in the house. I mentioned before about the bed shaking, I actually felt it, as did my sister. We were playing and whatnot on the bed when it started to vibrate. I don't see how this was possible considering the washing machine/dryer was located on the other side of the house. One day my mom had a metal bowl with a bleach/water mixture sitting on the counter in the kitchen. She was using the bleach water to clean the floors and counter top. The container slid off the counter and splashed all over the floor. I assure you the counter top was level, the container was not sitting on the edge and the only way possible for it to have fallen off would be if it were pushed. The same thing happened when my dad had a bottle of muriatic acid on the counter while he was doing some plumbing work. Many times pill bottles and junk would fly off the refrigerator when my mom walked by. One evening me, my mom and my sister were all in the living room watching TV and playing while my father was sleeping in his room. The door slammed shut and it slammed shut hard. It appeared as though someone put their whole body into it. Alarmed, my mom went to check on my dad and he was sound asleep and wasn't disturbed one bit.

Edit: Typo

[edit on 4/14/2010 by BrandonK]

There were many nights when my mom would have to come and comfort me and my sister because we heard someone or something walking around our room at night. Many days while when everyone was gone my mom had to leave the house because it was so eerie feeling. My grandma would come out some nights to sit for my parents and she also got a weird vibe from the house. It came to a point where she didn’t want to sit for my parents in the house. Next to my bedroom was a bathroom and it was extremely creepy to me as a child. My sister and I would always have to run past the bathroom because it scared us so much. We usually showered and bathed in my parents’ bathroom because we were so terrified of our own. In my bedroom was a panel that when opened up revealed the water heater. This is probably unrelated to the paranormal activity but one day the water heater caught on fire and completely burned my room. My father eventually repaired all of the damage and my sister and I moved back into the room. Later the water heater caught on fire again and completely burned down the house. We moved into another trailer house that was placed on the same property and nothing strange or abnormal happened while we were living in this new house. My parents eventually got a loan and built a new home on the same property. To this date nothing strange or abnormal has happened. I’m perfectly content walking downstairs in the dark while I am there alone. I’ve never had a strange or eerie feeling in my parents’ house.

I’m starting to believe that it’s possible that maybe Benson, my imaginary friend, was actually a ghost, given the amount of paranormal activity that took place in the original trailer house.

I’m wanting to find out if anyone here has had similar experiences as a child, more specifically an imaginary friend and a house with a history of paranormal activity.

reply to post by BrandonK


I had a imaginary friend when I was the same age.His name was Bobo.It was not a human name that I have ever heard of,but then again I had the feeling that Bobo wasn't human either.

I don't remember ever seeing Bobo,but we did everything together and talked for hours everyday for a couple of years.If my Mum gave me a biscuit or a drink I would insist that Bobo got the same.

Now to the weird bit.I have a 3 year old nephew who has a imaginary friend that he has just begun talking to....that's right,His name is Bobo!!

I believe that little kids see ghosts, and accept them as part of their world.

Because they are not yet contaminated by our world, which is a great contaminator.

I think it is great that little children communicate with ghosts - I wish adults could do that.

Originally posted by catwhoknows
I believe that little kids see ghosts, and accept them as part of their world.

They can hear higher vibrations, so it makes sense they can see higher vibrations too.

reply to post by NuclearPaul


Hi Paul,

I am thrilled that you can see what I can see.

Cheers.

reply to post by catwhoknows

I agree, children are much purer than adults. They have not been programmed yet to think seeing and feeling entities is unnatural or just their imagination acting up.
I never had an imagenary friend, since this is someone that we make up. I had entities around me though, that other people did not see. One of them still appears frequently. Some people grow up and never loose the ability of communcation, as where other people manage to re-find this ability.



[edit on 15-4-2010 by Gwynniver]

I too had an imaginary friend with an unusual name, Borgus, I was about 3 also and he was older, possibly 8 or 9. He hung around til I was about 5 then said he had to go, never saw him again. However I do sometimes get the feeling he is somewhere in the background still watching.

I don't remember actually seeing him but I do know what he looked liked, tallish, caucasion with dark, short hair.

We've tried to figure out where I would have gotten such a name but we didn't have tv when I was small and we didn't have any foreign friends, so I couldn't have heard it anywhere.

I don't recall any paranormal activity mentioned in any of the places we lived (we moved around a lot) but some kinda weird stuff happened once I reached puberty Things not being where we left them, a particular plastic ornament that refused to stay on a shelf, even when other things were put in front of it. Dad finally stopped it leaping to the floor by filling it with sand
Had some more weird stuff when my daughter was a teen too, fits with my theory that poltergiests are the result of pubescent hormones running riot and releasing kinetic energy which randomly moves stuff. But thats teenagers.

None of my kids or grandies have had 'pretend' friends but my eldest grandaughter, at about a year old, used to see things flying around the room that no one else could see, she would point and giggle, when we asked what it was she just said "Pretty".

I do believe little kids can see stuff we can't, it's such a shame we grow out of it.

.

reply to post by PennyQ


The op's imaginary friend was called Benson,mine was called Bobo and yours was called Borgus.Perhaps it's just a coincidence that they all start with the letter 'B' and sound fairly similar.I never thought of this before,but do you think it's a fairly common theme?

reply to post by BrandonK


Its entirely possible that Benson was a spirit of some sort. Since he seemed to be self-aware its more then possible. I've had similar experiences with the former owner of the house who would always try to fix things but end up breaking them. When we moved i encountered a new entity that was very paternal over me. But my mother never believed anything i told her, until she saw a picture of the old houses owner and i said that was him. As for the one in their current home, she always brushed it off as me being paranoid. Its great that your mom was open to such ideas!

reply to post by witchfinder


wow, all B's , that is weird, would be good to get a few more names to compare with.

Just like to add that my parents were great with this stuff, we were on a touring holiday once and about 15 miles out of the last town I got upset that Borgus had got left behind, so dad turned the car around, right there and then, and went back to fetch him

.

I had an invisible friend when I was younger, not sure how old. I don't remember anything about him but my mom (and other members of my family) have told me several stories about it.
She says that I used to call him Boy. My mom has told me that he was around for at least a couple of years, that I would be talking to him then later tell my mom stories about him (she doesn't remember what the stories were about). She has told me that there were a few times that I would be sitting in the livingroom, watching TV or playing, and another family member would come in a sit down in a chair and I would freak out and start yelling that "they were sitting on Boy!!". The family member would get up and I would run to the chair asking Boy if he was okay. I do not remember any of this, it is so weird hearing these stories from various members of my family and not being able to recall memories. I wonder if 'Boy' doesn't want me to remember.

Ha-ha! cool story!

I never had any imaginary friends

I had plenty lot of "real" play-friends from our neighbourhood though!

But I can remember that my sister had an imaginary friend that used to play with her.

Tea Party friend!

Originally posted by Chevalerous
I had plenty lot of "real" play-friends from our neighbourhood though!

As far as I know I didn't exhibit any antisocial behavior as a child. Even though we lived in the country and there weren't many houses around at the time I did have a few playmates. I had a childhood friend named Danny but I am not sure when we started playing together, though. I also have a sister that is two years older than I am so there was someone to play with when I got lonely during the evening. I also have a few cousins around my age that I saw often. So I am fairly certain I wasn't lacking in the social interaction department. I suppose there could be other reasons for a child to have an imaginary friend.

I'm more inclined to believe my friend Benson was a ghost, given the amount of weird things happening in the house. But then again there's a good chance that Benson was truly an imaginary friend. I will never know.

Originally posted by BrandonK

Originally posted by Chevalerous
I had plenty lot of "real" play-friends from our neighbourhood though!

As far as I know I didn't exhibit any antisocial behavior as a child. Even though we lived in the country and there weren't many houses around at the time I did have a few playmates.

Same here. The block I grew up on was always full of kids. I always had somebody to play with. I was not a lonely child at all. Like BrandonK, there were also a few weird occurances that were unexplainable at the house that occurred to me as well as other family members.
From the stories I have been told by my family members, even though I don't remember them myself, I think that Boy was more than my imagination.

While I did not have any imaginary friends, when I was 7 I looked at the top of stairs in my house from my bed and saw this blacker than black shape sitting on the top step with a hat and what I believe was a guitar in his hands. I don't he left that spot and I have not seen him since. Then again though I'm 20 now.

Originally posted by witchfinder
reply to post by BrandonK

 

I had a imaginary friend when I was the same age.His name was Bobo.It was not a human name that I have ever heard of,but then again I had the feeling that Bobo wasn't human either.

I don't remember ever seeing Bobo,but we did everything together and talked for hours everyday for a couple of years.If my Mum gave me a biscuit or a drink I would insist that Bobo got the same.

Now to the weird bit.I have a 3 year old nephew who has a imaginary friend that he has just begun talking to....that's right,His name is Bobo!!

Holy SH.. if thats true than its mind bogling.

When I was about the same age (2 1/2 -3) I started talking with Cristina. She was older than I was, because I remember that when she sat on my little red chair, she was just too big for it and it always made me giggle. I insisted on making room for her at the dinner table, on the sofa and in the car, and I always wanted to feed her too. The curious thing is that we spoke in a different language. My mom and grandma used to say that it sounded like Swedish or Danish, so I always had to "translate" conversations. I don't know if this is relevant, but I distinctly remember that she always came out of the same corner in my room. At around the same period of time, other out of the ordinary things started happening. I don't remember when she stopped being part of my daily life, but even after I started school, every once in a while, I would still "see/talk" to her. I agree that as children, we are more aware of the world around us and that society discourages anything that deviates from the norm, so we stop paying attention.

Originally posted by colloredbrothers

Originally posted by witchfinder
reply to post by BrandonK

 

I had a imaginary friend when I was the same age.His name was Bobo.It was not a human name that I have ever heard of,but then again I had the feeling that Bobo wasn't human either.

I don't remember ever seeing Bobo,but we did everything together and talked for hours everyday for a couple of years.If my Mum gave me a biscuit or a drink I would insist that Bobo got the same.

Now to the weird bit.I have a 3 year old nephew who has a imaginary friend that he has just begun talking to....that's right,His name is Bobo!!

Holy SH.. if thats true than its mind bogling.

Reminds me of that movie drop dead fred.

Anyway my mother told me I used to go inside a cuboard and talk to myself or someone when I was a kid.

reply to post by _Phoenix_


Maybe you had frequent chats with Mrs. Butterworth. It is kind of strange that you would go into the cupboard. Did your mother ever recall you carrying a stuffed animal or toy into the cupboard?