A couple days ago I posed a question in my instagram story: did you have imaginary friends? If so, how many, and if you had them, were you an only child?
As I spoke to the front facing camera, I was actually surprised by my own question. I hadn’t planned on asking this, but here was the inquiry. I decided to post it, not knowing if anyone would respond. Growing up, I didn’t know anyone else who had imaginary friends. In theory I knew that other people had them, but I hadn’t met them yet. It felt like a secret that for some reason I was tasked with holding.
As promised, I will tell you now: I had 7 imaginary friends. We were a legitimate cohort. We’d play in fantastical realms, but often they were just there as companions. One was named Trixie. Two of them were named after my cousins who lived far away, (Alyssa and Julia) another was my sister who my mother lost to miscarriage (Collette). My parents were very tolerant of my fictional friend group. I’ll never forget the night I realized we left Anastasia in the parking lot of a pharmacy. I was so distraught my dad turned the car around to pick her up.
My mom always told me there would be a time in life when my imaginary friends would fade. She presented this almost as a loss of innocence, when you are truly left alone to face the world. I dreaded this eventuality, prepared for it like a loss of a IRL friend. Of course, they all disappeared—I’m not sure of the exact moment. Perhaps the process of losing your imaginary friends is the same as losing a piece of yourself to change. When those figments leave, it’s because they’re making way for a new phase of your life. It’s one of the first things we lose so that we can look back fondly upon it.
Judging by your responses, we all hold our Imaginary Friends in high regard.
Here’s the numbers breakdown of your results: I had 38 answers that detailed the number of imaginary friends.
The average number of imaginary friends was 1.7 (lol) but there were a handful of you that had entire imagined cliques.
What really surprised me was the impact that siblings had on your imaginary relationships. I assumed imaginary friends were going to hang out with mostly only children, but it was almost a tie! Only children beat out siblings by ONE POINT.
This is where I was totally wrong and when I started rethinking the function of Imaginary Friends (and imagination at large) in our lives.
When imaginary friends come to you, you don’t question their existence. Rather, you play into the whimsy of an imagined social circle. Many of your answers spoke to the details of your friends, their appearance and names. At our young age we embraced those figures and explored life with them.
Here’s a selection of your answers:
My imaginary friends definitely grew from a combination of existential loneliness and an active imagination. Judging from your answers, many of your friends came to you for similar reasons. As children we dug inward, creating a comfort that only we could provide. We showed ourselves that joy can be found in the darkness, when we allow ourselves to explore the unknown. As children, we are not accustomed to such prolonged feelings of despair. At that age, our tendency is to engage with healing through play. We do this unabashedly and with a sustained sense of wonder. This brave act is not taught, but something we can forget how to do, instead relying on external forces to validate, uplift, distract.
Fictional or not, imaginary friends are many of our first companions. They give us the chance to practice love, even process grief.
When our Imaginary Friends leave us, perhaps it’s because we move into a different mode that no longer gives space for that level of fantasy. Granted, I don’t think it works to be an adult with fictional friends, but often there is a belief in imagination that leaves with them.
Fantasy can easily be cast to the lowest level of importance. We believe the real world is calling, with real problems that need real solutions.
Similarly, this is how art gets pushed to the fringes of society. When the powers that be successfully remove art from the equation, we lose the soul of humanity. Art gives us a pathway to transcend and get in touch with the spirit that rides the currents within each of us. Artistic expression requires us to imagine more than what we have, even if it is to communicate what is in front of us. Imagining something greater, because the status quo isn’t acceptable.
Imaginary friends represent a force that is present when we create and believe in a future worth living for.
Early philosophers started out by just imagining how things might work together in this universe. Leucippus and Democritus are thought by many to be the first people to conceive of atoms. Since it was sometime in the 4th century, there was no way to see atoms the way we do now. Through imaginative thought, they theorized that atoms were always in motion and were made of different materials. Not all of their ideas were correct, but the fact that they believed atoms cannot be split is a true testament to mindful imagination.
We take our knowledge of elements and atoms for granted now, but it was this early thinking that lay the groundwork for how we understand the laws of the universe.
There is no getting around the state of the world and the deep sense of ennui that I know many of us feel at this time. We are still in this pandemic, yet personal and international struggles continue all the same. I’ve been asking myself, how do I really want to proceed? For now, my answer is: with imagination.
We’ve all heard the phrase think outside the box. But even then I think we limit ourselves to operating around an existing structure. Perhaps it is time to dream without a box in mind at all.
First imagining on a small scale: drawing out the vision of my own life, then going bigger with the ways we can reconfigure existence on this planet.
It’s a process of course, but isn’t everything?
Cheers to you and your imagination.
See you on Friday with a meditation for subscribers and Sunday with Moments for Now. Submit your moment of presence to momentsfornow@gmail.com ! The project goes on because of contributions from readers like you.
xx,
James
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