Imaginary Friend

[OpenMind5]

Is having an imaginary friend healthy?

Or even Right?

Does it mean that you have social issues or even are CARZY???

:)

what do u think?

 

Op5

[Buffy]

Heck, *I'm* imaginary.

 

My daughter's imaginary friend is a *COW*!

 

Are we unhealthy? The doctor says no.

 

I find imaginary friends are almost always right because they always seem to agree with your opinions.

 

The sex might not be as satisfying as the real thing though.

 

Don't sweat it and enjoy it. No one can have too many friends.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[motherengine]

i would say healthy, unless it starts killing people. :)

[Fishteacher73]

Are imaginary numbers ok? " i" talks to me when I'm confused :) .

[OpenMind5]

I agree that u can never had to many friends, but what causes the human to make a compainion? Just instinct to neeeeeeeeeeed someone or somthing to call ours? Social problems?

 

Now i can see the issue of imaginary friends killing people being a hudge problem..LOL

 

The thing with imaginary friends is that at a certain age its "accepted" Like buffy's DAUGHTER. WHat what does it mean when it shows up in older adults? Or has anyone heard of "STALKER" imaginary friends that people can't get rid of? Or what if somone belives in one sooo much and that person kills them...what happens???

 

Op5

[sanctus]

Ownmind 5 I don't understand you, when you say STALKER you don't speak about one of the best russioan movies (based on a novel by the strugatzki brothers)? What do you mean then? And if you talk about that Stalker, where is the relation between stalker and imaginary friend?

[Queso]

hah, i get what you're saying openmind. it's a crazy thought, and i know nothing about real psychology, just what i observe.

but i would say that the person has either done a lot of drugs in their life, and it's flashbacks. severe events can trigger these things too.

[OpenMind5]

Thanks for the understanding orbsycli.

sanctus, what i am asking is, if someone belives somthing (or in somthing) so much like in imaginary friend...how real does that person become? Honestly? If a person is say, crazy to begin with, and they make this friend, and this friend they have goes crazy in their mind, and kills them...what happens to them from our perspective? Does the fact that they are dead in their head kill them? The mind is a VERY powerful thing. But how powerful can it be in terms of imagination?

 

Op5

(by the way...i don't do LSD personally, so i can't comment on that comment :hyper:)

[sanctus]

Ever heard about schizophrenie and multiple personality? I would say if your belief in your imaginary friends is very strong, you that you actually sometimes identify yourself with that friend and dependant on how often that happens you are either in psychiatry or you take some (legal) drugs (medicaments).

[OpenMind5]

I am not talking about schizopherenie or multiple personalities, i am taking about the idea of the mind creating a whole new person in which you can interact with but have lil controll over only because u belive in that person as what u made it...a person...and what happens when u lose that control... No medical terms for this that i have discovered, because it probily doesn't happen...just one of those what ifs...

 

Op5

[Tormod]

I have almost 900 imaginary friends right here at Hypography. They rule my life.

[alexander]

And how many of them are bots?

 

P.S. Sanctus Multipple personality disorder is related to people who have multiple personalties living within the same body, most of the time is caused by suffering in the early childhood, but doesnt have to be, if you want to read more about that, read research done by Freud and finished by his daughter on person's defend mechanisms.

P.P.S. i think imaginary friends are great, they pose questions that are worthy of my time, hell, who would i spend all the free time with if not with it?

[OpenMind5]

Good point, they do help pass the time, but have any of them gone "Loco" on you???

( :hyper: pulling in some biolingual stuff...hahahahaha )

 

Op5

[sanctus]

Yes, I knew that you weren't talking about schizofrenie or multiple personality OP5. But you asked where you get when you strongly believe in an imaginary friend and I say you might get there. And,as pointed out by Alexander, it may due to a trauma in your childhood that you are apt to strongly believe in a imaginary to the point that the believe ends up in multiple personality.

Alexander, I don't se the difference between between having different people in the same body and having an imaginary friend to who you talk to?

[alexander]

Ok, let me clarify my definition of SPD (multiple or split personality disorder):

Lets start with how people with MPD perceive their actions:

Only one personality can control the body at any one time. Although sometimes the personalities are co-conscious and share some or all memories. Most of the time though the personality remembers only the times when he/she/it controlled the body, and has amneseic effect on the memory all other periods. Also just like an imaginary friend, personalities can be people and animals, but no matter who or what, only one is in control of the body, personalities also can however talk and negotiate with each other. People diagnosed with MPD may exhibit erratic alterations of personality and may lose track of time.

People with SPD tend to have multiple selves or experience themselves that way, but they cannot control their(other their) behaviors as it is like having another OS control your system.

I think the main difference comes from the fact that an imagnary friend is quite often there when you want them to be, they can be there in asymmetric periods of time, where personality disorders are characterized by long-lasting rigid patterns of thought and behaviour, they have a pattern.

 

Also dont confuse MPD and schizophrenia, they are very different

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behaviour, thinking, and emotion. The term schizophrenia comes from the Greek words σχίζω (schizo, split or divide) and φρενός (phrenos, mind) and is best translated as "shattered mind".

(wiki)

Multiple personality disorder (MPD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by having at least one "alter" personality that controls behavior. The "alters" are said to occur spontaneously and involuntarily, and function more or less independently of each other. The unity of consciousness, by which we identify our selves, is said to be absent in MPD. Another symptom of MPD is significant amnesia which can't be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. In 1994, the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV replaced the designation of MPD with DID: dissociative identity disorder. The label may have changed, but the list of symptoms remained essentially the same.

(http://skepdic.com/mpd.html)

 

There is much debate on the topic whether or not you beleive in MPD/DID or not but it is a different topic...

 

Take it easy!