It has been a longstanding family tradition
that you were born at nine-fifteen, August sixth, nineteen hundred and
forty-two. That’s what it says on your birth certificate. Three years later on
the same date and at the same time the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima,
Japan. That is the tradition. Somewhere along the line this was driven into
your psyche until there was a point of personal connection. Isn’t this so, boy?
Amorella
1001
hours. True, though coincidence is what it really is. The point is, oddly, I
know better, it is coincidence, yet it has given me something rather somber to
think on all these years. And, it is not unlike father helping to liberate the
concentration camp in 1945; something somber to think on.
Do you think these are the main reasons you
like to (unconsciously) dedicate your life to speak for the Dead? – Amorella
1007
hours. You embarrass my nature, Amorella. It may be, but then the cemetery was
a playground and a workplace during my growing up, that was not such a somber
undertaking, ever. It is a personal connection with the Dead. Everyone has a
personal connection with the Dead. I don’t feel I have dedicated my life to
speak for the Dead. Who am I but one of billions still alive? I have an empathy
for fellow human spirits, still living as well as dead. I am not sure why this
has developed but part of what you suggest here certainly may play a part in
this transcendental Emerson-like focus I have developed philosophically over my
seventy-four years in physical place/space.
Post. – Amorella
1015
hours. I had nothing more to say.
Mid-afternoon.
You stopped at Piada Street Italian for lunch and at Graeter’s for dessert.
Carol got you a regular dip of Key Lime Pie while she had one of her favorites,
a kid’s cup of black cherry chocolate chip. Presently you are sitting in Rose
Hill under the shade of three trees and a pleasant north by northwest breeze
cattycornered from the Whitaker Mausoleum. - Amorella
1538
hours. No humidity today. There are a few people driving around – most are
older people saying hello to those who have moved on.
You added about two-hundred and fifty words
of dialogue. Carol decided to go for a short walk. – Amorella
1613
hours. I need to look up dimple.
** **
Dictionary
dimple
noun
a
small depression in the flesh, either one that exists permanently or one that
forms in the cheeks when one smiles.
•
[ often as modifier ] a slight depression in the surface of something:
a sheet of dimple foam.
verb [ with obj. ]
produce
a dimple or dimples in the surface of (something): a sucking swirl dimpled
the water.
•
[ no obj. ] form or show a dimple or dimples: the water ruffled and
dimpled | (as adj.
dimpled) : a dimpled smile.
DERIVATIVES
dimply
|ˈdimp(ə)lē| adjective
ORIGIN
Middle English: of
Germanic origin; related to German Tümpel ‘pond.’
Thesaurus
dimple
noun
the dimples on a golf
ball: indentation, hollow, cleft.
Selected and edited
from British/American software.
** **
You are
home. You were looking up dimple and accidently hit the button and imaginary
friend in children cam up. This made you ask for ‘imagine friend in adults’ and
the Wikipedia article turned up. You were in the act of skimming when you
suddenly stopped thinking this article is of no use to you and myself because
the sense of the article so far is that the imaginary friend is most always
companion-like and never argumentative with its inventor. – Amorella
1707
hours. This is true and mostly this is true with you Amorella so I figured ‘what
use is to read this; when it is a waste of my time’.
It would be better for you to read and add
to the posting. – Amorella
1709
hours. You see, here is an example that I don’t argue you with you as much as I
used to. The reason being is that like with wife Carol, you are usually right,
not me. You think things through better than I do. Hey, life in the slow line.
I get it. So, I’ll read the article over and more carefully then drop it in.
** **
Imaginary friend
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Imaginary friends (also known as pretend friends or invisible friends)
are a psychological and social phenomenon where a friendship or other
interpersonal relationships takes place in the imagination rather than external
physical reality. Although they may seem very real to their creators, children
usually understand that their imaginary friends are not real. The first
studies focusing on imaginary friends are believed to have been conducted
during the 1890s. There is little information about the development and the
appearance of imaginary friends in children. However, Klausen & Passman
(2007) report that imaginary companions were originally described as being
supernatural creatures and spirits that were thought to connect people with
their past lives. Adults in early historic times had entities such as household
gods and guardian angels, and muses that functioned as imaginary companions to
provide comfort, guidance and inspiration for creative work. However, it has
been known that some of the adults could not only imagine friends, but also
could imagine outstanding sales results when there were none. Eventually the
phenomenon of imaginary companions passed on to children. The era when children
began having imaginary friends is unknown, but it is possible the phenomenon
appeared in the mid–20th century when childhood was emphasized as an important
time to play and imagine.
Description
In some
studies, imaginary companions are defined as children impersonating a specific
character (imagined by them), or objects or toys that are personified. However,
some psychologists will define an imaginary friend only as a separate created
character. Imaginary friends or imaginary companions can be people, but they
can also take the shape of other characters such as animals or other abstract
ideas such as ghosts, monsters or angels. These characters can be created at
any point during a lifetime, though Western culture suggests they are most
acceptable in preschool- and school-age children. They often function as
tutelaries when played with by a child. They reveal, according to several
theories of psychology, a child’s anxieties, fears, goals and perceptions of
the world through that child's conversations. They are, according to some
children, physically indistinguishable from real people, while others say they
see their imaginary friends only in their heads, and still others cannot see
the friend at all but can sense his/her presence. Most research agrees that
girls are more likely than boys to develop imaginary friends. Past research
agrees that boys are more likely to participate in fantasy play, and they
incorporate the themes of superheroes and adventure in their fantasy play,
while girls mostly play dress-up and play house. Once children reach school
age, boys and girls are equally likely to have an imaginary companion. Research
has often reiterated that there is not a specific "type" of child
that creates an imaginary friend.
Research
has shown that imaginary companions are a normative part of childhood and even
adulthood. And some psychologists suggest that imaginary companions are much
like a fictional character created by an author. As Eileen Kennedy-Moore points
out, "Adult fiction writers often talk about their characters taking on a
life of their own, which may be an analogous process to children’s invisible
friends." In addition, Marjorie Taylor and colleagues have found that
fiction writers are more likely than average to have had imaginary companions
as children.
There is
a difference between the common imaginary companion that many children create,
and the imaginary companions of psychopathology. Often when there is a
psychological disorder, and an imaginary companion is present, the creator
believes that this companion is real, and does not differentiate between the
real and imagined.
Imaginary
friends or companions can serve various functions. Playing with imaginary
companions enables children to enact behaviors and events they have not yet
experienced. Imaginary play allows children to use their imagination to
construct knowledge of the world. In addition, imaginary companions might also
fulfill children’s innate desire to connect with others before actual play
among peers is common.
According
to psychologist Lev Vygotsky, cultural tools and interaction with people
mediate psychological functioning and cognitive development. Imaginary
companions, perceived as real beings, could teach children how to interact with
others along with many other social skills.
Vygotsky’s
sociocultural view of child development includes the notion of children’s “zone
of proximal development,” which is the difference between what children can do
with and without help. Imaginary companions can aid children in learning things
about the world that they could not learn without help, such as appropriate
social behavior, and thus can act as a scaffold for children to achieve
slightly above their social capability.
In
addition, imaginary companions also serve as a means for children to experiment
with and explore the world. In this sense, imaginary companions also relate to
Piaget’s theory of child development because they are completely constructed by
the child.
According
to Piaget, children are scientific problem solvers who self-construct
experiences and build internal mental structures based on experimentation. The
creation of and interaction with imaginary companions helps children to build
such mental structures. The relationship between a child and his or her
imaginary friend can serve as a catalyst for the formation of real
relationships in later development and thus provides a head start to practicing
real-life interaction.
Research
It has
been theorized that children with imaginary companions may develop language
skills and retain knowledge faster than children without them, which may be
because these children get more linguistic practice than their peers as a
result of carrying out "conversations" with their imaginary friends.
Kutner
(n.d.) reported that 65% of seven-year-old children report they have had an
imaginary companion at some point in their lives. He further reported:
Imaginary
companions are an integral part of many children's lives. They provide comfort
in times of stress, companionship when they're lonely, someone to boss around
when they feel powerless, and someone to blame for the broken lamp in the
living room. Most important, an imaginary companion is a tool young children
use to help them make sense of the adult world.
Taylor,
Carlson & Gerow (c2001: p. 190) hold that:
despite
some results suggesting that children with imaginary companions might be
superior in intelligence, it is not true that all intelligent children create
them.
If
imaginary friends can provide assistance to children in developing their social
skills, they must function as important roles in the lives of children. Hoff
(2004 – 2005) was interested in finding out the roles and functions of
imaginary friends and how they impacted the lives of children. The results of
her study have provided some significant insight on the roles of imaginary
friends. Many of the children reported their imaginary friends as being sources
of comfort in times of boredom and loneliness. Another interesting result was
that imaginary friends served to be mentors for children in their academics.
They were encouraging, provided motivation, and increased the self – esteem of
children when they did well in school. Finally, imaginary friends were reported
as being moral guides for children. Many of the children reported that their
imaginary friends served as a conscience and helped them to make the correct
decision in times where morality was questioned. Some psychologists have suggested
that older children may retain but stop speaking about imaginary friends due to
adult expectations and peer pressure.
Pediatrician
Benjamin Spock believed that imaginary friends past age four indicated that
something was "lacking" in the child or his environment. Some have theorized
that children who hold on to imaginary friends past school-age are stigmatized.
Other
professionals feel that imaginary friends are common among school-age children
and are part of normal social-cognitive development. Part of the reason that
people believed that children gave up imaginary companions earlier than they
do, is related to Piaget's stages of cognitive development. Piaget suggested
that imaginary companions disappeared once children entered the concrete
operational stage of development. Marjorie Taylor identified middle school
children with imaginary friends and followed up six years later as they were
completing high school. At follow-up, those who had imaginary friends in middle
school displayed better coping strategies but a "low social preference for
peers." She suggested that imaginary friends may directly benefit children's
resiliency and positive adjustment. Because imagination play with a character
involves the child often imagining how another person (or character) would act,
research has been done to determine if having an imaginary companion has a
positive effect on theory of mind development. In a previous study, Taylor
& Carlson (1997) found that 4 year – old children who had imaginary friends
scored higher on emotional understanding measures and that having a theory of
mind would predict higher emotional understanding later on in life. When
children develop the realization that other people have different thoughts and
beliefs other than their own, they are able to grow in their development of
theory of mind as they begin to have better understandings of emotions.
Positive psychology
The
article, "Pretend play and positive psychology: Natural companions"
defined many great tools that are seen in children who engage pretend play.
These five areas include creativity, coping, emotion regulation,
empathy/emotional understanding and hope. Hope seems to be the underlying tool
children use in motivation. Children become more motivated when they believe in
themselves, therefore children will not be discouraged to come up with
different ways of thinking because they will have confidence. Imaginary
companionship displays immense creativity helping them to develop their social
skills and creativity is frequently discussed term amongst positive psychology. An imaginary
companion can be considered the product of creativity whereas the communication
between the imaginary friend and the child is the process.
Adolescence
"Imaginary
Companions in adolescence: sign of a deficient or positive development?"
explores the extent to which adolescents create imaginary companions. The
researchers explored the prevalence of imaginary companions in adolescence by
investigating the diaries of adolescents age 12-17. In addition they looked at
the characteristics of these imaginary companions and did a content analysis of
the data obtained in the diaries. There were three hypotheses tested: (1) the
deficit hypothesis, (2) the giftedness hypothesis, (3) the egocentrism hypothesis.
The results of their study concluded that creative and socially competent
adolescents with great coping skills were particularly prone to the creation of
these imaginary friends. These findings did not support the deficit hypothesis
or egocentrism hypothesis, further suggesting that these imaginary companions
were not created with the aim to replace or substitute a real life family
member or friend, but they simply created another "very special
friend". This is surprising because it is usually assumed that children
who create imaginary companions have deficits of some sort, and in addition for
an adolescent to have an imaginary companion is unheard of.
Tulpa
Following
the popularizing and secularizing of the concept of tulpa in the Western world,
for example in the 1999 X-Files episode
“Arcadia” and the 2006 Supernatural episode
"Hell House", emerged an internet subculture of practitioners who
create imaginary companions called tulpas.
These
practitioners, calling themselves "tulpamancers", belong to
"primarily urban, middle class, Euro-American adolescent and young adult
demographics" and they "cite loneliness and social anxiety as an
incentive to pick up the practice." They report an improvement to their
personal lives through the practice, and new unusual sensory experiences. The
practitioners use the tulpa for sexual and romantic interactions, though the
practice is considered taboo. A survey of the community with 118 respondents on
the explanation of tulpas found 8.5% support a metaphysical explanation, 76.5%
support a neurological or psychological explanation, and 14% "other"
explanations. Nearly all practitioners consider the tulpa a real or somewhat-real
person. The number of active participants in these online communities is in the
low hundreds, and few meetings in person have taken place.
Birth order
To
uncover the origin of imaginary companions and learn more about the children
who create them, it is necessary to seek out children who have created imaginary
companions. Unfortunately young children cannot accurately self-report,
therefore the most effective way to gather information about children and their
imaginary companions is by interviewing the people who spend the most time with
them. Often mothers are the primary caretakers who spend the most time with a
child. Therefore, for this study 78 mothers were interviewed and asked whether
their child had an imaginary friend. If the mother revealed that their child
did not have an imaginary companion then the researcher asked about the child’s
tendency to personify objects.
In order
to convey the meaning of personified objects the researchers explained to the
mothers that it is common for children to choose a specific toy or object that
they are particularly attached to or fond of. For the object to qualify as a
personified object the child had to treat it as animate. Furthermore, it is
necessary to reveal what children consider an imaginary friend or pretend play.
In order to distinguish a child having or not having an imaginary companion,
the friend had to be in existence for at least one month. In order to examine
the developmental significance of preschool children and their imaginary
companions the mothers of children were interviewed. The major conclusion from
the study was that there is a significant distinction between invisible
companions and personified objects.
A
significant finding in this study was the role of the child’s birth order in
the family in terms of having an imaginary companion or not. The results of the
interviews with mothers indicated that children with imaginary friends were
more likely to be a first-born child when compared to children who did not have
an imaginary companion at all.
This
study further supports that children may create imaginary friends to work on
social development. The findings that a first-born child is more likely to have
an imaginary friend sheds some light on the idea that the child needs to
socialize therefore they create the imaginary friend to develop their social skills.
This is an extremely creative way for children to develop their social skills
and creativity is frequently discussed term amongst positive psychology. An
imaginary companion can be considered the product of creativity whereas the
communication between the imaginary friend and the child is the process.
In
regards to birth order there is also research on children who do not have any
siblings at all. The research in this area further investigates the notion that
children create imaginary companions due to the absence of peer relationships.
A study that examined the differences in self-talk frequency as a function of
age, only-child, and imaginary childhood companion status provides a lot of
insight to the commonalties of children with imaginary companions.
The
researchers collected information from college students who were asked if they
ever had an imaginary friend as a child (Brinthaupt & Dove, 2012). There
were three studies within the one study and they found that there were
significant differences in self-talk between different age groupings.
Their
first study indicated that only children who create imaginary companions
actually engage in high levels of positive self-talk had more positive social
development. They also found a gender difference within their study that women
were more likely than men to have an imaginary companion.
Their
findings were consistent with other research supporting that it is more common
for females to have imaginary companions. One possible explanation the
researchers suggested that women may be more likely to have imaginary
companions is because they are more likely to rely on feedback from other than
themselves supporting the conclusions that men were found to have more self
reinforcing self-talk.
Furthermore,
other research has concluded that women seek more social support than men,
which could be another possibility for creating these imaginary companions. The
second study found that children without siblings reported more self-talk than
children with siblings and the third study found that the students who reported
having an imaginary friend also reported more self talk than the other students
who did not have imaginary friends.
Self-talk
is often associated with negative effects such as increased anxiety and
depression when the self-talk is specifically negative. The researchers found
that "Individuals with higher levels of social-assessment and critical
self-talk reported lower self-esteem and more frequent automatic negative
self-statements".
However, there is also a positive side to positive
self-talk and in this study they found that, "people with higher levels of
self-reinforcing self-talk reported more positive self-esteem and more frequent
automatic positive self-statements".
They also found that men had a more frequent
self-reinforcing self-talk than females. This particular finding is important
because there are not many general findings comparing men and women in adult
self-talk in today’s research. Self-talk and imaginary companionship contain
many similarities therefore it is possible that they can be related. Through
positive self-talk children can increase their self-esteem, which leads to the
possibility that a positive relationship with an imaginary companion could
predict a similar outcome.
Selected and edited from Wikipedia
** **
1744
hours. Well, the article is not as negative as I supposed. The main point of
the article from my present perspective is that an imaginary companion with a
positive relationship might predict a positive outcome. This re-enforces my
feelings toward you, Amorella. You have been a good influence for these past
many years – 1988 to the present (28 years) so I see no reason to not continue
our relationship even as an imaginary friend. - rho
Post. - Amorella
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