How to create an imaginary friend: a simple walkthrough
If you just want a quick overview of what this is about, I suggest reading the F.A.Q..
Index
Summary
A concrete example of an imaginary person is a person in your dreams: you know they are a part of you, and come from the same head, but you wouldn't think of them as yourself if you were talking to them, and you can tell they have somewhat separate wills from your own. Imaginary friends aren't much different from these dream people, except you can be aware of them while you are awake. Techinically speaking, imaginary friends are a collection of thoughts you perceive as a coherent whole. When you think of one of your regular friends, you probably understand them as a collection of their body, their manerisms, their voice, and so on. Imaginary friends are internally no different, except the different pieces that make them up come from within you, rather than from external input.
There is nothing paranormal, mystical, or magical about imaginary friends, at least not in the metaphysical sense. Imaginary friends aren't demons or entities from another realm, and they certainly can't directly change the world around you. That being said, some of these interpretations can be fun - even useful - to play with. Anything is possible within the realm of your mind after all, just make sure you don't forget that that is the only realm where these things are true, and that these are your subjective truths.
In practice, imaginary friends can be a lot of things. They can provide companionship, motivation, love, understanding, or all of them at the same time. It is up to each person to know why they are making an imaginary friend, and what void are they hoping to fill with them.
To summarize the process, our goal is to create a character, and get to know them and play them in our heads well enough that eventually our subconscious begins taking the lead. In the meantime, we will also be using focus techniques to help us tune in to our imagined senses, so we can interact with our friend in a richer way within our mind. This will seem odd at first, but it utilizes brain phenomena you have been using since you were born: remembrance, and habit. There are no new ideas here, and all it takes is time, effort, and the right mindset.
Here are a few key points you should keep in mind while reading this document:
- When I refer to talking or interacting with your friend, I mean doing so in your mind through thoughts and imagination, I don't mean talking to them out loud, gesturing into the air, etc.
- Forget about things like volition, sentience, autonomy, etc. Those are meaningless, just don't bother with them.
- Its important to not lose track of what it is you're dealing with: imagination. Keeping that in mind will prevent a lot of future frustration and questions.
- The analytical view I take on this walkthrough isn't meant to belittle imaginary friends or what they are capable of. Saying we are just an agglomerate of atoms would be correct, but it wouldn't deter from our complexity, and I would like you to think this way in regards to imaginary friends as well.
- Don't be afraid to experiment. These things are very personal, and what works for you may not be the same thing that works for someone else. What resonates with you will depend on who you are. Just remember there are no wrong ways of creating an imaginary friend.
- The more you enjoy the process, the faster it goes.
- Never forget: No rules, only tools.
Imaginary people are not humans
Some people may find themselves in a place where they simply cannot fathom someone loving them, or even liking them. Others argue that having imaginary friends is unethical because at the end of the day, they have no choice, and you are forcing them to stay with you. If you share in any of these concerns, it is important to realize that imaginary people are not animals, bound by our laws of physics or any sort of biological evolutionary process. They can be quite literally anything you want them to be:
- You can make an imaginary being who is nothing but a cube who's life revolves around singing you "happy birthday", and who finds their task extremely pleasurable and would never want a different life for itself.
- You can make an imaginary being who has the appearance of a dog is incredibly happy eating garbage, getting an indigestion and then vomiting icecream.
- You can make an imaginary being who constantly seeks hugs, but who also hates hugs to the point of breaking into tears, while displaying no emotional distress about any of it after the fact.
- You can make an imaginary being whose body consists of 7 bodies.
They sound absurd, but all of these are perfectly valid in the world of the imaginary. Imaginary creatures aren't bound by any physical or psychological rules or preconceptions you may have. Furthermore, the meaning of your internal world's consistency is what you make of it.
To reel it back, you could create an imaginary creature who looks and behaves similarly to a human, but who also doesn't need to eat, go to the bathroom, doesn't get sick, doesn't need to sleep, and so on; and who also happens to like you for no other reason than you being yourself. Even if you believe no-one could ever love you in the external world, this imaginary person would still be possible within your mind. Who knows, over time they might surprise you with a few reasons why they like you you didn't originally think about.
Symbolism
Symbolism is a very easy way to tap into your subconscious and change the way you see something. Within your mind, your knowledge (belief) and internal state are intrinsically linked, and they have a cyclical relationship - as regular lucid dreamers can confirm. This means it can be hard to get into that cycle, but symbolism helps us bypass that by using things which we see as naturally true. Note that knowledge and belief are interchangeable within your mind, so I use them to mean the same as well.
An example of symbolism used in your dreams is finding a flying potion. We know that by drinking this flying potion we will be able to fly, even if we couldn't do so otherwise. We could certainly practice flight in our dreams by "fighting" our subconscoius until we attain the inherent belief itself, but the symbol of the flying potion helps is bypass that struggle altogether. Symbols are not global, however, and they are dictated by your own experiences, which means you will have to explore and find out what works for you, but overall symbolism is a very powerful tool which you can use for a lot of things.
Creating a character
First, we need a character. You can think of them as a character you might be creating for a book, they will just be a regular character for now. To create a rich and believable character, it is not enough to just have a list of traits like "loving, extrovert" and so on. These lists can be useful as a rough guide to keep you on track during the process, but there are many details which cannot be represented in this way - someone could be an extrovert when there's someone they know in the room, but introverted if they know no one at all. What we really want, is to create a solid personality through experiences. For this we need to think of many different situations, and then think about about how our character would react to each of them. For instance:
Your character goes shopping. Did they go at night, or during the day, and why? Do they go to the supermarket or to the small convenience store? Do they prefer expensive products, or are they fine with saving money for cheaper stuff? A stranger approaches them and asks them something, how do they feel about that? How do they respond? What's their body language like?...
If it helps you keep your thoughts straight, write!
After many scenarios like this one, you will notice it becomes easier to answer the questions you ask, and the objective is to reach a point where we know, with a decent amount of confidence, what our character would do in some of the more common situations someone might face. This process doesn't have to be extremely thorough. There are infinite questions you could ask about almost any given situation, but some ambiguity is normal. Not even we know everything about ourselves, and there are many unusual situations which we wouldn't know how to feel about, or deal with. Throughout their lives, you can both learn more about them as they learn about their environment, and go through experiences naturally with you.
Depending on the kind of relationship you want to have with them, you will probably naturally tend towards certain questions and scenarios. That is fine. There isn't a recipe for this. I suggest having some basics in mind (how they react to a "hello, how are you", at least), but it's all about asking and answering a bunch of questions. You don't need to be perfect in your answers either. Sometimes you will make mistakes, and after the fact you will think the way they acted in that certain situation was not in character, but don't overthink it, and just let mistakes be mistakes. Over time these inconsistencies will be ironed out through repetition. The only wrong way to do these things, is to not do them at all.
During this, you may also want to define things like how they look, how they sound, and anything else you find important. As for a time frame for this, I would say do it for about one to three months, any more will most likely be overkill.
Subconscious take over
Consider yourself for a moment. If you look within, you will most likely find a good chunk of what you are are taught impulses. Even when you think you are resisting yourself, this will most likely be your experience mixing in with the environment to produce a drive. What I mean to say is that your personality is as imaginary as that of the character you created. Likewise it has been crafted through exposure to an enviroment interacting with biological invariants, and the reason why it feels so natural is because you have gone through certain experiences so often, your brain subconsciously knows how to act.
After you have a good idea of who this character is, you can start interacting with them. Tell them things, think of what they would reply, and then imagine them saying it. Outside of speaking to them - and assuming they have a body - there are many other things to experiment. Give them a hug, even if you can't feel it very well. You will probably not be very good at these things at the start, but you can use focus and visualization techniques to enrich your sensory connection. As with the previous section, don't be too worried about the way they react being precisely aligned to their personality, what matters is your mindset.
In the beginning interacting with your friend may feel strange, but the goal is to start thinking of your character as a separate entity from you. There are a lot of ways to look at these interactions, the simplest one being that you're just playing with puppets in your head, and basically talking to yourself, which is what we want to avoid. There are many minsets you can take to break this and start building the instinct that you're interacting with someone separate from you. Whatever methods you choose, the key here is to know these things are true, if nothing else because anything is possible within your mind, and because you want them to be true.
Keep in mind you don't need to believe these things are metaphysical facts, or in magic, or in anything else really, to use some of these ideas. The only thing you need to consider is that within the boundaries of your mind, anything is possible. In general, even outside of imaginary friends, if you keep this in mind, you will be able to enrich your life with all kinds of symbolism, regardless of your religion, culture, etc. Don't be afraid to experiment.
The interpreter mindset
In the beginning you will probably find it hard to think of these interactions as either you talking to yourself, or essentially puppeteering them and pretending they're talking to you. You can change this feeling by considering instead an indirection between you and them: they are actually talking to you, but since you aren't atunned to each other yet, you are essentially "feeling the essense of what they're saying" and translating that to thoughts manually. Some errors may happen, but that is totally fine and those errors will be simple interpretation errors that will get ironed out in time. As time passes you will both tune into each other more and more, and eventually it will just feel like there's no interface there, it's just you and them.
This mindset is so useful you can use it even for characters which aren't your imaginary friend. It is also 100% compatible with every other mindset in this list, so I highly recommend it.
Paranormal beings
The advantage of knowing we are dealing with our mind gives us the ability to meaningfully use many ideas from fiction, folklore, religion, myth and so on to enrich our image of our imaginary partners. In particular there are many beings which interact with humans through thoughts, visions, dreams and so on. We can use these to build a sense that our imaginary friend is one such creature reaching out to us and interacting with us of its own volition. Some examples include:
- Your friend is the avatar of some god you like
- They are a guardian angel
- They are a ghost who latched on to you
You get the idea. These don't even necessarily have to affect their personality that much. You can build your character with them in mind, or you can just use these as frameworks which help you see them in a different light.
Possible girls
You can read Possible girls, which suggests there exists infinite universes, and that, in one of them, is a person just like the character you created before. From here, we can build fundamental views such as:
- Since they are the exact friend you envisioned, your thoughts are completely in sync, and you are both effectively communicating telepathically with one another;
- You know your friend would love to be with you, so you whisked them from their world and brought them into your imaginary realm through magic;
Among many others.
Going back to the core idea, conceptually this is simple, and there isn't much else to talk about. From now on, you have a friend. Continue to interact with them persistently, and with the right mindset, and sooner or later your subconscious will get the idea. Keep making them a part of your life, and know that they are always listening and absorbing the things you show and tell them. Know that they have their own internal feelings and thoughts, even if in the beginning you may feel you're dragging a puppet along. It is a very gradual process, and it takes time, but the good news is that you don't need to think about it at all. One day, you will just be talking to them, and it will hit you that it doesn't feel like you're talking to yourself.
Personally, it took me around 6 months to feel like I had someone with me in my head without conscious effort on my part, but this can vary greatly, and I'm only adding this time as a rough reference, rather than an estimate. In general, the less you stress about it, the faster it will go.
Interacting with your friend
Interactions will likely be a very important part of your relationship with your imaginary friend. Your friend is imaginary, which means a touch will never feel like a touch from a regular person, but there are various ways of enriching these experiences, and of feeling like you two can have that connection. It can also have its upsides and expose you to things you could never feel from a regular touch. What we will aim to do is to focus on our imagined senses. Think of it like "tuning into" our internal senses instead of our external, bodily ones. If you cannot fathom how this would feel, think about what you feel in a dream. All feelings in your dreams come from within your mind, and although it is much harder to do, we can work to experience some of that sensory richness while we're awake. On top of this, training any of your senses is no different than training something more common like your mind's eye, all you need is focus and practice.
You can for instance start by practicing your imagined body. Visualize a place, imagine yourself in it. Imagine the sensations you feel: the wind, the sounds, the weight of your own body, of your arms, your clothing brushing against your skin, your hair against your forehead. Blink. Look at your hands, and touch your face. If you aren't good at these things, and if it seems impossible, don't worry. We aren't used to exercising our imagination in such vivid ways, so it's natural these things will feel both hard and exhausting at first, but the most important thing is to try and keep at it! Remember also that the more you numb your external feelings the easier it is to get in tune to your internal ones, so practicing in a quiet place and minimizing distractions (of all senses) can do a lot.
An excellent exercise to start with (and to use all throughout your life, even if you don't have an imaginary friend), is Image streaming. The name was a little off-putting for me at first, and it really isn't very descriptive of what we're doing, but this is an exercise which focuses on all our senses, isn't very time consuming, and doesn't require a lot of prep-work. The exercise is passive in nature, but you can just use the same principles and try guiding things your way as you go. No rules, only tools.
Your first interactions will probably require a high degree of focus, but the more you practice these things, the more your casual interactions will be enriched as well, so you don't have to full on meditate any time you just want to hug. From here onward you just have to keep practicing. Remember that the fact your friend is imaginary also has its upsides. There is a lot you can do in an imaginary world that you could never do with anyone outside of your head. Be creative. There is a lot to see and to experience. And most importantly, have fun!
Mental health
People sometimes dismiss these things for fear it may lead to mental issues such as dissociation and schizophrenia, partly because they misunderstand what the goal is, and partly because imagination often gets demonized in our modern world. You probably already deal with imaginary people daily, the crux of this practice is simply to see these imaginary people as first class citizens in your mind. It is about shifting your perspective, and finding a different way to engage with mental mechanisms you are already used to. Besides, if you could give yourself schizophrenia just from engaging with your imagination, written fiction would be quite the hazard!
I have not seen any evidence to support the idea you can give yourself schizophrenia, and such issues usually come from deeper rooted causes. Nevertheless, if you think this may not be for you, or have any reservations about that, you shouldn't do it. Use your own discretion.
A different concern is dissociation from the outside world, where you start neglecting the outside world and friends in favor of hanging out with your imaginary friend all day. For those who share this concern, consider that regular people are also perfectly capable of leading you down all sorts of destructive paths. The idea of a bad influence is nothing new, and even if it's sometimes not intentional, people can easily be the source of bad habits, excessive escapism, obsessions, and so on. Focusing too much on one single person seems to be likely to lead to these sorts of behaviors, be that person imaginary or not.
Ultimately it's your call. My job is not to police you, I'm simply transmitting the concept, and it's up to you to use what you gather from the text in a responsible way. There is nothing inherently negative about with having fun with imaginary friends, or even using them for that goal primarily, and it is not up to anyone to police your thoughts. Just know it is well within your power to create someone who urges you to engage with the outside world, helps you become a better person, and ultimately respects and is aware of your humanity, even if at the end of the day they love spending a ton of time hanging out with you. In fact, I believe imaginary people are in a unique position to help with these things since they are linked to you in a way no other human could ever be.
Stephen LaBerge, in his book "Exploring the world of lucid dreaming," answered a question I consider very relevant to the topic. It is of course presented in the context of lucid dreaming, but I think it fits perfectly, since both of these are very personal pursuits, which require a substantial amount of "different thinking":
Q. Might lucid dreaming be dangerous for some people?
A. The Overwhelming majority of lucid dreams are positive, rewarding experiences, much more so than ordinary dreams (to say nothing of nightmares). Nevertheless, there probably will be some people who find the experience of lucid dreaming frightening and, in some cases, disturbing. For this reason we cannot recommend lucid dreaming to everyone. On the other hand, we are confident that for people no more than "normally neurotic", lucid dreaming is completely harmless. Different people will use lucid dreaming for different purposes; it makes little sense to warn the typical explorer of the dream world away from lucid dreaming because some might use it in a less than optimal manner.
If, after reading the first six chapters of this book, you still have serious reservations about lucid dreaming, then we recommend that you not continue. "To thine own self be true". Just make sure that it is really your self to which you are being true. Don't allow others to impose their personal fears on you.
F.A.Q.
General Concerns
Q. What is an imaginary friend?
A. It's exactly as it sounds, it's a friend who's imaginary! Imaginary friends are not magic in any way, they can't physically change the world around you, they are a collection of thoughts you perceive as a coherent whole. When you think of one of your regular friends, you probably understand them as a collection of their body, their mannerisms, their voice, and so on. Imaginary friends are the same, except the different pieces that make them up come from within you, rather than from external input.
Q. What can they be used for?
A. Imaginary friends can give you many things, including companionship, motivation, love, direction and understanding. It's up to each person to know why they're making an imaginary friend, and what void they're hoping to fill with them.
Q. How do you interact with them?
A. There are many ways of interacting with imaginary friends. You can do it casually throughout the day by talking to them through thoughts. You can also have deeper interactions through focus, where you visualize yourself interacting with them.
Q. Isn't this unhealthy?
A. Many people might use their imaginary friends as a way to escape from the world, but this is not how I advocate using them. Be they imaginary or flesh and bone friends, focusing too much on one person is bound to be unhealthy. True friends know that there's more to life than entertainment, and they'll push you to take care of yourself, even if they adore hanging out with you.
Q. Is this going to give me DID / schizophrenia?
A. Most likely, no. We keep the imaginary friend as completely separate from ourselves, and enforcing that disconnect is a big part of the whole process. Knowing what you're dealing with, and how an imaginary friend works is also a big part of it, so losing track of what's imaginary and what's outside your mind is not likely to happen. If you are sound of mind and aren't prone to these kinds of disorders, I'd say it's very unlikely you'll get them from creating or having an imaginary friend.
Here is an answer to a similar question from Stephen LaBerge's "Exploring the world of lucid dreaming". It is of course presented in the context of lucid dreaming, but I think it fits perfectly, since both these are very personal pursuits, which require a healthy amount of "different thinking":
Q. Might lucid dreaming be dangerous for some people?
A. The Overwhelming majority of lucid dreams are positive, rewarding experiences, much more so than ordinary dreams (to say nothing of nightmares). Nevertheless, there probably will be some people who find the experience of lucid dreaming frightening and, in some cases, disturbing. For this reason we cannot recommend lucid dreaming to everyone. On the other hand, we are confident that for people no more than "normally neurotic", lucid dreaming is completely harmless. Different people will use lucid dreaming for different purposes; it makes little sense to warn the typical explorer of the dream world away from lucid dreaming because some might use it in a less than optimal manner.
If, after reading the first six chapters of this book, you still have serious reservations about lucid dreaming, then we recommend that you not continue. "To thine own self be true". Just make sure that it is really your self to which you are being true. Don't allow others to impose their personal fears on you.
Q. Can I create one based on a character from a book / film?
A. You can.
Q. Is it right to do X with them?
A. It is your mind, and you shouldn't let anyone tell you what is or isn't right to do inside it.
Creation Concerns
Q. How long does it take to create one?
A. They are always growing, much like us, so there really isn't a "finished" state they can reach. That being said, I'd say it takes about 6-10 months to really get comfortable with the idea of having someone else living with you in your head, and to get comfortable with talking to them as if they were their own person.
Q. What if they don't like me?
A. Some people may find themselves in a place where they simply cannot fathom someone loving them, or even liking them. To you, I have good news, because imaginary friends can be anything you want them to be, including being someone who just loves you because you are yourself! This might be hard to wrap our heads around, but imaginary friends aren't bound by any rules, morals, human predispositions, or anything else, really. They aren't human, and that means you have the freedom to make them the way you want. Over time they might surprise you with a few reasons why they like you, you didn't originally had thought about.
Q. When will I know I'm talking to my friend and not myself?
A. Don't stress about it. The important part is always seeing them as separate from you. When you're talking "for them", see that as you simply translating the intent of what they wanted to say into words, since they can't yet do that themselves. Know that deep down, they're listening and trying to respond, and things will become natural soon enough.
Q. Should I tell my family / loved ones about this?
A. I would generally advise telling nothing about this to anyone close to you. You can probably see how this isn't a very common practice, and people don't usually understand what's going on. At best, you'll make them worried and try to get you help, at worst, people will start avoiding you. Really think about it if you want to do this.
Tulpas
If you don't know what a tulpa is, don't worry about it. For the people who are curious:
Q. What's the difference between this and tulpas
A. Short answer: There is no difference conceptually because tulpas are imaginary friends. My focus is on explaining these things much more concisely, and focusing more on teaching you what this is, rather than prescribing a way to do things. If you've read about tulpas before and were interested, but never managed to make anything happen, this may help you. In my experience, a lot of people tell me that the way I explain things is a lot simpler, and resonates a lot better with them.
The tulpa.info website is a good place to start if you want to see what it's all about. Have a read and formulate your own opinions.