TRACY GLEASON: They come in all shapes, sizes.
SPEAKER 2: Big.
SPEAKER 3: He's big.
SPEAKER 2: He's this big.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: Children surprise us all the time
with what they come up with.
[CHOMPING]
MAJORIE TAYLOR: A shark?
TRACY GLEASON: This Idea that something
can be real and fantasy all at the same time.
That's an amazing capacity.
SPEAKER 5: We've got an image in our heads of a child,
sitting alone, talking to some unseen entity.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: The child was shy,
and maybe a little out of touch with reality.
SPEAKER 5: Definitely stuck in their own world.
TRACY GLEASON: Children who were lonely, kind of at best.
Or had some sort of psychopathology, at worse.
SPEAKER 5: Something has gone wrong.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: A lot of times when imaginary friends show up
in a movie, it's time to take the child to the psychiatrist.
SPEAKER 5: These cultural representations
of children with imagine companions put
a fantasy in our heads.
And for a long time, professional psychiatric
research backed it up.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: A lot of the research
came from clinical studies of children
who were having problems, and it was
discovered that, yes they did have imaginary friends.
So having an imaginary friend became
associated with having some kind of difficulty.
SPEAKER 5: In fact, when developmental psychologist Dr.
Marjorie Taylor first began her work in the field in the 1990s,
there was a lot of research on this phenomenon.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: When I first started out,
I wanted to find out who's the typical kid who has one,
and what's the typical imaginary friend like?
And it was hard to pin it down.
SPEAKER 5: For example, how do you define
what an imaginary companion is?
MAJORIE TAYLOR: Deciding if we're
going to count something as being an imaginary friend
or not, it's extremely messy.
Some people only want to talk about the invisible variety.
But that means if you have a little boy like Calvin
from Calvin and Hobbes, that child
would be classified as someone who did not
have an imaginary friend.
And we know that that's not true.
Objects can be imbued with all kinds of personality
and character, and children can listen to what
those objects have to say.
TRACY GLEASON: I heard once about a child who
had very close relationship with one of those little 4 or 6
ounce cans of tomato paste.
TOMATO CAN: Timmy, where'd you go.
I don't have eyes in the back of my can.
Oh there you are, I missed you.
TRACY GLEASON: When it's so easy to carry around that way,
why not.
They were good pals.
SPEAKER 5: And then there's the problem of unreliable interview
subjects.
TRACY GLEASON: Talking to a child
about an imaginary companion, you
no idea what's going to come out.
SPEAKER 7: Her shoes hide in my shoes.
TRACY GLEASON: I see.
They'll tell you something and you think,
what are they talking about?
Blue, red, yellow--
SPEAKER 8: Black.
TRACY GLEASON: Black?
SPEAKER 8: No, blue, grey, yellow, black.
TRACY GLEASON: Blue, grey, yellow and black.
SPEAKER 5: Typically, developmental psychologists
like Dr. Tracy Gleason get their data from fidgety
or overly excited interviewees.
TRACY GLEASON: You have said, "do you
have an imaginary companion?"
And they think, what a great idea.
So they say, "yes, yes I do."
And they'll report on some imaginary companion
that they're making up right on the spot.
Do you have any friends like that?
SPEAKER 8: No.
Actually, I have one.
SPEAKER 5: So researchers conduct multiple interviews
with the child and their parents,
just to be sure the information is accurate.
In the process, Dr. Gleason, Dr. Taylor, and other researchers
have discovered that the phenomenon
occurs more frequently than anybody could've imagined.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: If you follow children up to the age of 7,
it's probably in the neighborhood of 60%, 65%.
If you only want to include the invisible types,
it's more like 38%.
SPEAKER 5: Similar results have been
observed across a diversity of ethnic groups.
In fact, when the behavior is so common,
it's hard to pin down who was the stereotypical child who
has one.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: There's really not much difference between
children who do have imaginary friends,
and children who don't.
SPEAKER 5: But they do have some shared attributes.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: Girls are somewhat more
likely to have imaginary friends than boys.
TRACY GLEASON: Children who create imaginary companions
really like pretend play, like fantasy.
And they are also very sociable.
They like people.
They are less shy, so it's exactly
the opposite of a stereotype.
SPEAKER 5: If these are social kids,
why do they need to create imaginary relationships?
I think there are a lot of different reasons,
but the main one is just because the child has some free time
and so they just invent a friend to talk to.
SPEAKER 5: Do you have any imaginary friends?
You do?
How many?
What are their names?
SPEAKER 9: Alice and Jewel.
They're twins.
SPEAKER 5: Do they look like you?
SPEAKER 9: Um, yes.
But they have pink skin.
SPEAKER 5: Can I see them?
SPEAKER 9: Yeah.
They're just right behind me on the pillow.
See?
SPEAKER 5: Oh!
OK.
SPEAKER 9: They're really good hiders.
SPEAKER 5: They were hiding back there the whole time?
What sort of stuff do they like to do with you?
SPEAKER 9: Play games.
SPEAKER 5: What games do you like guys play?
SPEAKER 9: Hide and go seek.
SPEAKER 5: And are they good at hiding?
SPEAKER 9: Yeah, because they're so small, I don't even
know where they are.
TRACY GLEASON: I like to think the stereotypical reason
you create an imaginary companion is because it's fun,
and why wouldn't you?
Because then you have this person
that you can interact with, anytime or anywhere.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: If you have created this character.
And you are thinking things over,
your mulling something over that's going on your life,
you can talk to your imaginary friend,
and imagine what the character would say in response.
SPEAKER 9: One time, mommy and daddy hurt their feelings.
SPEAKER 5: What did mommy and daddy say
to hurt their feelings?
SPEAKER 9: They said they're really, really tiny.
SPEAKER 5: So we're not supposed to talk about how big they are?
Because that hurts their feelings?
SPEAKER 9: Yes.
SPEAKER 5: As for classifying the imaginary characters
themselves.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: They can be just about anything.
Dipper was flying dolphin that lived on a far away star.
I liked Bainter, the little boy that lived in the light.
You can't see him because he's white.
So many different types, it just blows my mind at times.
SPEAKER 5: With such diversity, how is a researcher supposed
to make sense of it all?
MAJORIE TAYLOR: I was frustrated by trying to do that,
and I realized, no, the finding is the diversity.
That's the finding.
That has resulted in really a deep respect
for the developing imagination of children in general.
SPEAKER 5: Many of these children
form deep attachments to their companions.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: They love them.
I mean, that love is real.
And I was curious, do they think they actually exist somewhere?
SPEAKER 5: They certainly behave like they're real.
MAJORIE TAYLOR: They are sitting there, talking to you,
you're listening carefully, and writing down what they say.
And at some point they want to clarify,
you know it's a little pretend girl.
I just made her up.
You know it's not real.
SPEAKER 5: So what exactly are they thinking?
On the next episode of The Real Guide to Imaginary Companions.
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