Imaginary Companions and Their Relationship to Creativity, Readers and Writers
My Former Best Friend Herb Pushes Me Into A Research Rabbit Hole or Two
When I was about 3 years old, a fellow named Herb just showed up one day. I don’t know where he came from. I don’t know where he lived. I can’t remember what he looked like. I do remember that he didn’t talk. He just listened. He was a great listener. He was also my best friend. Herb stuck around until I was 7 or 8 years old. Then one day as mysteriously as he had appeared, Herb was gone, never to return. .
In case you haven’t figured it out, Herb was my imaginary friend, what modern developmental psychologists refer to as an “imaginary companion.” Now, I was raised in the 1950’s. There was a great deal of bunkum spread about during that era concerning imaginary friends that parents often took to heart. There were concerns on the part of both the so-called experts and parents, based on no scientific evidence whatsoever, that imaginary friends represented a potential serious childhood issue or even a mental health concern for the children “so afflicted.”
I may not remember much about Herb, but I do clearly remember the moment my mother expressed her concerns about Herb to me directly. Mom, Dad, my brother Tim and I were out for a Sunday afternoon drive in the country, something we regularly engaged in back then, it being a cheap form of entertainment and all. Tim was asleep. I was talking to Herb. Suddenly, Mom turned around, looked at me harshly and said, “Craig, only crazy people talk to themselves. Stop it right now!” I was probably 6 years old at the time. I was stunned, as only a six-year old can be stunned. I ceased talking to Herb immediately, at least until we got home, where, in the privacy of my bedroom, I talked to Herb about what Mom had said. Herb listened quietly and offered no reply, as he was wont to do.
This essay was originally going to be about Herb, imaginary friends (or imaginary companions, if you prefer) and the current psychological research regarding them. As I was researching this topic, and without making an actual appearance, Herb led me in a different, but related direction altogether. I’ll get to that shortly.
If you are at all familiar with my work here on Substack, you may know that I do not write much fiction. There are two exceptions to this so far; both are essays appearing in the My Personal Alternate Universe section of my Doc’s Mindful Holiday Substack. I really don’t consider either of these essays to be true fiction. They are more examples of what I call “fictionalized reality.” Other than that, I have only written true fiction twice in my life.
The first time was a short story I wrote as an assignment in 6th grade. It was entitled Ed McCollough and the Green Mountain Boys. Ed McCollough was my 6th grade teacher—the first male teacher I had encountered to that point in my education. The Green Mountain Boys were some of my classmates. The story involved our adventures in outer space. Other than that, I recall nothing about the story, except that when I read it aloud in class, it evoked gales of laughter from the class and from Mr. McCollough too. Briefly thereafter I wondered if my future was as a comedy writer.
The second fictional tale I wrote was an assignment in 10th grade. I wrote, badly I will say, a story about hunting deer, falling down a small cliff, and breaking my leg. I recall nothing else about this story except that this time when I read it aloud in class the reaction of the listeners was, shall we say, much less charitable. There was no laughter, but there was unbridled “literary criticism” if you catch my drift. This experience is one of the main reasons why I have generally avoided writing fiction ever since. That, and a serious lack of imagination for plot, characters and other useful writing devices usually found in works of fiction.
“What,” you may be asking yourselves, “is the connection between imaginary companions and writing fiction?” I’m glad you asked. Modern psychology indicates that 65% or more of children develop imaginary companions between 2 and 3 years of age. This is the age when children’s imaginations are beginning to develop, and the time when they first gain the ability to pretend. There is evidence that children who are particularly adept with imaginary companions often turn out to have an increased capacity for creativity as adults. Hence, the connection between imaginary companions and creativity, including writing. Further, children with active imaginary companions are often also voracious readers. Most writers know from our own experiences the tight connection between being a reader and being a writer. H. G. Parry said, “… reading is itself an act of creation—stories can’t exist as more than words without a reader doing half the work.”
At this point in my research for my proposed essay on imaginary companions, Herb pushed me into the first research rabbit hole. On February 14, 2017, RIchard Lea reported in The Guardian on a study from Durham University in the UK. Lea’s article was entitled “Fictional Characters Make ‘Experimental Crossings’ into Real Life , Study Finds.” The Durham University researchers found that 1 in 5 readers said that fictional characters stayed with them when they were not reading, influencing their thoughts and reactions. While not established as a causal factor, many of these readers also had childhood imaginary companions.
These readers were described as having “thin boundaries.” All humans have a certain amount of physical space we like to maintain between ourselves and others we are interacting with. This space is our “boundary.” Those of us with thin boundaries tend to be more open-minded, sensitive, vulnerable, trusting, spontaneous, and accepting of new beliefs. We also tend to view the world in terms of shades of gray.
The researchers noted that these readers with thin boundaries also had increased “transluminality.” Transluminality was first described in 2008 by Australian psychologist Michael Thalbourne. He defined it as a hypersensitivity to psychological material, such as imagery, ideation, affect, and perception, arising in the unconscious and the external environment. Readers with this trait tend to be open to new experiences, including mystical experiences, and to have increased levels of creativity.
There are other studies listed in the suggested readings below that reinforce the concept that fictional characters crossover into the lives of fiction readers in important, impactful ways. In my own life, I can readily think of two instances where this happened to me. I spent a good portion of my pre-teen years reading the Hardy Boys novels. These were a seemingly endless series of books written under the collective pseudonym of Franklin W. Dixon, who in fact did not exist. The books were actually ghost-written by a cadre of writers, the most prominent of whom was Leslie McFarlane. The books were about a pair of brothers, Frank and Joe Hardy, who spent their time solving slightly bizarre mysteries. These books had titles like “The Tower Treasure,” “The House on the Cliff,” and “The Secret of the Old Mill.” For several of my teenage years, thanks to the mystery solving skills of these fictional brothers, I seriously considered a career as an FBI agent. I even met with the local Special Agent in our town who was a customer at my father’s auto repair garage. This same Special Agent would later help locate my brother Tim when he ran away from home not once, but twice.
In 9th grade, I read my first Sherlock Holmes story—”The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” I was hooked. After that introduction, I soon read and re-read every Holmes story and novel I could get my hands on. I devoured everything I possibly could about Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to be Sherlock Holmes. In college I even wore a deerstalker cap and smoked a Meerschaum pipe, just like Holmes! It was the sixties, so no one noticed (I think/hope). What appealed to me the most about Holmes was his problem-solving abilities and techniques. It was also fascinating to me that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based his character of Holmes on Dr. John Bell, one of his medical school professors. Indirectly, I believe Holmes and his side-kick Dr. John Watson led me to my career in medicine. I still raise a small class of port every January 6th (the fictional Holmes’ birthday) to toast my hero. Aren’t fictional characters great?
Once I extricated myself from this research rabbit hole, my old friend Herb promptly shoved me down another. In 2020, psychologist John Foxwell and his colleagues reported that “A large number of [fiction] writers report vivid experiences of ‘hearing’ their characters talking to them, talking back to them, and exhibiting an atypical degree of independence and autonomy.” Foxwell found that 69% of these writers heard the voices of their characters. 42% entered into conversations with their characters, Many of the writers reporting this phenomenon had childhood imaginary companions. Again, no causal relationship has been established, but the possibility is intriguing.
Some researchers think that in some ways fictional characters are in fact analogous to childhood imaginary companions, which some children have reported to be willful and independent. These researchers consider these writers and children with imaginary companions to be so-called “expert pretenders.” When you think about it, that is likely a valuable trait to have as a writer of fiction.
Post-script: This writer/character phenomenon is not limited to just writers. Other creatives report similar happenings. For instance, composer Robert Schumann believed that his compositions were communicated to him by other (dead) composers, such as Beethoven.
One of the great joys of being a writer, I have discovered, is doing the research necessary for whatever subject or topic one is planning to write about. In turn, one of the great pleasures of researching is finding oneself falling down a rabbit hole that leads to a related but entirely unknown (to the writer, at least) subject or topic. I believe that most writers are life-long students. We thrive on acquiring new knowledge. Such new knowledge may have no practical use to us whatsoever, BUT it might, just might, turn out to be what we want to write about next. My high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Dayton, referred to such events as examples of “serendipity.” She believed serendipity was a potent life force for all of us. It certainly is for this writer. Thanks for going down these two rabbit holes with me. I hope you enjoyed the trip!
Suggested Readings:
“What to Know About Imaginary Friends” Health line, Jamie Elder, published online January 24, 2020.
“Children’s play with their imaginary companions. Parent experiences and perception of the characteristics of imaginary companions and purposes sensed” Educational and Child Psychology, 34 (3) 2017, K. Majors and E. Bines.
“Imaginary Companions, Inner Speech, and Auditory Hallucinations: What Are the Relations?” Frontiers of Psychology, 10, 2019, Ferryhough, et al.
“Imaginary Friends: Harmful or Beneficial?” Psychology Today, S. Newman, PhD, published online January 21, 2020.
“Imaginary Companions: Not Just for Kids” Psychology Today, M. Jawer, published online October 16, 2021.
“The Intoxicating Power of Fictional Characters That Spill Into the Reader’s World” Literary Hub, H.G. Parry, published online August 9, 2019.
“Mimetic and synthetic views of characters: How readers process ‘people’ in fiction” Cogent Arts & Humanities, Merja Polvinen and Howard Sklar, published online November 14, 2019.
“Reader’s experiences of fiction and nonfiction influencing critical thinking” Journal of Librarianship and Information Sciences, Vol. 91), pp.18-32, 2023.
“How Do Some Authors ‘Lose Control’ of Their Characters?” Literary Hub, Jim Davies, published online December 18, 2019.
“Most Authors Can Hear Their Characters Speaking to Them: Fiction Writers Hear, See, and Interact with Their Characters” Psychology Today, Ainsley Hawthorne, PhD, published online September 30, 2020.
Better yet:
Even better: