Imaginary Friends are a psychological and social phenomenon where a friendship takes place in the imagination rather in physical reality. To the person, usually a child, the friend is real, and they often get frustrated when others can’t see their friend. Often, as they grow older, children lose their imaginary friends, whether that friend leaves, or is simply forgotten over time, we may never know. For one little girl, she shared her imaginary friend with the world when she first wrote, “This is Lisa.”
In a series of drawings/journal entries, this little girl introduces her friend, Lisa. If it were just a single entry, it could easily be dismissed. However, as the entries continue, things take a darker turn. Was Lisa real? And if so, what was she?
This is Lisa. She is my friend. My mom and dad can’t see her so they say she is an imaginary friend. Lisa is a nice friend.
Today I tried to plant a flower in the yard. I tried to plant it by the sandbox but Lisa said that’s where her daddy is sleeping, so I planted it in a cup of dirt.
Lisa is at school with me today. I brought her for show and tell, but Mrs Monroe got angry because she can’t see Lisa. Lisa got sad so she hid in the chalkboard eraser.
Yesterday was my birthday party. Mommy bought pizza but no one came. Lisa said people came to the porch and left. But they left presents. I got 3 Barbies, some shoes, and 5 dollars. Me and Lisa played Barbies.
Mrs Monroe is absent today. Our substitute is named Mrs Digman. She is pretty and nice and is letting us have snack time after diary time. I wish Mrs Digman can stay our teacher.
Today Jonathan Parker stole my pencil case. Mrs Digman can’t find it, so she made him give me his pencils. Lisa came to school too but Mrs Digman can’t see her but she said she believes that Lisa is real.
Yesterday, me and Lisa went on a long walk, until the moon came out. Daddy got mad and said Lisa is stupid and fake. Lisa got sad and disappeared. Today she didn’t come to school but Mrs Digman said Mrs Monroe won’t come back.
Daddy was at work all day yesterday. He didn’t come home to eat his dinner. Today he is still at work. Mom packed me a pudding in my lunch today. Pudding is my favorite.
I miss Lisa. Daddy is really busy at work. He didn’t come home at the weekend. Mom is angry at him. I’m going to write a letter for Lisa.
Dear Lisa, I miss you. Please come back. I’m sorry for when my daddy was mean. You are my best friend.
Lisa came back yesterday. She said sorry for leaving and I told her my dad won’t come home. Lisa said Mrs Monroe and him are sleeping like her dad. I hope they wake up soon.
We don’t know what happened after the last entry. Was this little girl really seeing and interacting with an evil entity? Did she “outgrow” her imaginary friend over time? Did something happen to the little girl and the rest of her family?
The abundance of tales from children having imaginary friends leads many to speculate that it’s not just their imagination. Some believe kids are seeing ghosts.
“There are admittedly lots of reports of kids seeing ghosts,” says Jacqueline D. Woolley, psychology professor at the University of Texas. Woolley’s research dives deep into children’s evaluation and understanding of reality vs. the fantastical.
Child psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker is open to not only the psychological, but also the paranormal explanation. “We don’t take the approach of believer or nonbeliever. We research and explore the phenomenon of children who report past lives,” he says.
Stories of kids seeing dead relatives, even some who were dead long before the child was born, abound. “When you hear enough stories like that, you do start to think there must be something there,” Tucker said. “I’m open to it, that’s all I can say.”
If you visit reddit, you will find numerous accounts of children and their imaginary friends. Many believe that the imaginary friend was actually a dead relative.
A thread from AskReddit, asked users “What’s the scariest story you heard a child tell about their ‘imaginary friend’?”
Here are a couple of those stories.
From Reddit u/uwu_SenpaiSatan:
So this is actually my story of when I was a kid. I had an imaginary friend named Derek who was a carbon copy of me. We were completely identical. I played with Derek for years, longer than what normal kids do. But he would always look at my mom and older sister with a sense of sadness.
Eventually, he went away. 23 years later, I’m digging through my mom’s safe to grab some paperwork she’s kept for me, and I see a stillborn death certificate for a boy named Derek who shared my birthday.
It was only then I found out I was actually a twin and my twin, Derek, died during birth. Creepy, right?
From Reddit u/doesitfeelbad:
When I was little, it was pretty firmly established that I had an imaginary friend named “Other.”
Other had the same name as me, so I just called him Other.
I would tell my mom that Other was being mean to me and wants to steal Dad’s bike.
I remember I told my father that Other was very mad at him for hurting me (he was an abusive piece of work), and he literally threw me across the room.
I asked my mom about it as an adult, and she told me my father had a brother that I was named after and wasn’t told about because shortly before I was born, he died in a motorcycle accident
From Reddit u/professor_dog:
Purple mommy. When my son was first learning to talk, he would tell us about something called “purple mommy.” It could be an imaginary friend, but these details are a little bit creepy. Purple mommy is all purple with long hair and bright, all-white eyes (at the time, he mixed up purple with black, so he could have meant she was all black).
Purple mommy picks him up at night and turns off the lights. We would often find my son out of his crib in the morning, which would mean him crawling over the railing and to the ground at a time when he was barely walking. Definitely found the lights in his room off a few times, too, even though he’s terrified of the dark. Purple mommy needs a bandage because she has blood everywhere. Purple mommy has no smile, meaning a mouth. Purple mommy can take her head off. Purple mommy really doesn’t like Daddy.
He told us all of this stuff for maybe a year or a little more. If we ever asked where she was, he’d always point to the same spot. A corner of the room behind his open closet door. He would also wake up crying almost every night during this time. Once, during a really rough night, my wife went to ask him what’s wrong, and his answer was, “Purple mommy won’t let me sleep.”
The stories go on and on. So are imaginary friends just a figment of our imagination, or are they evidence of the paranormal. Was Lisa real? We may never know.
Next, move on from Imaginary Friends into the world of cute doc picture, Smile.jpg. But is it really that cute?
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