At some point in our innocent lives, we've had wild imaginations in which we've conjured up companions to play with.
And them we devloped something called cynicism as we got older and forgot about these imaginary friends.
But the following parents haven't forgotten about these so-called playmates for their children.
Curious to hear anecdotes from strangers online, Redditor TheCatAteMyGymsuit asked:
"Parents, what weird or creepy stories do you have about your child's imaginary friend?"
Do You Hear What They Hear?
Some people talk about hearing voices in their head. And some would rather not go down that dark memory lane.
The Secret Mum
"A few years ago, my niece kept telling her Mom about her 'Secret Mommy' who lives in the corner of her bedroom, only comes out at night when no one but her is up, and talks to her. The whole family was terrified until they figured out it was actually an old alarm clock in the room set to a talk radio station that went off at 3 am every night. 😅"
Inner Voices
"I asked my parents and apparently I was in therapy for a handful of weeks because I was 'hearing voices.'"
"Around 5 or 6, kids start to develop their internal monologue."
"It was me, I was hearing my own thoughts..."
"Terrifying."
– ichigoli
Confused Crazy Ex Girlfriend GIFGiphyVisions
You wouldn't want to see what these kids saw.
Being Watched
"Not really an imaginary friend but something still creepy. I don't know if it counts but I want to share. We briefly rented a townhouse while waiting to purchase a house. While living in this townhouse, I had always felt creeped out by my bedroom. It had a wall of windows on one side. Even as a grown woman, I felt uncomfortable being in the room after dark and felt like I was being watched by something in the room. I never mentioned it to my daughter."
"Fast forward to us living in our own house that we bought. My daughter starts having nightmares and is scared to be in her room. One night I asked her about the nightmares. She said it was of a ghost that said that he followed us from the room with all the windows."
What The Daughter Sees
"In the past I have seen things out of the corner of my eye and glance to see nothing there... of course that's just my eyes being weird and I stopped paying attention to those things. Well, my daughter is just a toddler and I had her sitting in my lap reading a book. I see something in the corner of my eye as usual and my daughter quick looks over there. She then stares wide-eyed at nothing and watches it cross through the room. This has happened THREE TIMES. She's not at the point to where she can communicate what she is looking at but we are pretty close. If it happens again I'll ask her what she sees."
– TheW83
Ghost Dog
"Not an imaginary friend but still creepy."
"My older sister had a German Shepherd that had passed away named Harley."
"My daughter was about 2.5 years old at the time and is in bed with my sister watching TV. She points to the end of the bed and says 'that Harley?'. My daughter did not know about the dog and certainly didn't know the name Harley."
– urbjam
They Have Names
Just because they can be identified by name does not always make them less creepy.
Meet Bob
"My daughter started saying 'Bob' before she learned how to say 'mama' or 'dada.' She would say it all the time at random times. One time I was in the nursery rocking her to sleep when she said it and so I asked, 'Who's Bob?' She pointed up at the corner of the ceiling behind me."
"Mr. Sohail"
"This isnt creepy just odd! My 4 year old sons current imaginary friend is Haris Sohail,a Pakistani Cricketer who plays in the national league in Pakistan. He apparantly has the same teddies as my son, cycles alongside him and went on a camping holiday with us last Summer. We are Irish living in Ireland, my husband plays cricket a little during Summer but he cannot for the life of him understand where my son learned about Mr Sohail!"
– Vixen35
Not Just Anybody
"Mr. Nobody."
"He started as the person the kids would blame if one of them forgot to flush the toilet. And then his mythology evolved. For the record, all of this was concieved by 3 of my kids who at the time were 6 5, and 3:"
"Mr Nobody has no eyes, no teeth, no tongue and no nose. He doesn't wear pants and leaves the used toilet paper between his butt cheeks so you can tell where he is by his smell. He doesn't wear a shirt, but has a pocket cut into his skin where he keeps the key to our house. He can be invisible. He had a beard since he was a baby. He bites off his fingernails and then drips blood where he walks."
"A friend of mine drew him at the time: https://imgur.com/D0KX2xp.jpg"
"Thankfully, been a few years since Mr Nobody has been in our house now."
A Concerning Situation
"Out of my four kids, only my eldest son (now 20 years old) had an imaginary friend. It's name was Barsie and it was a giant wolf, but could transform into a boy. Anyway, my wife and I didn't think much about Barsie until we noticed that my son had broken a plastic butter knife and stabbed quite a few of his stuffed animals. He told us that Barsie had told him to do and had even helped. That was when we really got concerned."
"My son had anger issues as a child and the reason for that is that, while I call him my son, he is my step son. His biological father lost custody because of drug related crimes and just abandoned him. My son has always thought of me as his dad, but was still extremely angry about the situation with his biological. Anyway, we took him in to get some counseling after an incident involving a lighter that he found on the ground outside our apartment. He had tried to burn his baby brother's favorite toy."
"While in counseling it came to light that Barsie was planning to eat our family and to pee our blood all over the apartment. This was the beginning of my son's counseling and mild medications. Barsie disappeared over a few months and we were able to take my son off the medication the following year. He remained in counseling for quite a few years, but Barsie was never mentioned again."
Under The Bed
Things that go bump in the night take refuge under your cozy bed. Wanna look?
Nice Monster
"My wife and I were sitting for our nephew. He kept coming downstairs because there was a monster under his bed. So I marched upstairs grabbed the monster from under the bed, dragged it downstairs, opened the door and threw it out into the night."
"Nephew burst into tears and was inconsolable because that was the nice monster and not the nasty monster."
"So 11pm on a dark Saturday night and I am crawling around a damn wet garden looking for an imaginary monster and trying to apologise so my nephew could go to sleep!"
A Bunch Of Croc
"Not really an imaginary friend but I had an imaginary family of alligators that lived under my bed when I was a kid. Often times I'd get so scared I'd sleep in my brothers room bc the Daddy alligator wouldn't come out to scare me if I was with my brother."
I didn't have imaginary friends, but I pretended I was friends was someone I really wanted to be friends with. Does that count?
Probably not.
But I'll leave you with this. My invisible "friends" were more of a sinister type. They wore leather jackets and hats and Ray Bans. They often visited me in my dreams and chased me on their motorbikes.
I think it was from watching an episode of the Twilight Zone that featured a biker gang.
Jealous?