From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the show. My name is Noel. Sitting here to my left is Matt the Invisible Matt. He's a mattagineary for this episode or imaginary yep uh. And if they called me Ben, we're joined with our long suffering super producer Paul decons. Most importantly, you are you and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Noel, did you ever have an imaginary friend growing up? Serious question? Yeah? No, I I've thought about that and I've I've ultimately decided that I did not, and it made me sad. But is it more sad to have one or to not have one? You tell me, Yeah, it's a It's a question that I think depends on people's perspective. Earlier, before he went on the air, we were asking Paul whether he had an imaginary friend, and he he told us that by the time he growing up realized what that concept was, maybe he had already sort of missed the window and realized that you know, there was a difference between what is real and what is imagined. And did you know anybody who said they had an imaginary friend? I knew some people when I was you know, my younger days, who said that they knew someone, and sometimes it was uncreative. I grew up in preschool there was a kid who had an imaginary friend. You know. His name was Ethan. That's just not very You know what happened to like Admiral squack in tops? Yeah? What was the one from inside out? Mm hmm, I don't remember. I think mainly have dropped dead Fred. Oh, that was a good Now the one from inside I was bing Bong Um and he's like a magical elephants and it is one of the most heart wrenching sequences and any film, animated or otherwise. And I will stand by that to my dying breath. When Bing Bong something happens to Bing Bong just put it that way. Has to do with growing up. Oh gosh. Yes, And some of this episode touches upon the very same rites of passage. We could call them today, friends and neighbors, imaginary friends, those non corporeal, non physical associates, confidence family members, loved by children across the world and throughout the ages or often than not, they're regarded as a phase of sorts. Right, yeah, it's true. Um, so today we're here to work out exactly what it means when we say imaginary friend, Matt, what do you think? Matt says that. According to developmental psychologist Tracy Gleeson, Uh, it is tough to predict or even measure quantify what a child will actually say. Um, when asked this question, what is your imaginary friend? We've said do you have an imaginary companion? And they respond that sounds awesome, So they go, yes, yes, of course I do. That's like me, I wish I did. Sure, I don't think I did, but I you know, I would like to have had that, And they begin to improvise. Maybe I wasn't creative enough as a child. Don't beat yourself up. But it's a great point. They will begin to confirm what they want to have. True, guess I do have a friend. His name is Ethan. He wears a red jumpsuit, you know. And then it's easy once you have that basis to explore and create details. So for psychologists, it's difficult to know whether a child is improvising this as we said, or whether they're describing, you know, someone as real as Matt standing here right, totally nodding. He's nodding, And you make a great point, Matt. Psychologists divvy up the broad category of imaginary friends into two groups. They're completely invisible pals and then they're personified objects. And this is this is where we see stuff like a favorite stuffed animal or the horror trope of the haunted doll. Well, and sometimes don't those things merge? Couldn't you have an imaginary friend that embodies said favorite stuffed toy totally? Right? Like Ethan used to not have a home, but now he lives inside this VHS cassette. I had this thing. It was. His name was Teddy Ruxpan and he I swear to you, he talked, and I've been familiar with Teddy Roxman. Did you ever put a like a heavy metal album or some underground hip hop into his cassette player? Cassette player? Right, Well, I guess mine came with a cassette player. But I don't want to ruin this for you. Teddy Teddy was my pal. He probably still is, you know, maybe he can maybe he can reach out to him. They'll actually, I'm joking, But then you hear that the new Teddy Ruxpan is like Internet connected and can like pull phrases and stuff off the web. It's almost like an Alexa in toy form. That's spooky cool. No, not cool. Stop normalizing constant surveillance, right. According to Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler, an imaginary friend is a made up or unreal companion that typically provides comfort or support to a child. When it's an invisible friend, they'll say something along the lines of Annie is my pal. She goes everywhere with me, and you can't see her, but I can see her. And then there are also these imaginary friends that are these personified objects, so to Noel's example, like a Teddy Ruxpan. And according to Dr Ziegler, the relationship there is more of a caretaking thing, like I am taking my stuffed animal with me because they only like particular things and only I know how to make these sandwiches for them or put them to bed. It's like a way of developing um qualities of nurturing. Maybe you know that's a really good point. Yeah, And when Ziegler says, these can be imaginary friends. It's it's exactly the way that you just describe it and older assigning these animate qualities to an object, right, And I'm no psychologist, but it occurs to me that you know, um, young girls, and I'm you know, my my daughter is is a is a young girl. Um, maybe focus a little more on that nurturing lesson and the boys maybe are a little more lighting and learning how to be more rough and tumble and like, you know, fighting and stuff. And we have to wonder how much of that is society, you know, I'm sure it's like all society. It's just an observation, totally totally off the cuff. But because we remember, you know, I'd be very interested in the history of toys, uh, to find who made the decision to call to call something an action figure. If it's for a boy and a doll, if it's for a girl, you know, that's maybe a story for a different show, or a little bit of an Edward Burnet show. So these objects aren't, of course limited to things like dolls or stuffed animals. There's an expert who says she once heard about a child who formed get this a close relationship with a can of tomato paste and separable bonds. Appealing looking can I mean you're talking about the smaller ones. They that's what I would want to be friends. The regular sized ones just seemed too aggressive, So the smaller ones a little more endearing anything to me? Yeah, it's cute. And although there is some levity in this, it's also true that imaginary friends are more common than we might wait for it. Imagine, I know it's a rough one. Go on. Well, approximately of American children between the ages of three and six developed some sort of imaginary companion. And that's just counting the ones that are invisible friends, totally non comporeal entities that aren't tied to you know, a ruck, spin or a a boot. I don't know why. That's the only other example. I had a boot, Yeah, like like the way Canadians say about oh no, no, like a shoe. Yes, there are other studies to Nolan. They argue that more broad investigation reveals over fifty percent of children have had some sort of imaginary friend in their childhood. And that's a little that's a little difficult for me because you and Paul and Matt and I don't, you know, we we can maybe recall wanting to have an imaginary friend. But I unless something traumatic happened and we've blocked it out, it doesn't seem like any of us made the leap, So I wonder how they're defining it there. And often it's an important to note. Often these imaginary friends are not crucial to a child's social sphere. You know, um, Professor Lizard is cool, right, but Professor Lizard isn't around all the time. Professor Lizard is cold blooded. That's true, literally true. But the child will have other real life friends. And you know, in Hollywood, because we talked about pop culture and how it applies to stuff on this show. Right, in Hollywood, imaginary friends are often portrayed as a sign of a personality disorder or a horror trope, or even mental illness. Yeah, like in a Beautiful Mind? Is that? Can I spoil a beautiful mind? Yeah? Go for it. He has an imaginary friend that you think is real and then spoiler alert, turns out it's all in his beautiful mind. Oh wow, I still haven't seen it. It's one. Sorry, No, don't apologize. I'll still watch it. I love I think the statute of limitations. It's at least five years old now. It's about a you know, a brilliant mathematician and who um struggles with mental illness and it is personified in this character who you meet and then find out, you know, with the twist that that he's not he's not real or like a fight club kind of situation, kind of spoil fight club for everybody. I think I I think that's well past the statue, just say that, the whole multiple personality thing, and it has become kind of a toxic trope in that it's a little bit clich and lazy writing in a lot of ways, you know, and in a way without actually exploring someone struggle, um, you know, in a character driven way. It's more and like this kind of this Shamalonian twist that's sort of been done to death. Yeah, Luke, what I can plot? Right? We we spent so long wondering whether we could make a plot twist that we never asked ourselves whether we should. And thankfully, in real life this is not the case. Imaginary friends experts find are potentially beneficial to a kid's mental health. According to family therapist, imaginary friends or often found amongst children who are well adjusted socially even prone to smiling and laughing slightly more than their peers, which I note, I know could sound kindness sinister, because now we all have the picture of you know, little Lisa or little Bart just sitting by themselves in a classroom and occasionally going well, what's the difference between having an imaginary friend and just having an imagination? That's true, right? Is it? Is it a symptom there? Because we know that this occurs with children most often, right, just like your example from inside out. At some point, children typically grow out of and away from the imaginary child phase, and around the age of seven, the imaginary friend either goes away, might stick around a little bit longer. But in some cases, these invisible friends or again objects imbued with personality, follow someone into adulthood. I'm sorry, Matt, what Yeah, totally, And we'll be back after a word from our sponsor. So the earlier question, what's the difference between an imaginary friend and just having an imagination or just imbuing uh? Your your playthings with personality? You know, like I definitely played with action figures and there we go again, and then dolls whatever what have you, and you know, I would have them talk to each other. I would um pretend to that what I was doing was in some way and you had a real outcome or whatever. How you know is imaginary friends specifically? One? Can you have a stable of them? Like I don't know? Yeah? And then you know, Lest we be too quick to judge people, we have to ask ourselves who among us has imbued some sort of personality into a common everyday object. People name their cars, right, I used to do it with spoons. Used to do it with spoons, No kidding? What could you tell me about one? It was? It was Ethan, Ethan the spoon in its red jumper. Yes, so we often ask ourselves whether an imaginary friend is a form of hallucination. Right, But as it turns out, this isn't the case. Experts argue instead the perceived beings of vivid fantasy and it helps the child address emotional concerns or pursue play, practice sympathy, and most importantly, model later social behaviors. And we have a quote about this from Ellen Giralda. That's right. She is a professor of Child and adolescent psychiatry at Imperial College, London UM and she says they do not have the actual perceptual experience of seeing and hearing. Another key difference, she says, is that quote hallucinations feel imposed and children cannot exercise a direct control over them. This came from the Guardian, Okay, So in that case, it means that if we had an imaginary friend who you know, Professor Lizard, right, you could interact with Professor Lizard. But you could also escape Professor Lizard if you wanted to shut it off. It's like a switch. And you know, people that suffer from genuine hallucinations, there is no escape, and they require medication to make them go away. You know, Sedation or other psychoactive drugs that have be prescribed to deal with these hallucinations can be symptoms of serious mental illness. Yeah. Absolutely. And the strange thing is that here that hallucinations do appear to be, let's say, not common, but less uncommon than one might think. Recent studies pointing out some surprising statistics about how common hallucinations can be. One study in the United Kingdom found that almost two thirds of children reported having at least one quote psychotic like experience in their lives. And that's a category that also includes unshiftable, unrealistic beliefs and fears. You know, I can't go into the closet ever, I can't go under the bed, or the blender is evil. Yeah I made up that last one, but I'm sure it happened to someone. So when you focus purely on hallucinations, a review of the research out there found that seventeen percent of nine to twelve year olds have these experiences at any given time. Um. The number roughly gets cut in half with teenagers and then drops again in adults. And it's interesting because nine to twelve is maybe a little bit older in terms of what we would expect to encounter regarding an imaginary friends. So again we see that hallucinations are different. And the research on this is is very tricky, Not quite as tricky as Shamalan plot twists, but still tricky all the same, since this research tends to focus on experiences that are selected because they can appear in mental health problems and adults, such as, for instance, hearing voices right, which has been the subject of a lot of investigation in the past, right, which hunts even I mean, like you know, it being a sign of possession or something like that. You know very outdated notions of um some sort of demonic malevolent force at work right, right, or a divine supernatural force such as Joan of art claiming to hear voices yea, as it ultimately resulted in the same outcome though didn't it. It's true, It's true, but does mean that she was, you know, vilified for having this because she claimed to know things that only high priests should know, like someone very high up in in the religious order, right, especially when this was in a religion that required uh intercession, right and wherein somebody could not speak directly to a god needed a liaison in the form of someone who was learned and had the the proper pedigree exactly that communication, which I still just find funny. But your your point remains there when when we say, when we're looking at this research, we have to remember that these things that could also be pained as mental health issues are only a small part of the possible range of hallucinations, which means the figures that No quoted earlier are likely to be a lower conservative estimate. And it's true that in rare cases medical problems could be the cause. Epilepsy can cause hallucinations. How what's the longest time you've ever stayed awake that you remember. Oh, no, I'm a sleeper. I mean you know, I stayed up all night once when I was a kid. I'm kidding. No, no, no no, no, later than you know, five in the morning, and then I slept most of the day. Probably I have experimented in the past, pushing myself to see how long I can stay awake. Uh, And at a certain point, yeah, reality gets fuzzy, the edges blur. I would like to encounter you in one of these experimental places. I hear them a lot of fun, bet, but but I don't remember quite a bit of it. Luckily, those severe psychoses other medical conditions, represented perhaps by diagnoses such as schizophrenia. Luckily, they're extremely rare in young children. People aren't completely sure why this happens, but it's winning a brutal and terrible lottery for a young child to exhibit those sorts of uh, those sorts of conditions. But of course when they occur, they can be striking and terrifying. And this leads us to a question for today's episode, or an interesting twist, because you see, some people believe friends and neighbors that there is more to the story. What if imaginary friends and other non corporeal, nonphysical, perceived entities are not just make believe models for addressing emotions and social behavior. What if they're not hallucinations brought about by stress or some sort of medical condition. What if these largely non physical beings are real? Yeah? I don't know, Ben, You want to get crazy, Here's where it gets crazy. Research on the subject is surprisingly sparse, but it's safe to say that for many children or even adults experiencing this phenomenon, imaginary friends are to some degree real, and the people who believe there's more to the story will typically argue something along these lines. One of the first would be allegations of psychic powers. This is one of those very popular tropes in fiction, and might be familiar with it from stories like The Shining. You know, let's go ahead and spoil the Shining. Remember when the little Torrents kid has always going rat wrap. It's not really a spoiler, is it. I hope not everybody knows that. You know, somebody might if if that's a spoiler for the Shining, then they probably don't know what the Shining is to begin with. Ye that is uh, that is his imaginary friend. It's Tony And in the book something comes up in the movie, but he says he lives inside his mouth, and in the movie he uses his finger to represents him talking, and in the book someone correct me on this. In the book, I believe it's implied that the imaginary friend is actually Danny Torrence from the future or something talking to himself. I'm not clear, it's been years since I read it, but that's an example of a supposedly imaginary friend being a real, independent, separate entity, despite the fact he lives in his mouth. I'm glad you pointed that out. And then, of course there's the excellent, the superb Cindy Lauper Jeff gold Bloom vehicle for the lad eighties. The eighties, I want to say, Vibes. I do not know Vibes Ben Vibes. Vibes is a terrible film, Okay, So, just to set the stage, there is this group of people with some sort of differing specialization as far as psychic powers go. Jeff Goldbloom plays one of the main characters who has psychometry, which means he touches things and he's able to know stuff about them, And yes, before you ask, he is just being Jeff Goldblum. So it's you know, that's kind of all Jeff Goldblum ever does. Right. I just want to say, he's not you know, he's not doing a German accent or anything. I've yet to see Jeff Goldblum play anything outside of just a Jeff Goldblum type character. But what happens, advice? What are we talking about here? What? How does the psychic powers enter into this? Uh imaginary friend a phenomenon Cindy Lauper, the romantic interest in the co lead has the ability to no thing she would not normally know, stuff from the future, stuff that's happening far away because she has an imaginary friend. And in this story, her imaginary friend that she kind of grew up with or I think it happened after an accident is actually a ghost, right. And that's that's something we see so often in fiction, the idea that someone with an imaginary friend is in fact mistaking their relationship. They're not speaking with a figment of their own uh younger in archetypes or subconscious, They're communicating with another worldly form. Yeah, like the little Forrest Gump kid that's he's dead people. Yeah, yeah, I'm not gonna spoil that out. That's where I draw the line. That's all that film maths. Yeah. You'll also find, interestingly enough, outside the realm of fiction, you'll find a wealth of anecdotes arguing this point of view. People claiming that their kid from a very young age spoke to a deceased relative or displayed knowledge of some event or skill or language it was impossible for them to know. So what would some examples of these types of anecdotes be, you mean, in terms of like malevolent forces at work? Sure, just something you know, creepy, right, for people who believe that they or their child has been in contact with some sort of entity. Actually, we found a list of some encounters I guess you could say of this variety. UM, can't confirm that these are real or not, but some of them really ring true and have a very sinister vibe to them. And here's one that's titled evil is Coming. Um. When my older daughter was two or three, she used to have a couple of imaginary friends, Dodo and Deed. They were typical imaginary friends. She would talk to them and play with them and tell me about their lives. Then one day she was about three, Um, she was talking on her play phone. When I walked into the room, she quote hung up her phone and said to me with a completely flat, void and dead pan expression, the evil is coming. I want to know more. That's I mean, that sounds like a set up for a story, doesn't it. You know? The thing is that in most cases you can't really verify these reports there there what do you call it? Creep creepy pasta? A little creepy pastas on us? Yeah, yeah, because there's not there's not a clear attribution. They have the tone of campfire stories. In some cases these were found to be the ones that were actually investigated were found to be mistakes of an entirely understandable sort. You know, the kid heard something on television and repeated it, right, isn't The thing about creepy pasta to the pasta comes from the fact that it's paste. It's like cut and pasted from somewhere. It implies that it was like it existed in a real form, or like it was from a blog or some like actual encounter, but you can't really tell, right. Yeah, It's like many urban legends. It's always a friend of a friend I met passed through a town where there's a story that's real about a killer, and sometimes those stories do turn out to have a grain of truth that's sort of made a pearl of wisdom in the oyster of legend Boy walked a long way for that comparison. But in many other cases they're also found just to be hoaxes, trolling attempts, maybe just uh an endeavor to disguise fiction as fact for an added scare factor. But this leads us to another strange twist in the story, and we'll get to it after a word from our sponsor. There's another aspect here that developed, or we should say, encountered, a renaissance of sorts in the digital age, and that's the idea that some imaginary friends might be what's called a tulpa. Yeah. I I only just discovered that recently in watching the new Twin Peaks. Uh, the return um, it comes up a lot, and and it's really almost impossible to spoil the new Twin Peaks. Uh. There's one spoiler I could give for the original Twin Peaks, which I will not to um. But the new one is so dreamy and strange, and there are like, you know, created entities that are kind of referred to as talpa, but that they never actually call them then in the show, but in people writing about it and Lynch talking about it, that's what they are. They're sort of these like, um, almost facsimiles of people that take their place in reality and then but they're not actually them, and they're in some way malevolent and and meant to do harm at least in the world of Twin Peaks. Um. But that is the first time I ever encountered that term. But what let's talk more about what it means in in uh In traditionally for sure. Yeah, the the term talpa comes from a later Western at uptation of a much older concept of the mind made body where emanation body also known as the tolku, the sprule pa, the narmita and others, and these are found in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. Uh theosophists, the Westerners who adapted and someone say, appropriated this idea. We're calling these things thought forms as early as nineteen And the essential gist is this that if you meditate, if you concretely visualize a entity, if you spend enough mental energy imagining and picturing this thing, then it can become real and acquire an increasing degree of sentience and agency. There's a Belgian French explorer named Alexandra David Neil who said that once the tolpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to be itself from its maker's control. And this, say Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically, just as a child when their body is completed and able to live apart from the mother, leaves the womb. Well, then I completely glossed over the fact that you too have seen Twin Peaks The Return. What did you think about the way this this concept plays into it um, this idea of a manufactured on an effect simile of a person that exists in some other form. My favorite part about the newest Twin Peaks series was reading the reviewers increasingly surreal attempts to explain to themselves what was going on. And you have to because there are times where there's gorgeous cinematography. There's an obvious mythology and cosmology at play here, but it has the logic of a dream, you know, like, why are these why are these facsimiles? And I appreciate that word these doppelgangers for lack of a better term. Why are these inherently malevolent? Right? Why are they here just a mess stuff up? Do they want to supplant the actual people? Right? That's that's a common theme we see. But I do want to point out one of the things I found the most interesting is that, no, you're correct, they don't. Don't believe in the story anybody actually calls anyone else at Tulpa. No, they don't. But like I said, in reading about it, and even in hearing, I think Lynch himself used that word um, but especially referencing the character of Diane, who in the first season, the first two seasons of Twin Peaks you only ever experienced um in the form of Agent Dale Cooper talking to his tape recorder. And in the Return we get to meet Diane, who was played beautifully by Laura Dern. But and this is a little bit of spoilers for Twin Peaks Return, So I'm gonna give you three five four, three two one five seconds. That cool five years five seconds. The character that you actually meet eat is a topa is a facsimile of the real Diane. And you again, some of it's pretty hard to wrap your head around, you she does, she kind of disappears and then like there's a there's a version of reality where Dale Cooper is with the real Diane and then they end up going back in time or something and they have they end up having a tryst in a hotel room. But then they walk out and there in another version of reality and that but that's the real Diane. I think the tulpa Diane when she whips out that gun and then she ultimately kind of turns into smoke and a little gold ball. Yeah, just bringing a bell. Yeah, this is it's a very it's very strange um a strange interaction, especially when we consider the symbolism of it and the the idea still remains the same that a tulpa can be generated by concentrated thought. Right, So for Alexandra David neil Uh, this explorer believe that she had created a tulpa in get this, though in the image of a friar tuck like monk, which later developed a life all its own, and despite its raucous um raucous Dionysian nature, it had to be destroyed, And in her defense, Alexander David Neil does say that this may have all been a hallucination. Yet she adds other people saw this friar tuck tulpa too strange. No, um, perhaps it's just a branch of spirituality that will be relegated to history along with other, you know, somewhat pseudo mystical movements of the time. But if we fast forward to the modern day, we'll see that. The concept of tulpas is mentioned in as we said earlier, twin Peaks. It's also mentioned in The X Men and the comic The x Men, It's mentioned in the novel It, and perhaps most intriguingly, it's mentioned in forums on the Internet, where people argue that they have either come into contact with the tulpa or created their own. And they are serious, they're not trolling, they're not joking. In two thousand and nine, the subject appeared on the discussion boards of four Chan. A couple of anonymous members started to experiment with creating tulpas. That's right, uh. And then in twelve things took a turn when adult fans of My Little Pony Friendship is magic. Um, I count myself among them, not not in the same way. My kid really likes the show. So you're talking about brownies brownish, I'm not. I'm not a legit brownie though, but um, these brownies um created a new forum on Reddit and crafted tulpas based on their favorite characters from this show. Ben, I need some more information here. How do you craft a tulpa on Reddit? Well, unread it, this would just be where they talk about it, right, But from what we understand, at least in the Buddhist tradition, there are meditative techniques that are actually complex and demand quite a bit of time. So we you know, we can't assume that those same spiritual techniques are being applied to this amalgamation of pop culture, right and the idea of a created thing. But we do know that these tubas are typically described in great detail, and there appear to be relatively few commonalities. Right, So, for someone who believes in non physical sentient entities, it's not like in The Exorcist, where the eponymous exorcist actually says, don't believe anything. It's not a different demon, it's not all these voices. There's only one thing pretending to be many many other things. To people who believe this, these are individuated, discrete entities, And at this point there's no proof that such an entity could exist, uh, something built entirely of energy or thought. And yes, yes, we know all matter is essentially just energy. But then the question is are these adults maybe only hearing themselves and translating it differently like in the bicameral minds like that idea? What about reports of d MT machine elves? And that's the idea that when people ingest certain hallucinogens they end up encountering these entities. I've heard them called machine elves. And like you know, drug literature circles circle people on arrowin nailed it. Yes absolutely, no, um I I don't know about that. But what are these? Are they like manifestations of thought that are given form or are they right? Are they your own thoughts looking back at you? Or are you somehow in tune with an entity or entities that you can not usually see. And this opens the door to a wealth of speculation, also several layers of skepticism. I'm sure for many people listening, but for people who believe that these non corporeal entities can exist, what we what they typically present. His proof is the idea that these hallucinations all share certain common traits regardless of who takes a certain drug win. So for people who believe it's d m T, they might say that every d MT trip has the potential to obey the same plot points almost which is fascinating. But you have to wonder is there a confirmation us there? And it leads us to another bigger question. Is it possible for a meme, an emotion, or an idea to become sentient? Mm hmm, that's a I think that's spooky because I have a lot of weird ideas. I don't know if I want them coming back. Yeah. I mean, isn't that just, you know, singularity in a different form of singularity kind of? I don't know what's interesting. Yeah, And this is a question that we want to uh hear your opinion about. To conclude today's episode, we do have to say whenever we address issues of mental health or mental wellness, wants you to know that if you have concerns or worries, there are people waiting to help you address those concerns, answer questions you're not alone. You can call the SAMSA Treatment Referral helpline at one eight seven seven seven to six four seven to seven. You can also visit mental health dot gov for a me get assistance and if you want more information. And we talked about the top of the show. In terms of imaginary friends and their effects on children and their development, there is a group of researchers at the University of Oregon um collectively working at a place called the Imagination Research Lab, and they pretty exclusively study that very thing. From their website, it says they look into the development of imagination and children and it's a relation to social understanding, creativity, inhibitory control, and narrative skills, but specifically children's creation of imaginary companions and the role they play in social and cognitive development. You can find links to their work at their site Imaginary Companions dot you or again dot E, d U slash lab. It's fantastic and it's important work because again, current research is relatively sparse. It's difficult to understand the answers that young children would give in interviews. However, right now, it's like cologists who don't believe that these are separate entities of any sort. I do believe that there's a cover up or conspiracy of sorts, and it's an inner conspiracy and internal cover up. They believe that imaginary friends seem to function at times as an emotional stand in, a sort of mannequin personality upon which a child could place and otherwise uncomfortable or difficult emotion. And this is a little bit cheeky. Several psychologists also argue that children might foist agency for bad behavior upon this other entity. I didn't decide to eat all the cookies. Dr Pants smack bubble meant told me to do it, and then, well, you know, honey, dr pants back bubble ment is not real the way that you are. No, you don't understand, mom, She made me do it. So you know it's not my fault that this bad thing happened. I still that I still do that to this day. So right, right, so Oddly enough, if there is a conspiracy, it may be simply children juveniles using the concept of an imaginary entity to cover up or remove themselves from their own fears, emotions, or consequences of action. And again, the fortunate bottom line here is that for the vast majority of cases, it doesn't seem harmful to children at all, and we have to ask if we apply this same reasoning to adults, Well, if it's not harmful, is there a reason to ask people to stop? I mean, if it's making them happy, it's not hurting them or someone else, should they be allowed their imaginary companions? Yeah? I mean if they're not the flavor of imaginary companion that allows them to write off any responsibility for their actions, that I say, a Okay, what do you think listeners? Um write us. You can find us on social media at Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram or just Conspiracy Stuff on Facebook and Twitter. And if you don't want to do any of that, you can write it's a good old fashioned email where we are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com m

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the show. My name is Noel. Sitting here to my left is Matt the Invisible Matt. He's a mattagineary for this episode or imaginary yep uh. And if they called me Ben, we're joined with our long suffering super producer Paul decons. Most importantly, you are you and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Noel, did you ever have an imaginary friend growing up? Serious question? Yeah? No, I I've thought about that and I've I've ultimately decided that I did not, and it made me sad. But is it more sad to have one or to not have one? You tell me, Yeah, it's a It's a question that I think depends on people's perspective. Earlier, before he went on the air, we were asking Paul whether he had an imaginary friend, and he he told us that by the time he growing up realized what that concept was, maybe he had already sort of missed the window and realized that you know, there was a difference between what is real and what is imagined. And did you know anybody who said they had an imaginary friend? I knew some people when I was you know, my younger days, who said that they knew someone, and sometimes it was uncreative. I grew up in preschool there was a kid who had an imaginary friend. You know. His name was Ethan. That's just not very You know what happened to like Admiral squack in tops? Yeah? What was the one from inside out? Mm hmm, I don't remember. I think mainly have dropped dead Fred. Oh, that was a good Now the one from inside I was bing Bong Um and he's like a magical elephants and it is one of the most heart wrenching sequences and any film, animated or otherwise. And I will stand by that to my dying breath. When Bing Bong something happens to Bing Bong just put it that way. Has to do with growing up. Oh gosh. Yes, And some of this episode touches upon the very same rites of passage. We could call them today, friends and neighbors, imaginary friends, those non corporeal, non physical associates, confidence family members, loved by children across the world and throughout the ages or often than not, they're regarded as a phase of sorts. Right, yeah, it's true. Um, so today we're here to work out exactly what it means when we say imaginary friend, Matt, what do you think? Matt says that. According to developmental psychologist Tracy Gleeson, Uh, it is tough to predict or even measure quantify what a child will actually say. Um, when asked this question, what is your imaginary friend? We've said do you have an imaginary companion? And they respond that sounds awesome, So they go, yes, yes, of course I do. That's like me, I wish I did. Sure, I don't think I did, but I you know, I would like to have had that, And they begin to improvise. Maybe I wasn't creative enough as a child. Don't beat yourself up. But it's a great point. They will begin to confirm what they want to have. True, guess I do have a friend. His name is Ethan. He wears a red jumpsuit, you know. And then it's easy once you have that basis to explore and create details. So for psychologists, it's difficult to know whether a child is improvising this as we said, or whether they're describing, you know, someone as real as Matt standing here right, totally nodding. He's nodding, And you make a great point, Matt. Psychologists divvy up the broad category of imaginary friends into two groups. They're completely invisible pals and then they're personified objects. And this is this is where we see stuff like a favorite stuffed animal or the horror trope of the haunted doll. Well, and sometimes don't those things merge? Couldn't you have an imaginary friend that embodies said favorite stuffed toy totally? Right? Like Ethan used to not have a home, but now he lives inside this VHS cassette. I had this thing. It was. His name was Teddy Ruxpan and he I swear to you, he talked, and I've been familiar with Teddy Roxman. Did you ever put a like a heavy metal album or some underground hip hop into his cassette player? Cassette player? Right, Well, I guess mine came with a cassette player. But I don't want to ruin this for you. Teddy Teddy was my pal. He probably still is, you know, maybe he can maybe he can reach out to him. They'll actually, I'm joking, But then you hear that the new Teddy Ruxpan is like Internet connected and can like pull phrases and stuff off the web. It's almost like an Alexa in toy form. That's spooky cool. No, not cool. Stop normalizing constant surveillance, right. According to Dr Cheryl Gonzalez Ziegler, an imaginary friend is a made up or unreal companion that typically provides comfort or support to a child. When it's an invisible friend, they'll say something along the lines of Annie is my pal. She goes everywhere with me, and you can't see her, but I can see her. And then there are also these imaginary friends that are these personified objects, so to Noel's example, like a Teddy Ruxpan. And according to Dr Ziegler, the relationship there is more of a caretaking thing, like I am taking my stuffed animal with me because they only like particular things and only I know how to make these sandwiches for them or put them to bed. It's like a way of developing um qualities of nurturing. Maybe you know that's a really good point. Yeah, And when Ziegler says, these can be imaginary friends. It's it's exactly the way that you just describe it and older assigning these animate qualities to an object, right, And I'm no psychologist, but it occurs to me that you know, um, young girls, and I'm you know, my my daughter is is a is a young girl. Um, maybe focus a little more on that nurturing lesson and the boys maybe are a little more lighting and learning how to be more rough and tumble and like, you know, fighting and stuff. And we have to wonder how much of that is society, you know, I'm sure it's like all society. It's just an observation, totally totally off the cuff. But because we remember, you know, I'd be very interested in the history of toys, uh, to find who made the decision to call to call something an action figure. If it's for a boy and a doll, if it's for a girl, you know, that's maybe a story for a different show, or a little bit of an Edward Burnet show. So these objects aren't, of course limited to things like dolls or stuffed animals. There's an expert who says she once heard about a child who formed get this a close relationship with a can of tomato paste and separable bonds. Appealing looking can I mean you're talking about the smaller ones. They that's what I would want to be friends. The regular sized ones just seemed too aggressive, So the smaller ones a little more endearing anything to me? Yeah, it's cute. And although there is some levity in this, it's also true that imaginary friends are more common than we might wait for it. Imagine, I know it's a rough one. Go on. Well, approximately of American children between the ages of three and six developed some sort of imaginary companion. And that's just counting the ones that are invisible friends, totally non comporeal entities that aren't tied to you know, a ruck, spin or a a boot. I don't know why. That's the only other example. I had a boot, Yeah, like like the way Canadians say about oh no, no, like a shoe. Yes, there are other studies to Nolan. They argue that more broad investigation reveals over fifty percent of children have had some sort of imaginary friend in their childhood. And that's a little that's a little difficult for me because you and Paul and Matt and I don't, you know, we we can maybe recall wanting to have an imaginary friend. But I unless something traumatic happened and we've blocked it out, it doesn't seem like any of us made the leap, So I wonder how they're defining it there. And often it's an important to note. Often these imaginary friends are not crucial to a child's social sphere. You know, um, Professor Lizard is cool, right, but Professor Lizard isn't around all the time. Professor Lizard is cold blooded. That's true, literally true. But the child will have other real life friends. And you know, in Hollywood, because we talked about pop culture and how it applies to stuff on this show. Right, in Hollywood, imaginary friends are often portrayed as a sign of a personality disorder or a horror trope, or even mental illness. Yeah, like in a Beautiful Mind? Is that? Can I spoil a beautiful mind? Yeah? Go for it. He has an imaginary friend that you think is real and then spoiler alert, turns out it's all in his beautiful mind. Oh wow, I still haven't seen it. It's one. Sorry, No, don't apologize. I'll still watch it. I love I think the statute of limitations. It's at least five years old now. It's about a you know, a brilliant mathematician and who um struggles with mental illness and it is personified in this character who you meet and then find out, you know, with the twist that that he's not he's not real or like a fight club kind of situation, kind of spoil fight club for everybody. I think I I think that's well past the statue, just say that, the whole multiple personality thing, and it has become kind of a toxic trope in that it's a little bit clich and lazy writing in a lot of ways, you know, and in a way without actually exploring someone struggle, um, you know, in a character driven way. It's more and like this kind of this Shamalonian twist that's sort of been done to death. Yeah, Luke, what I can plot? Right? We we spent so long wondering whether we could make a plot twist that we never asked ourselves whether we should. And thankfully, in real life this is not the case. Imaginary friends experts find are potentially beneficial to a kid's mental health. According to family therapist, imaginary friends or often found amongst children who are well adjusted socially even prone to smiling and laughing slightly more than their peers, which I note, I know could sound kindness sinister, because now we all have the picture of you know, little Lisa or little Bart just sitting by themselves in a classroom and occasionally going well, what's the difference between having an imaginary friend and just having an imagination? That's true, right? Is it? Is it a symptom there? Because we know that this occurs with children most often, right, just like your example from inside out. At some point, children typically grow out of and away from the imaginary child phase, and around the age of seven, the imaginary friend either goes away, might stick around a little bit longer. But in some cases, these invisible friends or again objects imbued with personality, follow someone into adulthood. I'm sorry, Matt, what Yeah, totally, And we'll be back after a word from our sponsor. So the earlier question, what's the difference between an imaginary friend and just having an imagination or just imbuing uh? Your your playthings with personality? You know, like I definitely played with action figures and there we go again, and then dolls whatever what have you, and you know, I would have them talk to each other. I would um pretend to that what I was doing was in some way and you had a real outcome or whatever. How you know is imaginary friends specifically? One? Can you have a stable of them? Like I don't know? Yeah? And then you know, Lest we be too quick to judge people, we have to ask ourselves who among us has imbued some sort of personality into a common everyday object. People name their cars, right, I used to do it with spoons. Used to do it with spoons, No kidding? What could you tell me about one? It was? It was Ethan, Ethan the spoon in its red jumper. Yes, so we often ask ourselves whether an imaginary friend is a form of hallucination. Right, But as it turns out, this isn't the case. Experts argue instead the perceived beings of vivid fantasy and it helps the child address emotional concerns or pursue play, practice sympathy, and most importantly, model later social behaviors. And we have a quote about this from Ellen Giralda. That's right. She is a professor of Child and adolescent psychiatry at Imperial College, London UM and she says they do not have the actual perceptual experience of seeing and hearing. Another key difference, she says, is that quote hallucinations feel imposed and children cannot exercise a direct control over them. This came from the Guardian, Okay, So in that case, it means that if we had an imaginary friend who you know, Professor Lizard, right, you could interact with Professor Lizard. But you could also escape Professor Lizard if you wanted to shut it off. It's like a switch. And you know, people that suffer from genuine hallucinations, there is no escape, and they require medication to make them go away. You know, Sedation or other psychoactive drugs that have be prescribed to deal with these hallucinations can be symptoms of serious mental illness. Yeah. Absolutely. And the strange thing is that here that hallucinations do appear to be, let's say, not common, but less uncommon than one might think. Recent studies pointing out some surprising statistics about how common hallucinations can be. One study in the United Kingdom found that almost two thirds of children reported having at least one quote psychotic like experience in their lives. And that's a category that also includes unshiftable, unrealistic beliefs and fears. You know, I can't go into the closet ever, I can't go under the bed, or the blender is evil. Yeah I made up that last one, but I'm sure it happened to someone. So when you focus purely on hallucinations, a review of the research out there found that seventeen percent of nine to twelve year olds have these experiences at any given time. Um. The number roughly gets cut in half with teenagers and then drops again in adults. And it's interesting because nine to twelve is maybe a little bit older in terms of what we would expect to encounter regarding an imaginary friends. So again we see that hallucinations are different. And the research on this is is very tricky, Not quite as tricky as Shamalan plot twists, but still tricky all the same, since this research tends to focus on experiences that are selected because they can appear in mental health problems and adults, such as, for instance, hearing voices right, which has been the subject of a lot of investigation in the past, right, which hunts even I mean, like you know, it being a sign of possession or something like that. You know very outdated notions of um some sort of demonic malevolent force at work right, right, or a divine supernatural force such as Joan of art claiming to hear voices yea, as it ultimately resulted in the same outcome though didn't it. It's true, It's true, but does mean that she was, you know, vilified for having this because she claimed to know things that only high priests should know, like someone very high up in in the religious order, right, especially when this was in a religion that required uh intercession, right and wherein somebody could not speak directly to a god needed a liaison in the form of someone who was learned and had the the proper pedigree exactly that communication, which I still just find funny. But your your point remains there when when we say, when we're looking at this research, we have to remember that these things that could also be pained as mental health issues are only a small part of the possible range of hallucinations, which means the figures that No quoted earlier are likely to be a lower conservative estimate. And it's true that in rare cases medical problems could be the cause. Epilepsy can cause hallucinations. How what's the longest time you've ever stayed awake that you remember. Oh, no, I'm a sleeper. I mean you know, I stayed up all night once when I was a kid. I'm kidding. No, no, no no, no, later than you know, five in the morning, and then I slept most of the day. Probably I have experimented in the past, pushing myself to see how long I can stay awake. Uh, And at a certain point, yeah, reality gets fuzzy, the edges blur. I would like to encounter you in one of these experimental places. I hear them a lot of fun, bet, but but I don't remember quite a bit of it. Luckily, those severe psychoses other medical conditions, represented perhaps by diagnoses such as schizophrenia. Luckily, they're extremely rare in young children. People aren't completely sure why this happens, but it's winning a brutal and terrible lottery for a young child to exhibit those sorts of uh, those sorts of conditions. But of course when they occur, they can be striking and terrifying. And this leads us to a question for today's episode, or an interesting twist, because you see, some people believe friends and neighbors that there is more to the story. What if imaginary friends and other non corporeal, nonphysical, perceived entities are not just make believe models for addressing emotions and social behavior. What if they're not hallucinations brought about by stress or some sort of medical condition. What if these largely non physical beings are real? Yeah? I don't know, Ben, You want to get crazy, Here's where it gets crazy. Research on the subject is surprisingly sparse, but it's safe to say that for many children or even adults experiencing this phenomenon, imaginary friends are to some degree real, and the people who believe there's more to the story will typically argue something along these lines. One of the first would be allegations of psychic powers. This is one of those very popular tropes in fiction, and might be familiar with it from stories like The Shining. You know, let's go ahead and spoil the Shining. Remember when the little Torrents kid has always going rat wrap. It's not really a spoiler, is it. I hope not everybody knows that. You know, somebody might if if that's a spoiler for the Shining, then they probably don't know what the Shining is to begin with. Ye that is uh, that is his imaginary friend. It's Tony And in the book something comes up in the movie, but he says he lives inside his mouth, and in the movie he uses his finger to represents him talking, and in the book someone correct me on this. In the book, I believe it's implied that the imaginary friend is actually Danny Torrence from the future or something talking to himself. I'm not clear, it's been years since I read it, but that's an example of a supposedly imaginary friend being a real, independent, separate entity, despite the fact he lives in his mouth. I'm glad you pointed that out. And then, of course there's the excellent, the superb Cindy Lauper Jeff gold Bloom vehicle for the lad eighties. The eighties, I want to say, Vibes. I do not know Vibes Ben Vibes. Vibes is a terrible film, Okay, So, just to set the stage, there is this group of people with some sort of differing specialization as far as psychic powers go. Jeff Goldbloom plays one of the main characters who has psychometry, which means he touches things and he's able to know stuff about them, And yes, before you ask, he is just being Jeff Goldblum. So it's you know, that's kind of all Jeff Goldblum ever does. Right. I just want to say, he's not you know, he's not doing a German accent or anything. I've yet to see Jeff Goldblum play anything outside of just a Jeff Goldblum type character. But what happens, advice? What are we talking about here? What? How does the psychic powers enter into this? Uh imaginary friend a phenomenon Cindy Lauper, the romantic interest in the co lead has the ability to no thing she would not normally know, stuff from the future, stuff that's happening far away because she has an imaginary friend. And in this story, her imaginary friend that she kind of grew up with or I think it happened after an accident is actually a ghost, right. And that's that's something we see so often in fiction, the idea that someone with an imaginary friend is in fact mistaking their relationship. They're not speaking with a figment of their own uh younger in archetypes or subconscious, They're communicating with another worldly form. Yeah, like the little Forrest Gump kid that's he's dead people. Yeah, yeah, I'm not gonna spoil that out. That's where I draw the line. That's all that film maths. Yeah. You'll also find, interestingly enough, outside the realm of fiction, you'll find a wealth of anecdotes arguing this point of view. People claiming that their kid from a very young age spoke to a deceased relative or displayed knowledge of some event or skill or language it was impossible for them to know. So what would some examples of these types of anecdotes be, you mean, in terms of like malevolent forces at work? Sure, just something you know, creepy, right, for people who believe that they or their child has been in contact with some sort of entity. Actually, we found a list of some encounters I guess you could say of this variety. UM, can't confirm that these are real or not, but some of them really ring true and have a very sinister vibe to them. And here's one that's titled evil is Coming. Um. When my older daughter was two or three, she used to have a couple of imaginary friends, Dodo and Deed. They were typical imaginary friends. She would talk to them and play with them and tell me about their lives. Then one day she was about three, Um, she was talking on her play phone. When I walked into the room, she quote hung up her phone and said to me with a completely flat, void and dead pan expression, the evil is coming. I want to know more. That's I mean, that sounds like a set up for a story, doesn't it. You know? The thing is that in most cases you can't really verify these reports there there what do you call it? Creep creepy pasta? A little creepy pastas on us? Yeah, yeah, because there's not there's not a clear attribution. They have the tone of campfire stories. In some cases these were found to be the ones that were actually investigated were found to be mistakes of an entirely understandable sort. You know, the kid heard something on television and repeated it, right, isn't The thing about creepy pasta to the pasta comes from the fact that it's paste. It's like cut and pasted from somewhere. It implies that it was like it existed in a real form, or like it was from a blog or some like actual encounter, but you can't really tell, right. Yeah, It's like many urban legends. It's always a friend of a friend I met passed through a town where there's a story that's real about a killer, and sometimes those stories do turn out to have a grain of truth that's sort of made a pearl of wisdom in the oyster of legend Boy walked a long way for that comparison. But in many other cases they're also found just to be hoaxes, trolling attempts, maybe just uh an endeavor to disguise fiction as fact for an added scare factor. But this leads us to another strange twist in the story, and we'll get to it after a word from our sponsor. There's another aspect here that developed, or we should say, encountered, a renaissance of sorts in the digital age, and that's the idea that some imaginary friends might be what's called a tulpa. Yeah. I I only just discovered that recently in watching the new Twin Peaks. Uh, the return um, it comes up a lot, and and it's really almost impossible to spoil the new Twin Peaks. Uh. There's one spoiler I could give for the original Twin Peaks, which I will not to um. But the new one is so dreamy and strange, and there are like, you know, created entities that are kind of referred to as talpa, but that they never actually call them then in the show, but in people writing about it and Lynch talking about it, that's what they are. They're sort of these like, um, almost facsimiles of people that take their place in reality and then but they're not actually them, and they're in some way malevolent and and meant to do harm at least in the world of Twin Peaks. Um. But that is the first time I ever encountered that term. But what let's talk more about what it means in in uh In traditionally for sure. Yeah, the the term talpa comes from a later Western at uptation of a much older concept of the mind made body where emanation body also known as the tolku, the sprule pa, the narmita and others, and these are found in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. Uh theosophists, the Westerners who adapted and someone say, appropriated this idea. We're calling these things thought forms as early as nineteen And the essential gist is this that if you meditate, if you concretely visualize a entity, if you spend enough mental energy imagining and picturing this thing, then it can become real and acquire an increasing degree of sentience and agency. There's a Belgian French explorer named Alexandra David Neil who said that once the tolpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to be itself from its maker's control. And this, say Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically, just as a child when their body is completed and able to live apart from the mother, leaves the womb. Well, then I completely glossed over the fact that you too have seen Twin Peaks The Return. What did you think about the way this this concept plays into it um, this idea of a manufactured on an effect simile of a person that exists in some other form. My favorite part about the newest Twin Peaks series was reading the reviewers increasingly surreal attempts to explain to themselves what was going on. And you have to because there are times where there's gorgeous cinematography. There's an obvious mythology and cosmology at play here, but it has the logic of a dream, you know, like, why are these why are these facsimiles? And I appreciate that word these doppelgangers for lack of a better term. Why are these inherently malevolent? Right? Why are they here just a mess stuff up? Do they want to supplant the actual people? Right? That's that's a common theme we see. But I do want to point out one of the things I found the most interesting is that, no, you're correct, they don't. Don't believe in the story anybody actually calls anyone else at Tulpa. No, they don't. But like I said, in reading about it, and even in hearing, I think Lynch himself used that word um, but especially referencing the character of Diane, who in the first season, the first two seasons of Twin Peaks you only ever experienced um in the form of Agent Dale Cooper talking to his tape recorder. And in the Return we get to meet Diane, who was played beautifully by Laura Dern. But and this is a little bit of spoilers for Twin Peaks Return, So I'm gonna give you three five four, three two one five seconds. That cool five years five seconds. The character that you actually meet eat is a topa is a facsimile of the real Diane. And you again, some of it's pretty hard to wrap your head around, you she does, she kind of disappears and then like there's a there's a version of reality where Dale Cooper is with the real Diane and then they end up going back in time or something and they have they end up having a tryst in a hotel room. But then they walk out and there in another version of reality and that but that's the real Diane. I think the tulpa Diane when she whips out that gun and then she ultimately kind of turns into smoke and a little gold ball. Yeah, just bringing a bell. Yeah, this is it's a very it's very strange um a strange interaction, especially when we consider the symbolism of it and the the idea still remains the same that a tulpa can be generated by concentrated thought. Right, So for Alexandra David neil Uh, this explorer believe that she had created a tulpa in get this, though in the image of a friar tuck like monk, which later developed a life all its own, and despite its raucous um raucous Dionysian nature, it had to be destroyed, And in her defense, Alexander David Neil does say that this may have all been a hallucination. Yet she adds other people saw this friar tuck tulpa too strange. No, um, perhaps it's just a branch of spirituality that will be relegated to history along with other, you know, somewhat pseudo mystical movements of the time. But if we fast forward to the modern day, we'll see that. The concept of tulpas is mentioned in as we said earlier, twin Peaks. It's also mentioned in The X Men and the comic The x Men, It's mentioned in the novel It, and perhaps most intriguingly, it's mentioned in forums on the Internet, where people argue that they have either come into contact with the tulpa or created their own. And they are serious, they're not trolling, they're not joking. In two thousand and nine, the subject appeared on the discussion boards of four Chan. A couple of anonymous members started to experiment with creating tulpas. That's right, uh. And then in twelve things took a turn when adult fans of My Little Pony Friendship is magic. Um, I count myself among them, not not in the same way. My kid really likes the show. So you're talking about brownies brownish, I'm not. I'm not a legit brownie though, but um, these brownies um created a new forum on Reddit and crafted tulpas based on their favorite characters from this show. Ben, I need some more information here. How do you craft a tulpa on Reddit? Well, unread it, this would just be where they talk about it, right, But from what we understand, at least in the Buddhist tradition, there are meditative techniques that are actually complex and demand quite a bit of time. So we you know, we can't assume that those same spiritual techniques are being applied to this amalgamation of pop culture, right and the idea of a created thing. But we do know that these tubas are typically described in great detail, and there appear to be relatively few commonalities. Right, So, for someone who believes in non physical sentient entities, it's not like in The Exorcist, where the eponymous exorcist actually says, don't believe anything. It's not a different demon, it's not all these voices. There's only one thing pretending to be many many other things. To people who believe this, these are individuated, discrete entities, And at this point there's no proof that such an entity could exist, uh, something built entirely of energy or thought. And yes, yes, we know all matter is essentially just energy. But then the question is are these adults maybe only hearing themselves and translating it differently like in the bicameral minds like that idea? What about reports of d MT machine elves? And that's the idea that when people ingest certain hallucinogens they end up encountering these entities. I've heard them called machine elves. And like you know, drug literature circles circle people on arrowin nailed it. Yes absolutely, no, um I I don't know about that. But what are these? Are they like manifestations of thought that are given form or are they right? Are they your own thoughts looking back at you? Or are you somehow in tune with an entity or entities that you can not usually see. And this opens the door to a wealth of speculation, also several layers of skepticism. I'm sure for many people listening, but for people who believe that these non corporeal entities can exist, what we what they typically present. His proof is the idea that these hallucinations all share certain common traits regardless of who takes a certain drug win. So for people who believe it's d m T, they might say that every d MT trip has the potential to obey the same plot points almost which is fascinating. But you have to wonder is there a confirmation us there? And it leads us to another bigger question. Is it possible for a meme, an emotion, or an idea to become sentient? Mm hmm, that's a I think that's spooky because I have a lot of weird ideas. I don't know if I want them coming back. Yeah. I mean, isn't that just, you know, singularity in a different form of singularity kind of? I don't know what's interesting. Yeah, And this is a question that we want to uh hear your opinion about. To conclude today's episode, we do have to say whenever we address issues of mental health or mental wellness, wants you to know that if you have concerns or worries, there are people waiting to help you address those concerns, answer questions you're not alone. You can call the SAMSA Treatment Referral helpline at one eight seven seven seven to six four seven to seven. You can also visit mental health dot gov for a me get assistance and if you want more information. And we talked about the top of the show. In terms of imaginary friends and their effects on children and their development, there is a group of researchers at the University of Oregon um collectively working at a place called the Imagination Research Lab, and they pretty exclusively study that very thing. From their website, it says they look into the development of imagination and children and it's a relation to social understanding, creativity, inhibitory control, and narrative skills, but specifically children's creation of imaginary companions and the role they play in social and cognitive development. You can find links to their work at their site Imaginary Companions dot you or again dot E, d U slash lab. It's fantastic and it's important work because again, current research is relatively sparse. It's difficult to understand the answers that young children would give in interviews. However, right now, it's like cologists who don't believe that these are separate entities of any sort. I do believe that there's a cover up or conspiracy of sorts, and it's an inner conspiracy and internal cover up. They believe that imaginary friends seem to function at times as an emotional stand in, a sort of mannequin personality upon which a child could place and otherwise uncomfortable or difficult emotion. And this is a little bit cheeky. Several psychologists also argue that children might foist agency for bad behavior upon this other entity. I didn't decide to eat all the cookies. Dr Pants smack bubble meant told me to do it, and then, well, you know, honey, dr pants back bubble ment is not real the way that you are. No, you don't understand, mom, She made me do it. So you know it's not my fault that this bad thing happened. I still that I still do that to this day. So right, right, so Oddly enough, if there is a conspiracy, it may be simply children juveniles using the concept of an imaginary entity to cover up or remove themselves from their own fears, emotions, or consequences of action. And again, the fortunate bottom line here is that for the vast majority of cases, it doesn't seem harmful to children at all, and we have to ask if we apply this same reasoning to adults, Well, if it's not harmful, is there a reason to ask people to stop? I mean, if it's making them happy, it's not hurting them or someone else, should they be allowed their imaginary companions? Yeah? I mean if they're not the flavor of imaginary companion that allows them to write off any responsibility for their actions, that I say, a Okay, what do you think listeners? Um write us. You can find us on social media at Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram or just Conspiracy Stuff on Facebook and Twitter. And if you don't want to do any of that, you can write it's a good old fashioned email where we are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com m