Imagination? Or psychosis?

Nope, I definitely don't think you're crazy! I just know that you believe differently from me doesn't make you crazy, just different!

 

Yay! See, dollies? I'm not crazy! You tried to tell me I was, but you were wrong! Now, let's get back to that plan Lucien had about taking over the world. Mwahahahaha!!!!

 

I never said it should be if I think someone needs help, I'm not qualified to make a judgement on something like that. BUt from what you're saying, it seems you'd be fine withone harming themselves so long as they didn't harm anyone else. How messed up is that?

 

I dont believe my dolls have souls.. and if some1 said to me that they thought their dolls had souls, I would think they needed help. BUT there are countries where it has been told that inm the old age, witches would take souls of children and put them into dolls to do things like give good luck, overhear conversations, and fight for them.

BTW thats where the story for Cait Sith in Final Fantasy comes from . The dolls are actually called Cait Siths and the country that was known for putting childrens souls in cat clay dolls was Scotland. Sooo hopefully ... any of you FF fans.. get to read this. Cuz its cool info XD

 

As long as you know they're just a doll then that's okay but if you think they're alive that's a little to crazy. I realized the other day I made stories of my dolls and thought I was a bit to odd. Not that I'm crazy.

 

How is that a question?

Pfft, not my fault if you're not going to be clear in a debate. When debating one should always be clear and exact with what they're saying. If you can't do that, you're not fit for it.

 

The only person being rude here is you, as such I refuse to respond to you anymore. GOdd day sir.

 

What's so wrong with being crazy anyway. Madness? This is SPARTA!

 

The title of this thread made me laugh very, VERY hard. When I was younger it was always said that I just had a very vivid imagination, and I have now recently been tentatively diagnosed (awaiting proper test etc) with quite a few mood disorders and, the part that made me laugh, a slight merging of the real world with what isn't the real world.
Speaking as a now proven insane person (I tried so hard to have the doctor write that on my medical certificate - she wouldn't. Mean doctor not getting my joke) I think there is nothing wrong with firmly believing that your dolls are 'real'. I firmly believe that Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Harry Potter is real. Thats just me.
I think everyone deserves one 'psychotic' thing in their lives - after the good days I have had where I could see sounds and there were dancing rainbows and things, I think everyone should experience something magical and insane in their lives.


And no, I am not on drugs!

 

I believe in ghosts. I also believe in haunted objects... I don't think a doll would have it's own soul.... but it might get posessed by something else. I don't think any of my dolls are posessed or anything though. I come from an area full of ghost stories so I've grown up with them. I think if someone in general thinks dolls are real it would go too far if they became distructive of themselves or others. That's where I'd draw the line.

 

Animism, I would argue, is human nature. Reason tells us the doll is just resin and string, but Gestalt or just plain anthropomorphic understanding makes us shape that image into something more like ourselves, we see the unfinished image and we fill in the blanks. I remember when I very little seeing a soul, hearing a voice from my dolls, and on some level understanding that was an extension of myself. I tend to see them as more of a work of art, now that I am grown.

 

People believe a lot of things, and a lot of people's beliefs are completely incompatible with each other. One person's crazy is another person's reality...and reality itself is frighteningly subjective. What's real to one might not be real to another...or to anyone else, even. That doesn't make it any less real. As I once heard it put, "Reality is just what we tell each other it is."

This is what I get for being married to a philosophy addict. :B

 

I don't think it's crazy to believe a doll has a soul.
in fact the native religion of japan, Shintoism, holds the belief that *everything* has a soul. this can be seen at least a little in the volks naming ceremony.
its only natural to perceive human emotions in objects that have human form.

 

I agree with what some people have said, that as BJDs are represented as humans, we tend to take a more human approach to them, I believe it's a sort of instinct to behave to the human-looking-thing like it was a human, if that makes sense.

I personally have always had a really vivid imagination, and being an only child I adopted talking to my stuffed animals when I was very young, as they were really the only company I had when my parents weren't around. To me, that part of me that talked to stuffed animals shows through with my doll. The fact that we put so much time and care into these dolls adds a more personal level to it as well. I've never seen anyone take pictures of their barbies like they would a BJD (but I'm certainly not comparing BJDs to barbies in the slightest, but they are both considered dolls), and I haven't seen many people who would spend so much on simply a doll (and not like that is a bad thing, because, why would I be here if I hadn't myself?). The fact that we've spent so much on these dolls also makes us (or me at least) want to have some sort of closeness to it. In my opinion, I wouldn't enjoy having a BJD nearly as much as I do if I didn't talk to him or play with him.

Now, I think that if a person has taken the BJD hobby to a point where they are calling their dolls their children, and even saying they've given birth to them rather than bought them (I haven't experienced this, but my friend who is also into BJDs has told me things like that), now that's taking it too far in my opinion. BJDs are an object you've bought and they are inanimate, but for me and my vivid imagination, I like to push the borders a little and talk to my boy. No other "toy" I've got has such a developed character and personality as my BJD has, and it just adds a whole new personal level to them.

Well, that's my speech for this topic. I don't think people who talk to their dolls and think they have souls are crazy, but if you take it as far as saying you've given birth to them, that's a little too far for my liking. But, once again, to each their own, right?

 

I wouldn't say dolls have individual souls, but that they are a part of us. It's hard to explain.... but basically I believe we give them a soul, a heart, and feelings just as we would do with a character in a book. They are individuals through us. Almost as if it were multiple personality disorder, but the dolls have the other personality. So, though they may have a completely different personality, they are a different part of ourself.

 

Emby Quinn, Hedgemadge, and zuag 12345. Basically everything that they just said. :/ That is all(to me at least).

 

Yes, Japan has even gone so far in the past to attach high respect and sometimes sentiment onto inanimate objects, not just dolls but things like combs, tools, etc. When broken and no longer able to be useful they are taken to shrines and given a proper thankful fairwell where they are usually burned I believe. As far as dolls go I know that long ago there used to be shrines dedicated to old dolls, places people could safely dispose of a doll without those possible pesky supernatural side effects. :P

I don't believe that dolls have souls or become the harbor for another spirit, but I do think human beings are able to imprint on their dolls, both mentally and occasionally physically. All matter is held together by particles and so in a way it seems like it's possible to influence they with the adoration that comes from the owner. Possibly there is also something about a small human form that reminds us to take care of and love smaller humans(i.e. babies in a sense). I think dolls can gain soul, maybe not literally, but they gain the soul and energy we give them. Either way, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, I think you can believe whatever you want. Who really knows for a fact anyways?

 

I know that I've managed to worry at least one friend with the way I name and sometimes talk about my dolls/computers/cars/anything else of vague importance to me. I think the dividing line though is that whilst I often act to a degree as if they are living beings, I can happily turn around and say that Kags is a set of chucks of resin, and that Ran is a silicon and metal based construct for the rapid calculation of binary operations.
Neither are really alive, and that won't stop me playing along with the idea that they are ^.^