Imagination? Or psychosis?

Talking to your dolls = a bit (a huge bit) weird, but not crazy
Thinking your dolls are talking back to you = pretty crazy, but not harmful to anyone else, generally
Thinking your dolls are telling you to kill people or yourself = go to the hospital

When you can't distinguish fantasy from reality, I think that pretty much creates the line between imagination and psychosis. If you play like your dolls interact with you and each other, that's imagination. If you really believe your dolls interact with you and each other, that steps over into the "unwell" category.

 

I think how you're feeling is normal.
Hell, I had a fryer at work start beeping really loudly and literally said HELP on the timer screen.
I felt bad for it, and it doesn't even have a face, much less a cute one. ;-;

Its OK until one ventures into the realm of schizophrenia and thinks the dolls are literally talking to them.
Or get obsessed and spend way too much time preoccupied in a fantasy world.

 

Of course, there is a full range of feelings in between. My dolls are a dolls firsthand; they became characters because it's simply boring to have a chunk of plastic sitting on the sofa) So dolls first, characters after that.
I have a pretty strong imagination, and I created personal universe populated with custom characters in my mind. Though my BJDs are another story - their characters are just not-so-ordinary people. But people without any extra abilities anyway. This is my "answer" to the extensive amount of supernatural creatures embodied in BJDs by other owners.

I'm not the one to judge where the border lays and what psychosis is. While it's not destructive it's ok.

I do not feel guilty leaving my dolls for 2+ weeks, not only because "they are just dolls" but because their characters are mature responsible people so they do not need a babysitter. They are a kind of people I would be comfortable with, I'd love to have as my friends.

 

I used to drive an old vehicle. I named "him" Floyd. Why? Because assigning a name and perhaps "soul" comforted me to some degree. Instead of trusting a machine not to break down I was trusting a thing that I assigned a certain level of humanity to. Did I do it because I thought the vehicle was like a person? No. I did it because I wanted to make myself feel better.

I think as long as someone isn't hurting others or him/herself then they can perceive their dolls however they wish. I don't feel an individual needs to conform to make a group happy. I feel groups need to be more accepting of that which is a little different.

 

I think this is normal, they have human form and we make characters for them (or buy them to make the characters).So it's natural see them like the character and not a doll. Like a character they think,act and have needs so we imaging this.We can say they have a "soul" because they are so clear in our mind, that we can make they give the felling we think they would give.

 

To me the line draws here:

If you believe your dolls have souls and are able to accept the fact calmly that some others people can't agree with you, you are still alright.

If you beieve your dolls have souls and overreact when being told they don't, you are somewhat...eh...

IMO it's a very personal issue. As long as you have no problems living a normal life (communicating with others in whichever way, have a social life, able to study or work, etc), you can't be loving or 'imagining' your dolls too much and there is no reason for you to be considered a psycho. Afterall it's not one's affection for dolls but one's own personality that causes psychosis.

 

What is really striking me about this thread is how quick so many of the posters say are not real, figments of their imagination and so on. It sounds as though they're frightened of looking odd to others or themselves, like believing is a bad thing.

I am a believer. Some of my BJDs interact with me, as do some of my non BJD dolls. I make sure that they are comfortable and happy, and sometimes converse with them. In the meantime, I keep up with my studies, keep a tight grip on my finances, maintain a respectable level of hygiene and interact with my family friends and school. If believing in my dolls is a bad thing, I have no idea how it shows.

 

Or we really do just think that our dolls are dolls and any personality they have is something we assigned them using our imagination. I'm not afraid of looking weird to others, and my dolls are actually one of my least weird areas of interest. I'm more inclined to believe that my computer has a distinct "personality" separate from other computers of its make and is able to connect with me because it forms an interactive system with me, and the computer itself can possess some low grade form of artificial intelligence, than I am any doll which is really just a pretty lump of human shaped plastic.

You're tired of people thinking you're crazy because you think your dolls are some sort of feeling entity. We're tired of people thinking we're either unfeeling, unimaginative, or afraid of ridicule because we think they're just pretty dolls.

 

Not to get too Jungian about it, but it would seem to me that the doll may be a symbol of something else that you do not want to neglect, like your creativity or your "inner child", and so on.
There is a fine line in some ways of thinking between creativity and psychosis anyway, but I don't think you have anything to worry over unless your behavior becomes obsessive, and you are a threat to the safety and/or wellbeing of yourself or others.
Some people have a need to draw attention to themselves by acting in bizarre ways. I wouldn't call them crazy, just needy. I don't mean to say this is you by any means, but I think you could find examples around here.

 

I brought this up with my therapists and doctor once...my mom and my aide noticed that I talk to my dolls (it's an improvement from when i was talking to myself and then answering myself)

He said that I'm totally within normal. I speak to my dolls and I like to pose them and stuff but as long as my dolls aren't speaking back to me or moving on their own or anything it's totally normal. I have retained much of the imaginative capabilities that adults tend to lose, which I think is most unfortunate.

I think my dolls have a destiny...in that when they were made their path was all laid out...but I am a big believer in Fate. Their souls are my creations but Fate already dictated that to me...everything is linked.

I still know they are dolls and that they are not alive as organic living things are...they are resin and they don't speak or move unless I move them.

Crazy, no. Weird, DUH.

 

I think it becomes a problem if you expect other people to treat your doll the same way as you do. Has anyone watched Lars and the Real Girl?

 

I draw the line where I do with pretty much anything else -- if you're hurting other people or yourself (e.g. you're unable to, say, meet your obligations at work or school) then you've crossed a line. Maybe you've crossed a line into mental instability, maybe not. I'm an anthropologist by training and an English teacher by trade so it's not like I'm qualified to diagnose mental illness in someone else. But personally I think that the line is in different places for everyone because what's normal and healthy is also in different places for everyone. For example, say one of your criteria for deciding whether or not you (or someone else) have crossed the line is a healthy social life with other human beings. Well...a "healthy social life" for you and a "healthy social life" for me and a "healthy social life" for that person over there might not be the same thing at all. Yeah, there might be certain things that would be unhealthy for anyone, but a person who has 20 friends isn't necessarily having a social life that's substantially more or less healthy than a person with 10 friends or a person with 3 friends. But of course, I think people are inclined to see their own realities as normal and right and the more someone else's reality deviates from that benchmark, the more abnormal and wrong it seems. I think that's where all the different lines and the whole "you're afraid/you're unfeeling" thing is coming from.

 

Thanks for this. Play is important, no matter who or what you are or how old you are.

From Medline: "Psychosis is a severe mental condition in which there is a loss of contact with reality"

I think lots of us, self included, occasionally exhibit a bit of neurosis about the dolls, but psychosis is a much, much more serious disease which none of us wants, truly. Or exhibits, as far as I am able to tell.



Unless you think you hear actual, physical voices emanating from your resin critters... in which case I would definitely hie thee to a medical person.

 

All humans have souls. The moment we are conceived we have a soul
because life=soul. It's unfortunate that people have used "soul" in other
forms that it has lost it's original meaning. Your Cat has a soul & the animal
now on your plate once had a soul. A soul has nothing to do with personality
or experience. As your comment "...you could say human beings are
inanimate objects when they come into the world" implies,
when inanimate means:not endowed with life OR spirit. Lacking consciousness or power of motion.
Otherwise people could claim that babies born with mental disorders & other ailments that will
prevent them from developing "normally" don't have a soul...?
What you are talking about is actually energy. And ALL things have
energy. Your shoes, your computer mouse...yes even your doll!!
But energy can't/shouldn't be confused with soul or life

Now that I got that off my chest....aren't we all a little "crazy" or at
least appear that way to others? My grandmother has a little plush
sheep hanging from her car mirror that she occasionally talks to.
Is she crazy? Yes. Can she be committed to a psych ward for observation
or treatment? No. It's a quirk, and we all have one...or more.
If you enjoy thinking/feeling/believing that your doll has feelings and such
then go ahead. But if you start hearing your doll or it starts demanding
things (outside of the normal new clothes/wig demands) or you start
fearing your doll will get mad and get you in your sleep, then you better
seek help. Missing your doll and wanting to go home to see it and actually
thinking it misses you is something else entirely. Society can definitely
blame the likes of The Velveteen Rabbit or Corduroy the bear for such beliefs!!

 

I'm pretty sure none of us are really qualified to discern such diagnosis of others (at least not in this format). However, in about 2.5 years, I'll have a psychology degree and I'll get back to you. XD

 

I think there is a line between imagination and psychosis—overactive imagination. Creatively speaking, is this the edge that creates a great doll storyline, book or movie? Where would we be without the Alfred Hitchcock’s, Steven Spielberg’s, and Quentin Tarantino’s of the world? The problem occurs when this line is crossed and the person becomes harmful to themselves and/or others.

 

Because this is the internet and we are not interacting face-to-face, it's hard to gauge when someone is serious or playing... and it's impossible to know other outside factors. I couldn't evaluate anyone's mental condition, but if people make me uncomfortable I'll avoid them. This is just my hobby, so if I don't enjoy interacting with someone I'm really under no obligation to do so.

A couple years ago, this conversation really just wouldn't have happened in this hobby because people were much more conservative about the kind of information that they shared. For some reason, it's become cool over the last few years to have some kind of condition or prejudice to overcome.... I'm not saying that real cases don't exist, but the vast majority of people in this hobby are not psychotic or even truly imbalanced about their playing with dolls, even if they make a spectacle of pretending that they are. As Kiyotakari said, comparing the average hobbyist to someone with real behavioral or emotional disorders makes this conversation almost laughable.

Some of us may have sad pasts (or presents) or a bit of loneliness, maybe some gender or sexuality issues... but it really, I would say that we have the same spectrum of relative normalcy as any other hobby group.