Imagination? Or psychosis?

I think that the relationship between bjds and their owners is just a hard thing for people that arent in that mind-set to understand. Speaking for the majority of us (I hope lol), our dolls dont really talk to us. We dont think of them as ACTUAL living, breathing creatures. They exist in our minds and until our minds bring them to life they are simply beautiful plastic shells.

I think its pefectly healthy to "communicate" with your dolls and personify them and give them human-like characteristics As long as your ok admitting that you're talking to a non-living peice of plastic! Crazy people dont know they're crazy, after all

 

This is an interesting subject and its interesting to see what peoples thoughts are on the matter, personally for me my dolls are just a little bit of escapism, some fantasy time out from reality. That is not to say I can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality! When all said and done they are just inanimate objects which I care about but I don't believe they have souls or anything like that.
They are a hobby just like drawing or painting the are a creative outlet allowing people to express themselves.
If they start talking to you and telling you to burn things for example then you should go see a doctor for sure!!!

I joke about my car being more than just a car it has been nicknamed 'Christine' as in the possessed car from the movie of the same name, it is really difficult to do any repair work on it as it doesn't want to let you take bits off! But I know this is untrue and its just an old car that has rusted bits on it and will be hard to work on.

 

I like seeing what people have to say about this, back when I owned porcelain dolls I would talk to them now and again, because for my age I have a very active imagination.

Although I have seen crossing the line of imagination and psychosis. My daughter, as much as I love her, is in love with a video game character, she even went as far as buying a life sized statue and talking to him, like he's a real person. I know she has had really bad relationship problems so I just often look the other way and I know she knows it bothers me because she has toned it down when I'm there. She even said 2-D love is normal in some places.

 

Reality is completely subjective. IMO. But there is a point where the interaction can become unhealthy. Still, I don't think in terms of the crossed line being whether we consider the dolls "real", but whether they are interrupting our normal functioning in the day to day business of living constructively.

For me, the answer is no. They enrich my life, but they don't alter it's course significantly.

I have a DiM Winny. She's resin, not real, not living and breathing. But damn if I don't feel bad leaving her neglected. And I talk to her throughout my day, working in my studio or what have you. She seems to get "grouchy" when I don't mess with her for a few days.

And really, it's not just me. I'd left her alone on a work table for a few days, and when my daughter came in to tell me dinner was almost done, she immediately said "Mom, your doll is giving me the stink eye." And when I went over to Winnie, sure enough--I could swear the doll (whose faceup is a nicely congenial expression) was indeed scowling petulantly.

20 minutes and two dress changes later, my daughter came back in to call me for supper--she remarked that the doll didn't look pissed any longer.

Make of that what you will. I try not to worry about it. I love my dolls. I know they're just dolls. But dolls, throughout human history--over a vast range of cultures--have represented many things about humans. Some were for play, some were to teach skills, some were for healing, some for guardianship, and some were even for housing souls... All dolls, all important to our collective psyche's as human beings.

So I certainly think having a doll can be a very sacred thing. Even if they are resin artworks at the end of the day.

 

i sometimes talk to them....and treat them as real.its the same for religion.who is to judge what is real and which is delusion?afterall sometimes i wonder if my time spend in this life is real...im as real to them as they are to me....as far as im concern,reality is subjective to individual.

 

Humans need companionship. At heart, we're pack mammals. When we don't have it - or don't have the kind of companionship we need on some fundamental level - we create it. I have no problem with people who talk to dolls, give their dolls characters, know their personality inside and out. That's normal. What I have a problem with is people who try to push their ideas of what MY doll's character is like onto me. I've had someone earnestly try to tell me that Delirium's personality is "wrong" and that her "soul" is "different" than the personality I created for her. That's transference, and it's a bit creepy. I also have issues with the people who do things like call in sick to work because their doll has a cold and they have to stay home with it. I believe there's a 'too far' line, and for me, that crosses it. I wouldn't call it psychosis - I lived with a schizophrenic for years, so I know psychosis - but it's definitely not on the path to mental stability when the imagined illness of a resin doll affects the owner's real life responsibilities and livelihood.
-Pere

 

Not to sound crazy here, but I was talking to my doll the other day and I realized that just because something isn't breathing, or moving on their own, or otherwise considered inanimate doesn't mean they aren't living. Ever heard the quote "Life is what you make of it."? That's essentially what I came to realize. It's like stars in the sky or even battery power, they eventually "die", and to die you have to have lived. Now I don't believe that stars or batteries have souls in them, let alone my dolls, but I believe that they can acquire a sentimental value and are "living" just not in the conscious sense of the word.

 

I've always had sort of a natural habit to be kind in my actions and words, even if I know that something is simply an inanimate object that can't understand or appreciate my feelings.

It seems stupid to some people, but a Dr. Masaru Emoto has written several volumes of a work called Messages From Water. It says that our thoughts, feelings and intentions can either positively or negatively influence the appearance of water crystals. For instance, water that was exposed to positive words and feelings crystalizes in brilliant snowflake patterns, while negatively treated water crystals are misshapen, rough and dull.

Basically, I don't think that it's far-fetched or at all a stretch of the imagination to feel that dolls (or any other object, for that matter) are, in some small way, alive. If only because of the energy that we project toward them.

Now, when someone starts to talk to their dolls and they truly believe that they are talking back...

 

I don't believe in psychosis (for the sake of argument).

Not to get all Matrix on you, but what IS reality? Reality is what we make of it.

It's true.

If it isn't hurting anyone (and believing a doll is real isn't hurting yourself, it's an imaginary (to some) friend. We had them when we were little, why not now? Just like dolls. We had them when we were little, why not now!!) why fight it?

 

Actually if you want to try to define it, 'reality' according to the dictionary I happen to have to hand is:

1. The state of things that are as they are or appear to be, rather than as one might wish them to be. 2. Something that is real. 3. The state of being real 4. In reality, actually; in fact.

Reality is what it is, it's things that are and can be proven or measured (or at least theorised about by provable methods), not what we impose on it with our imaginations or beliefs. If you can prove something by scientific means (i.e. measurable, impartial tests that aren't just down to fluke or chance) then it's real. For example I could say I emphatically believe all elephants are pink, that doesn't mean that any of them really are.

Like you say, there's nothing wrong with having an imaginary friend, or just imagination in general but when you honestly cannont draw the line between what's in your own head and what is real, that's when it becomes unhealthy.

 

Its my own opinion that certain objects can have souls but they must be things handcrafted with love and care I think swords and certain OOAK dolls might be this way. I do not think mass produced things even expensive BJDS have had enough energy poured into them by their maker to have a soul of their own.

On the other hand I may see my own doll as having a soul of its own only cause the "character" i have in mind is a memorial of someone, A way to keep them alive in my own way if you will...

 

This is a fun topic. Thanks for bringing it up.

I personally only see my dolls as a pretty piece of plastic. I've been a doll collector for a long time, something my mother got me started on with porcelain dolls when I was little. I was never really able to play with them, and even though I do photoseries with my resin dolls I still limit how much I touch them and how careful I am with them.
This may be the reason to my own views or it may not but I feel like it is.

From my understanding your asking if there is a difference between seeing the dolls as plastic and seeing them as actual individual with souls.

I feel like their is a difference. Granted each person will do as they like but there is a difference. I think maybe there is a fine line between the both. It plays a lot like muses do to a writer. Your characters can create their own separate being in your head (not sure if anyone can relate to that but me lol) but even though they do that the individual must be completely aware that they still do not exist in the physical realm which we live. They are still fiction, not real. I feel like this is the same with the dolls as many people give their dolls personalities and what not, making them into their own character.

No offense meant to anyone, just expressing my ideas

 

Without going severly postmodern and toying about with Simulacra and Simulation type ideas on the nature of the real, it becomes psychosis when you stop being able to tell what is real and what isn't. Making up personalities for your dolls and treating them like people is more or less how you "play dollies." But if you can't identify that you are playing, then you are in psychosis territory. I think projecting ourselves onto our stuff is normal enough. I talk to my stuff all the time. I apologize to my car if I run over a pothole, I curse at my keys while I'm fumbling to get my door unlocked with gloves on, and if I think my doll is looking particularly cute, I tell it so. It would be worrying if I thought my stuff was going to talk back. Cause it's stuff, and it can't.

Edit: which is not to say that being able to imagine very clearly what the persona you have created for your doll would say in response is psychosis. It's psychosis if you think the response is coming from somewhere other than yourself.

 

To me a soul implies consciousness. I do not think dolls have consciousness. I think objects such as dolls carry a type of imprinted energy, but that is a different thing.

 

oooooooh I like corvus, I like. That's the best description of a dolls "being" I have heard.

 

Thank you! : )

 

I don't yet have my BJD, but my friend had an encounter with someone telling her she had psychosis. I don't belive she has it, we both personally agree that we OURSELVES put the personality into our dolls, not that they truly are "alive" in some sense of the word.

I've been excited and talking about getting my doll, and I've had some people come up to me and start arguing that it's strange or mental to invest so much money and emotion into something like a doll, but it's what makes you happy.

Personally, I don't think it's wrong to treat your doll like a person and talk to them and love them, either way, psychosis or not. But I do belive most BJD owners are simply putting their imagination in a physical form they can love. Not that they truly and honestly belive that the doll can talk back.

 

This is a very interesting topic. It's very thought provoking and obviously touches peoples' emotions...

Imagination or psychosis? Does it matter if you (this is the collective you) are functioning daily? If you can feed yourself, keep your physical environment and person clean, are not violent or a danger to yourself or others? Pay your bills and so on and so forth? Maybe the word we're (again the collective "we") looking for is eccentric. If you can transfer from the imaginary back to what we all agree is "reality" and don't get stuck in the imaginary world, then I think you're OK. You're just what used to be called eccentric.

 

If imagination and creating personality in a doll is psychosis then every novelist who has ever created characters and lived with them while creating a novel - or especially those who create series of novels would be psychotic.
I also live with a child - and every day is full of imagination, stories and creation of other characters -sometimes involving dolls - again not psychosis.
The main difference is knowing that although you enjoy/love your dolls and create personas and stories - that they are not truly alive.
My daughter created imaginary mice friends 3 years ago - there are now 7 (each with it's own name and personality) who live in our house and are part of our stories and playtime on a daily basis - but as she said to me one day when I was asking her a question about them - "Mommy you know they aren't real". So no psychosis on her part and she was making sure that I wasn't as well.