Imagination? Or psychosis?

i think it becomes a bit daunting when people act like they are real in real life. like referring to the doll by its sex like 'he likes cakes' or 'she's very playful!'. this happened to me once at a convention where loads of people had bjds and a lady let me hold hers. at the back of my mind i was like 'ah weirrdd!' but i'm a super laid back person so it wasn't a big deal just interesting 'cause that's part of the bjd culture if that makes sense? like, i love when people do photostories and create compositions with their dolls 'cause i think that's what they are essentially created for and that's what i want to own one for. but i'm not sure i will rename her or make a profile for her - i'm just gonna dress her up!!

 

This is quite an interesting topic that I had wondered about but not really put into words. I'm of the opinion that any object can have some sort of a "spirit" living in it - that is, everything on Earth, living or not, has an energy, whether it's potential energy, electricity, etc. - and that gives it a certain degree of "life" (not in the traditional definition of life, but the life that comes through having energy) and that includes dolls. However, the life that humans possess is very, very different than that which a doll or a rock or a building might have. Humans have complex biological processes constantly going on, we have the ability to communicate, we move of our own free will. Dolls do not have that kind of life and they never will. They're beautiful and the creativity and love poured into them makes them very special, but they will never have a complex metabolism, they will never write a symphony, they will never have children. They can be a catalyst to a human creating something, but in and of themselves, they can't create. I've never seen my doll as a sentient being.

Now, we've all seen people on DoA who truly believe their doll is alive. I think that maybe where the misunderstandings about who is "crazy" and who isn't come from people's different definitions of life. As you saw above, things that have "spirits"/energy have a certain degree of life to me, but their life isn't comparable at all to the life humans, cat, trees, fish, etc. possess. By my definition, no one could argue that a doll wasn't alive in the way a human is alive. But a person viewing their doll as being a sentient being I don't think necessarily would equal psychosis in most situations. For example, some religions believe that talking to and treating objects with respect is extremely important because the soul of an ancestor or a god might reside within said object and it deserves attention and respect. It's worth considering each person's particular point of view on the world before labeling their treatment and consideration of dolls as psychosis.

Then, there are some people who might have some psychosis when it comes to their dolls. If someone, beyond religious/spiritual beliefs, truly sees their dolls as a sentient being, especially one who can carry out the necessities of life in its scientific definition (definition of life: maintaining homeostasis, being composed of one or more cells, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction), then it's possible that they may be perceiving dolls in a way that could be unhealthy. It is a scientically proven fact that living things carry out those processes above and it is obvious and provable that dolls do not carry out the processes listed above. Therefore, dolls are not truly alive.

I personally would not judge someone for having an intense connection to their doll but I might be a bit more unable to relate to them and I'd be more afraid of insulting them. Yes, my dolls are beautiful and I love them, but they aren't alive. Maybe they are Real by the "Velveteen Rabbit" definition, but they are not alive, therefore my connection to them could never be as deep as my connection to human.

 

Well, I have an artist's perspective - I believe one follows the creative impulse to lead you to truths - why do I sculpt a face a certain way, or why am I drawn to a certain doll? Is it familiarity? Why does a certain type of eye denote innocence, a certain curve of an eyebrow seem sassy? When I say that a doll of mine prefers a certain style of hair or type of clothing - I know I am really following character traits I am drawn to. I am simply trying to build a coherent character, and the more authentic the character is - the more truth will be there. One has to give up a little control to the doll (read - creative flow) but you are only giving up the control to allow your own deeper perceptions free rein. The doll is just a medium.

 

I dont know if i have ever thought of my dolls (not BJDs as i dont have mine yet) as truly "alive" but i do believe that they can have a personality depending on their looks and the time and care that we put into them.

For instance, i have a plush dog that I used to sleep with when i was younger. I would hug him when i was sad, dress him up in baby shirts and feel bad if i kicked him out of bed at night I would tell him I was sorry and kiss his nose. Was that a psychosis? I tend to not think so. Even to this day (now that I've outgrown him and dont need the monsters under the bed scared away lol) when i see him and relize i shoved him in the closet along with my dirty laundry (opps! ) I brush him off, say I'm sorry, kiss his nose and place him somewhere safe. I have puppets too that i treat gently and make personalities for; one has a bit of twinkle in his eye and is very mischivious but its a very onesided personality that only comes alive when I am the one holding him and giving him that character, if that makes any sense

The love and care we give to our dolls give them personality and life though i would never believe that my dolls are ever truly "alive" in that they are a breathing, flesh and blood being.

The idea of spirits in dolls is one I'm not even going to touch as I believe what PenguinCheese is pretty much my thought as well. I've seen too many paranormal shows too to think that inanimate objects cannot gain some sort of resonance with the spiritual world

 

Having a doll, maybe believing it has a soul is not psychotic to me. The line is drawn when people start expecting (or hallucinating?) that their dolls are real and can speak and do things, or have opinions etc.

I'm not talking about the bjd owner talk like "He needed a friend" or "he liked the shirt", I'm talking about psychotic where you really ARE mental and you are hallucinating and you're expecting that cute chunk of resin to get up and talk to you.

That's what psychosis is to me, other than that, the stuff my friends and I talk about among dolls is nothing more than playing pretend ^^ as immature as that may seem to others ;D

 

Haha! Yes! I definately agree, ever since watching Toy Story I have big issues with mistreating toys or even selling/giving them to charity! As silly as I feel I always have to apologise to them haha

But yeah, I think people can believe whatever they like about their dolls, so long as it makes them happy and doesnt cause anyone any harm. (And as long as they dont try and force their beliefs onto others!)

This is an interesting topic for discussion for sure

 

There is a theory that all things have spirits, rocks, trees, and cute hunks of resin! That spirit can be tapped or nurtured by the spirits of others. We love our dolls, our dolls become more real to us.

 

What an interesting topic, I'd have to say its psychosis when you expect the resin to up and walk around, for the lips to part and move, as a verbal clear cut voice comes out of it. It just doesn't work that way.

I believe most anythign can have a soul, or more so, the energy and emotions imprinted onto them, if you put enough time, love and care into something, it inevitabley becomes a part of you in some way. Your energy is in that object. Souls are very fickle, fragile things, and if one were to be attached to a doll it wouldn't be a very strong one, since all its energy would have to go towards staying in that one object. So while I think it can be sort of possible, it wouldn't be a soul/spirit as such.

 

Well a doll would be more an extension of you than it is a soul in a resin shell. Like keeping a memory alive. just..adding a tidbit...

 

I think there is a big difference between psychosis and imagination. Some of the things described are just a person exercising their imagination, perhaps the character/personality ascribed to the doll does not like cake, say, or the doll flops wildly and won't stand if there's cake nearby and it's a comment on the doll's posing ability. We've all been there when a doll just won't stand when it's been fine earlier

To me, it only becomes a psychosis if the person neglects their human relationships in favour of a relationship with a doll. If someone can find an interaction with an inanimate object more satisfying than one with a living being, there is an issue there. I'm not talking about natural loners who enjoy their own company, I mean people who will prefer the company of their doll to living beings, and believe the doll to be interacting back.

I've got my dolls and my childhood toys and I feel awful if they slump to the side or fall off a shelf. Anything with a face, and by extension, anything capable of expression tugs my heartstrings, but I know that my dolls and plushies aren't as important as living breathing people and if a doll was falling off a desk and a child was going to put their hand in a fire, I'd get to the child first. Its the people who would save the doll we need to be concerned about, particularly if saving the doll was connected to their belief the doll was alive in a similar way to the child, rather than a "argh! My expensive luxury item might get damaged!" reflex.

 

"We're ALL crazy here!"

 

to be honest, i suffer from psychosis once in a while, but when i'm in a "normal/healthy" state i still talk to my dolls.
I still think they even have feelings for me (and i am healthy at the moment), but there are some differences.

Normaly i talk to them like; you look beautiful in that dress. And they SEEM to say; thanks. But somewhere i know it is my imagination.

But when i am psychotic i see them move, winking, even their mouths moving.
And sometimes in psychotic state i am very scared of them. And some dolls, like little ones, become "Evil Friends".

So for me, this is he difference; i talk to them and "hear" them, but i know somewhere real deep that it is my imagination.
But when the reality of knowing that its my imagination fades, then it goes wrong!
Maybe the most important thing is that when you get very scared, you have a problem. You must seek help then, or let people help you.
Maybe there are people that also see their bjd's moving, but not getting scared. then there is no real problem

I hope i have explained well, forgive my bad english.

 

I understand where your coming from, but to undermine the belief in animism (the idea that everything has some type of soul) as a form of insanity, or almost insanity, is undermining a large portion of other individuals. Most Eastern religions, native African, American and large strands of neo-pagan religions have some sort of belief in animism. Other than my own experiences with places holding a certain level of memory, I have little to go on when it actually comes to animism, though it makes sense from what I believe and have personally encountered. I know my doll isn't going to get up and walk off the table, but I do believe that it has some sort of soul, even if it was only put there by his makers, and all the owners who ever loved him.

 

Maybe it's me as a psychology student, but I'd distinguish it by the good old ICD-10 criteria that is used in everyday diagnosis... (I'd prefer the DSM-IV, but as for internationality, refer to the ICD-10 here)... But I think I'd go with Schizophrenia here, maybe...

full text with all the criteria can be seen here:

http://www.mentalhealth.com/icd/p22-ps01.html#Head_1

What I think? No. People who love their dolls and speak to them or believe, there lies something in them, that resembles a soul or so... chances are high they do not suffer from any type of Psychosis or whatever you want to call it.

Are they people in the BJD community that suffer from a mental disorder like that?
With some 30.000 or so BJD collectors and usually around 1% of a prevalence to Schizophrenia, there probably are some, of course, just as there are people, who suffer from depression or other kinds of mental disorders, as they are in every kind of population, not just the BJD community.

Is the mere talking to your doll and loving her/him a mental disorder? Having seen a bunch of patients in a clinic, I have to say it takes more than that.
Can this sort of behavior get so extreme that one might see it as a mental disorder? Of course, just as washing your hands or eating or any "normal" behavior in this world, in its extreme form, might be a sign of some kind of disorder, but it would take a throughout diagnosis of the person's life, surroundings and general mental functioning to be able to say if it might have cross the border or not.

That's just my opinion on this topic... I think 99% of the lovey-dovey-talking-to-your-doll-like-it-was-a-person-and-stuff is absolutely normal! And there might be some 1% where it gets out of hand, or maybe even less than 1%.

I'm happy with being a little crazy when it comes to my dolls ^____^

@puppeteer: Thank you for speaking out honestly like that! I'm really impressed about how you put it in your words, what makes the difference to you. If people who actually have some kind of disorder speak their mind freely, as you did here, I think other people lose some of their fear and stereotype judgement when it comes to mental disorders and they might have more courage to go ahead and get help when they feel they might be somehow affected, too. *hugs*

 

First off, I'd like to say that this thread has been amazing. For the most part it has been civil and a wonderful debate.

Before I ordered my first doll, I told my boyfriend that I didn't think I'd ever be the type to "bond" with it or talk to it like it was real. He told me something that I didn't expect to hear and it made me think of this topic.

He told me that people project personalities on objects that the care about and spend a lot of time with. A prime example of this is a tiny bear he carries around in his hat that he calls "Blame Bear". He will tell anyone about Blame Bear's "personality" and finds it quite normal. Heck, he's even given my cardboard Robert Downing Jr. standee a menacing personality.

I hadn't thought twice about either of these incidents, but was ready to swear that I wasn't going to be one of "those crazy doll people". I'm very thankful that he was able to put things into perspective for me, and understand that it in most cases can be natural and even beneficial. At first I was ready ti write of people who talked to their dolls as nutty, but I've come to see that it it's quite common place, even outside the doll community, such as the previous examples of people and their cars.

Now, knowing that, does this mean I'm going to go around and expect my none doll friends to understand if I start talking to my doll like it was real? Heck no... They haven't "bonded" with her and they might look at me odd. I even know that once I explain things the way my boyfriend did to me that some of my friends still won't understand. For that reason I'll limit doing that if it severely bothers them and in return I know they won't make me feel crazy or like I'm a creepy weirdo.

I hope this has explained my viewpoint clearly.

NOTE: I respect everyone's opinions in this delicate topic, even if I don't agree with them.

 

I had the same experience.. I went to a panel at a con and people were talking like that... and it seemed a little funny. Not because they called the dolls by their gender, because I do that too, (and I think most kids do that with their toys anyway, don't they? It's just natural..) but because they were talking about their personalities like that. It's the difference between "she wears fancy clothes" and "she likes to wear fancy clothes". I don't really feel comfortable talking like the second example. I guess I don't mind if others do it though, (it's just sort of weird) and certainly they would have to do something a lot weirder than that before I'd call it psychosis.

Bunnykimper: I think your 2 examples of your BF giving things personalities is a little different, because those seem kind of like playful or joke personalities. People can get pretty serious with the doll personality thing though.

 

*lol* FrankieCat, I agree!

Personally, I talk to inanimate objects all the time. I work in a dollar store and whenever someone buys a teddybear I always tell the bear that he's (they are all boys to me for some reason) getting a home. However, I don't expect them to talk back! When people seriously believe their dolls are somehow real, it's time to backout slowly from the room and run. Dolls are dolls.

 

This is a really, really interesting topic. I don't think it has much to do with actual life-threatening mental disorders, however, it is still an interesting topic to explore.

I personally feel that my doll is more than an inanimate object. Not that she talks to me or anything of that nature, but rather, something that is very endearing to me. I just got into the BJD hobby recently, but I've felt this way throughout my life. If I ever saw anyone mistreating a stuffed animal, it would make me sad and uncomfortable. This could be because I am filled with more cheese and sap than any other human being on the planet (savory and sweet!), but...iunno really. Just speculation. It's kind of like some kind of bizarro version of Uncanny Valley, in which I care a lot about stuff that looks like...stuff.

Enough of that illogical rambling. Another point I wanted to touch on was the whole, "he likes rollerblading" etc, example (rollerblading was chosen for the lulz). While I'd agree more often than not with the sentiment that that is somewhat unusual, I bought an outfit for my girl, and I couldn't help but think, "she REALLY hates this outfit." The outfit was this big fluffy cute bunny costume, and my girl is a B&G Aurora, so she looks perpetually pissed. It's a funny dichotomy. Obviously, it was more because I thought she looked awkward than believing I have a Wonder Twins bond with her...but whatevs.

If my rant contributed nothing at all to this thread I apologize.

 

Eh... Not at all that odd. I would personally be concerned if I saw some kid abusing there stuffed toy or doll. There should be some realization that someone who shows disregard to something that appears like something animate is more likely able to hurt what it represents. Think of the psychological tests they give to kids sometimes in the movies and TV shows where they leave a child alone with a doll and see how the child treats it.

If you apply this to how people treat there dolls, it may show a bit of there relation to other individuals... that is, the ones who aren't insane... O.o NOTE: this is only a random hypothesis I had. I have no proof or belief to this fact.

 

Honestly - who knows the REAL answer to this - I have debated the "colour green" theory* with my husband for hours on end often ending up in frustration or fits of hysterical giggles - no one is qualified to draw a line anywhere as there is no accurate way to see another human beings perspective.

With physical issues obviously that is a different matter - perspective belongs to the majority when it comes to physically or mentally hurting people, but when it comes to "harmless" projection of beliefs on what "the majority" sees as an inanimate object... well, we may as well debate the meaning of life...

Untill we are able to transport our "life source"/soul etc... into another body in order to fully grasp what the world looks like through their eyes then it would be only a guess to call them wrong.

*colour green theory refers to the theory that its possible for every person on the planet to "see" colours differently to others, ie: the colour "green" I see could be to you what I'd call "red" and my "red" to you could be "yellow" and so on and so on.... as there is no way to accurately verify that everyone sees in the same colours its a circular debate... and facinating too LOL