WEBVTT - From the Vault: Pretend Play, Part 3 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.280 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:10.840 name is Robert Lamb. It is Saturday, so we have 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.680 a vault episode for you. You know where we're going 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.799 with this one, because we are what halfway through the 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:20.919 Pretend to Play series that we're re airing. This is 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:23.680 going to be part three of five, and it originally 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:27.520 published one sixteen, twenty twenty five. Let's jump right in. 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.159 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:43.280 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:44.159 name is Robert. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.920 Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.120 the third part in our series on pretend play, the 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:56.000 type of play that involves non literal understanding, So when 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.520 a child or an adult, but it's usually a child. 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.720 When a child runs around the living room saying, room room, 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:06.000 I am a truck. Or when they turn a cardboard 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.720 box that a package came in into a house and 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:10.800 live in the house and do things in there and 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:12.800 talk about the tiny people who live in there with them, 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.839 When they pretend to feed and care for a plastic 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.040 dinosaurs if it were a baby, when they have adventures 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.039 with an imaginary friend. All of these are forms of 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.120 pretend play. It's play that takes anything in the world 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.040 and the situation in an object in the self as 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.200 something other than literally what it is now. In the 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.200 past two episodes we got into a number of fascinating 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.919 ideas and concepts from the academic study of pretend play. 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.800 We talked about the standard schedule on which pretend play 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.120 appears to emerge, usually with the first type of play 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:51.560 being object substitution. So you know, this stick is a sword, 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.600 this dinosaur toy is a baby, this remote control as 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.600 a phone. We talked about the evidence for possible links 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:03.760 between pretend play and the development of complex cognitive capacities 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:09.519 like symbolic understanding, counterfactual reasoning, and theory of mind. And 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.160 in part two we talked about some of the existing 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:17.440 research on imaginary friends and imaginary companions, how prevalent they 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.760 are within and across different cultures, how they work, what 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.320 different forms they take, and what children believe they know. 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:26.840 And today we're back to talk about more. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.920 When you mentioned how they work, it instantly made me 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.040 wonder if there are some imaginary friends who have jobs. 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.000 I would not be surprised to find that some imaginary 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.040 friends do have jobs, but I don't think I read 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:41.560 anything about that in particular. 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.880 Oh well, based on what I've been reading, there are 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.120 a good number of observations of imaginary friends doing what 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.200 the child themselves cannot, So you know, there's a kind 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:55.920 of vicarious attainment of life goals or vicarious participation in 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.400 activities through the use of imaginary friends. So maybe if 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.000 in the same way that the child can pretend they 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.320 can play mom and dad and go to work even 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.000 though they're not actually going anywhere, they could also have 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.639 the imaginary friend have a job. And that's another way 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:12.920 of simulating, right. 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.400 Yeah, yeah, Now, as we discussed in the last episode, 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.160 and I would encourage everyone to go back and listen 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:23.160 to the previous episode. The previous two episodes actually take 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.760 these in order because a lot of the things we're 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.040 discussing they may stand alone, but we're also building upon 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.960 what we talked about previously. But one of the things 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:37.480 we talked about with imaginary friends and or imaginary companions 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:43.600 is that, of course they seem to be widespread and 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:49.400 fairly common, but there's a lot to discuss about samples 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.960 and where you're looking and also even time. So is 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.600 this a capacity that all children have, and is that 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.400 capacity not really maxed out in every culture and certainly 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:04.920 at every time in human history. I don't know. There 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:06.920 are some interesting cases to be made for that. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.840 Yeah. In fact, that very thing might come up with 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.040 some stuff I want to talk about later in this episode. 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.160 Yeah, So as we roll into what we're going to 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.279 talk about next, it is just important to bear in 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.440 mind that there are a lot of caveats involved here. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.279 A lot of the research. Most of the research is 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:26.279 certainly focused on children in the West, and therefore it's 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:31.919 not necessarily allowing for cultural differences that may be in 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:38.599 play regarding how these trends are expressed in given children. Now, 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.279 having talked about imaginary friends and imaginary companions, we've touched 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:50.120 on one very fascinating phase in the imaginative lives of children. Storytelling, 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.839 of course, weaves its way through this and other examples 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.240 of imaginative play that we've discussed so far, even in 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.279 its simplest forms. Right, dinosaur is hungry for crayons, therefore 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:01.160 eats crayons. 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.640 Is a sort of story, sometimes a comedy, sometimes a tragedy. 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.400 It depends on the exact the exact line graph of 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.880 how the plot flows right, Is the dinosaur getting everything 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.320 it wants on it and its lead up to downfall? 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.560 Or is it? Or is it just one disappointing meal 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.200 after the other and eventually it will rise to the 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:23.600 top of a crayon buffet. 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.279 I think something about does it end in a marriage? 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.080 Yeah? It may, it may. Marriages sometimes do occur for 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:34.560 toy dinosaurs. So you know, our ability to engage in storytelling, 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.640 of course, only becomes more and more refined as we 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:42.080 get older. Even children but also adults who do not 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.880 think of themselves as storytellers inevitably engage with the power 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.600 of storytelling on a daily basis. We've talked about this 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.240 before in the show. We craft events in our lives 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.240 into stories that we relate to others and to ourselves. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.799 We come to live our lives and reflect on ourself 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.040 as a character in a narrative to varying degrees. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.360 You know, this is just reminding me of I think 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.600 an episode or a couple of episodes that we did 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.320 years ago. Now I forget what it's even called, but 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.000 we were exploring the work of a particular philosopher who 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.919 was this was one of the most like perverse and 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.120 yet persuasive ideas we've ever encountered. On the show, it 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:27.000 was pursuing the idea that ultimately fiction is bad for us, 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.800 and I remember it was like they this guy made 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.039 a fairly persuasive case that like it's not very good 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:37.360 for us, you know, like it causes us to think 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.440 about the world in incorrect ways and makes allowances for 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.960 bad behavior and all this kind of stuff, and yet 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:45.479 it's just like, well, we're not getting rid of it, 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:47.880 and I like it too much, so it's like too bad. 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.800 Yeah, Yeah, there's a whole discussion to be had about 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:55.279 how life isn't story shaped, but we often compare it 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.200 to stories and end up with expectations based on those stories. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:02.840 So yeah, it's it's complex, and I think, you know, honestly, 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.800 I feel like there's give and take on both sides. There. 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.040 Like stories and storytelling enrich our lives in so many ways, 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:14.160 but yes, they can also lead to false expectations, disappointment, 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:19.120 and again coming to back what we're directly talking about here, Yeah, 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:24.560 thinking about yourself as a character in a narrative, you know, 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.520 can maybe get into maladaptive territory at times, But we're 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.320 not going to stop, No, no, why would we stop now? 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.720 There are many different forms of narrative activities to be 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.280 found in childhood, and they range from the nonfictional to 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:43.280 the fictional, from social to private, from acted out to linguistic, 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.760 and all with varying levels of character and plot development. 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.960 There might not be any plot development in the saga 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.680 of Dinosaur Eats Crayons, but that doesn't mean it doesn't 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.840 have some form of story to it, right, right, But 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:00.000 one particularly interesting form of imaginative storytelling can be found 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:05.080 in middle childhood, generally around the ages of eight through twelve, 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.880 And in this we explore the world of paracosm. So 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.120 this goes beyond the notion of an imaginary companion and 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:18.560 it transcends into the realm of an imaginary world. 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.240 So if the single imaginary companion or imaginary friend is 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.520 the equivalent of a fiction writer creating a character, this 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.040 is the equivalent of world building exactly. 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.240 Yeah, And obviously this is a rich area to dream 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.920 about and indeed to tell stories about. C. S. Lewis's 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.760 Narnia and mister Rogers neighborhood of Make Believe certainly come 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.920 to my mind. I'd throw Alice in Wonderland in there 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.160 as well while we're at it, And these are probably 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.079 some of the examples that resonate with folks who grew 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.079 up in the same decade as me on a similar 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.600 media diet. But there, of course far more number of 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.560 these that you can think of any number of these, There, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.400 of course more concrete ideas of actual fantasy world worlds 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.280 that one might venture into that are at the same 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.400 time linked to the concept of creatively imagined worlds. You 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.679 can also look to any magical treatment of characters crossing 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.800 over into the worlds of books, TV and movies, as 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:18.200 well as so many different sci fi, virtual reality, dream 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:22.200 walking scenarios, all creative treatments on the idea that imagine 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.840 worlds become a place in the mind that we might 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.800 retreat to play, dream and seek solace in. 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.360 You know, just now thinking about it, it struck me 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:36.600 how many of these stories about characters who want to 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:42.199 escape into an imaginary world focus on showing the characters 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:47.160 struggles and unhappiness about real life. You know, it's there 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:49.760 in the Never Ending Story. It's there, and I don't 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:51.480 know why. This is the other example that came to 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:55.280 mind for me. But the last action Hero, you know, 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.240 there's just like just like, oh, well, real life, you know, 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.280 it's full of troubles, but there's this other world that's 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.920 so much more interesting and exciting and better. 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:06.960 Yeah, there's so many examples of the so many different 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.440 like subgenres of it, like the changing channels variations you see, 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:14.040 and I think at least a handful of not several 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.360 different movies, especially the nineties, where oh I'm sucked into 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.040 the television again, I'm going from TV channel to TV channel, 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.360 you know. And you know, you can even get into 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:28.440 things like well Star Trek in general as again as 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:32.760 a fictional universe we might escape into imaginatively. But also 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:34.679 they have the Holo deck in there, which is its 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.960 own form of paracosm within a paracosm. 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.400 Yeah, that's right. But I just brought it up because 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.320 I think it's interesting that in reality, I don't think 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.720 one need be unhappy with real life in order to 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:51.040 enjoy thinking about alternate worlds. But this is like a 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.040 thing that we sort of go to in fiction when 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.000 we're sketching this character who wants to escape. 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:00.400 No, no, it does, certainly, it does come up. One 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.440 source I was looking at as a twenty eighteen Artifact 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:07.960 magazine article by one George Janes, and Jane cites child 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.600 psychologist Gwynn Abon, who argues that when faced with trauma, 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.640 children and adolescents may fall back in their development, returning 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:17.920 to a place where they felt more safe and quote 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.679 a paracosm is similar, the goal being to step out 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.080 of reality because it is too difficult to process. Now, 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:26.760 I agree with you, and I think other things I've 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.920 read back that backs that up. The idea that you 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.040 may see this some of the time, certainly, but you 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.920 don't need to have something in particular you're escaping to 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.520 engage in paracosm, to to have an imagined world that 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.760 you're dreaming yourself into and building out in your mind, 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.480 you know, especially during these vital years. 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.400 Yeah, so it might in fact be one way people 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.800 get there, but it's not the only way exactly. 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:53.199 That's my redone it anyway. 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.640 Yeah, sorry to interrupt your flow. 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.440 Though, No, no, no, no, but I think it is 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:00.800 It is worth noting as well that this is this 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.280 sort of thing. The energy of this doesn't necessarily go 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.160 away in the human experience. Obviously, adults are certainly quite 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.400 capable of escaping into their own imagined worlds in plenty 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.040 of perfectly healthy ways, as well as some potentially less 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:16.560 healthy ways. We discussed the idea of maladaptive daydreaming on 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.440 the show in the past, so you could line that 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:21.640 concept up with some of this. But yeah, I mean, 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.400 on any given day, I challenge listeners out there, how 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.320 many different imaginary worlds have you engaged with so far 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.920 today in one form or another? And you know, I 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:34.679 was just like, I don't have a firm count in 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.439 my head, but I feel like it's been at least five, 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:41.320 you know. So you know, our lives are full of 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.400 imaginary spaces. It just depends on how much time, what 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.640 sort of engagement we're getting into there, and so forth. 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.120 Well, yeah, that does raise an interesting question, like how 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:54.679 much engagement is generally required for it to be thought 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.640 of as paracosm play. I would assume, just like reading 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.559 a book is not usually would not usually qualify as 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:03.400 engaging with paracosms, or would it. 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.680 Well, the stricter definition of paracosms, as mentioned in that 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:12.120 Artifact magazine article by James, is that it would be 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.360 a paracosm would have to adhere to the idea that 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.559 quote the formation of the world must occur within childhood 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:21.920 or early adolescence, and in many cases continued on into adulthood. 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.520 Doesn't have to continue on into adulthood, but at least 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.240 like the memory of it often does. So generally, we're 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.440 looking at this specific time. You know. You can certainly 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:35.640 people dream up very rich imagined worlds as adults, but 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.000 we might think of that differently because it's not emerging 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:43.520 out of this key time period in middle childhood and 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:44.440 early adolescence. 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:48.000 And it sounds to me, based on that definition, like 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.680 something about the paracosm experience is usually taken to have 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.360 a kind of daydreaming aspect, like the child is directly 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.440 participating in the construction of this imaginary world and thinking 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.400 about it, apart from just say, participating in a story 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:05.920 written by somebody else. 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.200 Right right, though there are some connections to pre existing work, 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:11.160 as we'll get into. 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:11.840 So. 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.439 The other paper that I turned to to understand this 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.840 topic is a twenty twenty paper published in the journal 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:23.560 Childhood Development by Marjorie Taylor at All titled Paracosms The 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.840 Imaginary Worlds of Middle Children. Now, first of all, no 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.600 one is denying the existence of paracosms and children. There's 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:34.160 plenty of evidence, plenty of reports on this, but exactly 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.520 what we can draw from the accounts and how it 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.400 all factors into childhood development requires a bit more effort 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.479 and varies somewhat in the specific theories. During middle childhood, 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.520 some children develop and or adapt. So it doesn't have 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.880 to be a world that's created completely wholesale, and I 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:55.280 think ultimately, you know, that's a lot of pure imagination 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.080 to expect from adult creatives, much less children. 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.400 But dealing with something more like fan fiction here. 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.120 Yeah, yeah, And I mean you can make a case 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.680 that everything's fan fiction to some degree, right, but but 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.160 but yeah, it doesn't have to be created wholesale, but 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.920 it's a rich imagined world that may entail Each world 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:21.520 may entail its own government, geography, language, culture, associated artifacts. 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.760 A lot of these worlds have particular names, so it 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.680 gets it gets very deep. Like you know, some maps 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:33.080 may be involved either mental or actually recreated physically. Now, 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.520 what are the percentages you're probably wondering. You know, we 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:40.120 talked about the percentages for imaginary friends in the previous 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.480 episode and those were those were quite high, based again 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:48.359 on the on the sample groups generally in the West. Yeah, 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.560 the percentage is here. I think we'll be able to 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.040 grind the numbers down a little bit in a minute here. 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.560 But the percentages either referenced in the text or from 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.640 other studies or produced by the officer there's in this 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.800 study range from three to twelve percent to sixteen to 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:10.080 seventeen percent. And in individual sample groups you see some 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.800 much higher percentages, like up into the forties. But so generally, 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.920 just to sum it up, it seems like there's a 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:25.160 lower percentage of paracosms compared to imaginary companions or imaginary friends. 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.200 Yeah, in some of the Western sample data, we were 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.000 looking at somewhere between one third to two thirds of 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.200 children having some form of imaginary companion, depending on how 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:35.320 strict your definition is. 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:48.760 Yeah, So, Joe, I have to ask, we talked about 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.040 imaginary friends in the last episode in our own experience 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.920 as that or lack thereof with them, did you have 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.640 any para cosms or something you think might constitute a 0:16:58.720 --> 0:16:59.920 para cosm when you were younger. 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.040 Well, I guess again this would be a question of definitions. 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:09.679 I absolutely did dream up imaginary worlds, but I always 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.639 remember thinking of them as ideas for stories I wanted 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:18.119 to write. So it wasn't like I was dreaming of 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.400 living in these imaginary worlds or say, playing like, oh here, 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:25.120 you know, here I am in my imaginary worlds. As 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.320 long as I can ever remember thinking about these places 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.720 I would dream up. I was thinking about them as 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:32.560 stories that I was creating. 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.280 Okay, well, you know, I don't know that that would 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.639 necessarily disqualify any of this, because certainly, as we'll explore, 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.960 there are examples of paracosms certainly becoming written created works, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.160 or you know, some sort of a creative endeavor later 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:50.960 on in life. For my own part, I remember two 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.639 specific things, like, in around third grade, I had some 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.120 sort of an elaborate scenario going on in my head 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.280 that was based loosely on something from the Gi Joe 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.960 cartoon that involved like a space station, as well as 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.480 a snippet of an animated film i'd seen part of 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.879 on TV, which I would later come to believe was 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.000 likely a snippet from nausicaa something with the Giant Warriors, 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:12.680 but I didn't know what it was at the time. 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:15.280 Well, what a privilege to have that as an inspiration 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.880 for your para CAUSM. That's a yeah, that's a good one. 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.200 Now, this this world had no name, and I even 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.520 hesitate to call it a world, but I would say 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:29.040 that it was a recurring imaginary space that I would 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.359 often go into, like I remember doing going into it 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.399 at school a lot. If I got a little bit 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.560 bored or distracted in school in third grade, that's where 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:42.160 I would go. And so that one comes to mind. 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.879 And then in junior high I had a world that 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:51.320 was loosely inspired by Ian Flux cartoons. Oh, which was 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.640 you know, pretty exciting at the time. I hadn't seen 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.000 a lot of animation from outside of the US at 0:18:58.040 --> 0:18:59.720 the time, you know, only a little bit of anime. 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:02.960 And of course, you know, this was a highly stylistic 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.320 cartoon with graphic violence and a lot of sex appeal. 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:09.399 So and it was on MTV, so I watched it 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:11.440 like everything else on MTV at the time. 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.080 Well, this is really interesting. So in what sense exactly 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.480 were you mentally engaging with these paracosms. Were you like 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.920 just sitting there sort of mentally building them out, like 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.240 thinking about new details of them, or were you imagining 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.359 inhabiting them bodily or like do you know what I mean, I. 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.240 Know, not bodily. Maybe there was a certain amount of 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.720 bodily presence in the third grade example, but in this 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:39.920 junior high example, I was not there at all. It 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.240 was other characters, different factions, and you know, it was 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.760 like stuff sort of built on top of rough Ian 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.040 flux inspiration, so. 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.480 More equivalent to kind of like writing a fiction in 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:52.960 your head. 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.000 Yeah. But at the same time, this was definitely a 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.159 time period when I was also you know, trying to 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.360 write things and thinking about things that could be made 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.159 into a short story or a book. And this was 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.960 never an idea that I pointed in that direction, you know, 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.600 you know I was, and I wouldn't even I wasn't 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.080 even exploring it in things like dungeons and dragons at 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:20.800 the time, which I was also a creative outlet then 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:25.639 as it is now. But yeah, based on some of 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.520 these parameters, I would think that maybe this second one 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.719 constitutes some form of paracosm, though certainly not as rich 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.200 and elaborate as some of these other examples that I've 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:37.879 read about. You know, this is not a place that 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.240 had a name, It didn't have a it didn't have 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:44.240 its own language. I had no maps, but it had 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.719 you know, rather distinct action sequences laid out. 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.920 I would say, well, maybe we can come back to 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:52.720 this question later on. But yeah, this is making me 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.040 more and more curious about really what are the key 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:02.920 distinctions between having a paracosm and just say, writing a 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.520 fiction that you don't share with anybody else or maybe 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:06.760 the judiciary, you know who knows. 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:08.840 Yeah, well, I mean, as is pointed out in that 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:10.960 one definition, there's the idea that you might take it 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.440 on into adulthood and it becomes this cherish world that 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:15.480 you keep going. That is not the case with my 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.719 influx fan fiction or whatever it was you know at 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:21.520 the time. I mean, some of the sensibilities that I 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.359 that are associated with that I've certainly you know, carried on. 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.080 You know, I still like the idea of life forms 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.720 growing on spaceships. I still like you know, kick ass 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.760 female action heroes, that sort of thing. But you know, 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:34.800 this is not on the level of say like a 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:38.719 Middle Earth or something you know, or where the seeds 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:43.199 of it were present in middle childhood imagination and then 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:47.160 carries on into you know, grown up creative endeavors. 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.639 This made me just realize I might be able to 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.960 amend my earlier answer, this isn't. This was never something 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.919 super elaborate. But I remember there were a few times 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.400 when I was a kid when I would wake up 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:06.240 from having a really good dream. I would be frustrated 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:08.879 that the dream was over and want to be able 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.440 to continue the dream. So I would just sort of 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.600 like try to remember the world and the scenario of 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.840 the dream and keep thinking about it, and usually it 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:21.679 would go away pretty quick anyway. But like I remember, 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:25.119 there were a few I think that had similar contours. 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:29.879 Often they were about like discovering a secret passage or 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.880 a tunnel from my house that went somewhere really amazing. 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:36.760 Oh nice, Yeah, I think that does line up with 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.560 some of the things you know we're discussing here, and 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.440 is reference the role of dreams is referenced in that 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:44.480 tailor at all paper. 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.280 Yeah, though I don't think any of these ever really 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:49.960 continued for you know, more than a day or so, 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:52.159 But like I remember, at least a few of these 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.640