I'm told I shouldn't have much of an imagination with AS...

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I also find that most of my emotional needs are met by my own world, and my children, that I leave any man that loves me feeling unloved. I have a very hard time with this.

I must admit it's comforting to know that I'm not alone in my excessive daydreaming, and retreating into my own world.

I've never had any trouble at all writing different characters and creating alternate personalities, situations and experiences. But I have never enjoyed role-playing, even as a child, because it feels awkward and embarrassing to have everyone looking at me and expecting me to ad-lib a part. Seems to me less like a Theory of Mind problem, and more a sensory issue about being looked or stared at, combined with impaired processing-speed. Give me a script and can play any character - until I see someone watching me.

Aspies have imagination. It differs somewhat from that of NTs.

Having imagnination is one of the characteristics of human beings.

ruveyn

The first part is completely me. I didn't necessarily repeat the same characters.. I more like avoided it altogether. When playing "pretend" with other children, I generally chose the part of some kind of an animal. So there was much less A) interaction and B) imagination/improvisation required. I find myself with this problem to this day. I have recently made the aquaintence with people who like to role play online and I find myself unable to join in. I don't know how my character would feel in this situation. I don't know what I should do.

I am also like the previous posters where I had imaginary worlds and friends and lives. I have conversations with people in my head and I find my responses to be much more eloquent and persuading than when I actually try to communicate with people out loud.

How the two fit together, I have no clue.

Partially I think the problem is I can't play off of other people's reactions and 'go with the flow' as it were. But there is more to it then that that I can't quite put my finger on.

I feel that I have an excellent imagination and can relate to what a lot of you are posting. Certain music or ideas can really set it off. When I was very young I had a particular character I always played when friends were over. Yes, it was Superman.

"Up, up, and away!"

You also play a virtual space chicken! Yes, I do play WoW. lol

I am the same with music and ideas.

I live in my own world at least when I am not interacting with other people. I come out only when necessary.

My son (AS) has said his imagination is broken. The only time he role plays, is if he sees it from a video game or on tv. Nothing he just makes up. And this came much later than the typical child (preschool age?) I don't remember how i was back then. I did have dolls. I don't remember if i fed them or talked to them. I just remember always changing their clothes. I think ,ost the things i had were more of a collection than play things. I think more, i am so not creative! My son lacks this as well.

It's a different relationship between the two.

Lack of imagination can prove ASD, but someone with ASD doesnt necessarily have a lack of imagination. Experts use it for the criteria cos its something to help prove the existence of a disorder. But many experts assume that everyone with the disorder has the problem. This is what's gone wrong.

I have imagination and it's always been a pretty good one. When I was younger i could role play with both myself and other kids, it was always as different characters and i always made up heaps of stories and scenarios. Now it's more of a structured imagination but it's still there. One might argue that i have more imagination than most people. Apparently this fact was completely ignored when i was diagnosed.

Why, yes, and I still do!

However, my imaginary "people" aren't really "human". They're actually dragonoids that take on a semi-human form.

Yes, I have an imagination and I like to think my imagination is little more than the average person my age. I still sit in my own world for hours on end and I don't talk.. I just spin in circles in my chair while doing it (really I know that sounds odd, but its very comforting) and I don't let anybody in.

When I was a child I did the whole roleplaying thing but I only did that with two other people, no noe else was allowed to play because it would be too much for me to follow. Like I used to pretend I was Sailor Moon, cause it was my special interest as a child. I knew, and still know everything about the show. I had no problem roleplaying if it was my "Special interest", I could play other characters if they were already created and were somewhat like me cause it wasn't really pretending per se since the character was a lot like me.

I can do roleplay in the written form if the character is... yes you guessed it! Like me, quirky and aloof. I have a hard time being characters that are polar opposites of me.

My imagination was so intense it could be debilitating.

Even today I need to remember that what I imagine isn't real.

Hm. I suppose I didn't engage in social roleplay and actively opposed pretend-dating and such. My attitude was always, "She's my friend but I don't LOVE her. Why do children model this behavior when they don't feel it. It's insincere."

However, I enjoyed acting later on precisely because it was scripted and the roles were prescribed. As long as I knew my lines, I knew that what I was saying was appropriate at least within the confines of what my character was supposed to do and the behavior/eye contact etc. came from years of mimicking.

As a child, I did enjoy having imaginary friends and pretending I was something I wasn't, like a Transformer or Mario. My favorite part was constructing the spatial parameters of the imaginary world. You know, spacing off an area as a building, pretending there was a Mario-style power up block, identifying an area as a rocketship and then trying to adhere to the internal rules set forth.

I suppose that may be less social than some children but I could imagine things so hard I could almost see them.

With toys, I didn't interact WITH them much (ie. feed the doll) but I loved having them interact with eachother. The toys were plastic or stuffed animals and I was conscious of this. Talking to them would have felt weird, in general. I suppose around puberty, sexual/romantic fantasies tended to play out in the first person for me as daydreams but that was never how I interacted with toys, which were tangible objects.

I do remember having a Superman toy, a GI Joe and a He-Man. I remembering being almost pedantic that they did not exist in the same "world" and got annoyed with children who mixed them indiscriminately. Thematically and structurally, He-Man takes place on a planet called Eternia which is sci-fi fantasy. GI Joe, meanwhile doesn't exist in a world where Superman could exist.

And, of course, the toys were different sizes. So I not only established each brand of toys as a universe but rationalized that GI Joe took place on a world that was physically smaller. The buildings were smaller, the continents were smaller, the planet was smaller. It was a reduced scale reproduction of the world that Superman lived on, by and large. And while I segregated my toys, the boundaries between universes would eventually weaken and whenever they DID meet, there would be a conversation between characters about the scale differences of their universes.

"Our Empire State Building is not as large as Superman's Empire State Building", Duke would tell Storm Shadow. I'm not a math whiz but I think some of my first attempts at algebra were attempts to determine the scale difference from each character's perspective so that Superman could say, "Your cars are only four feet tall!" and Cobra Commander could say, "The Batmobile is eight feet tall!"

I still have a really great imagination. I can imagine things with my eyes open. I've always wondered if anyone else could do that?
I make stories up in my head, which helps with boredom and getting to sleep at night. It also helps to forget bad experiences.

wow my fav topic.

yes, i call it my story it's not just a world but mutiple worlds bound together but yet seperated. the main story branched off so to say. i used to have complete control over it but i've lost that ability.

my story is an all cosuming force in my head, and it gets worse and more powerful with each passing year.

it was a story of adventure and it generated characters and universe to call home, sadly with my age it has become corrupt. but it once was something i was proud of a story i've held for 9 years.

basicly it was my way out of talking about myself and for the most part still is, but also it was my way of coping with all the bad stuff at the time.

but yeah i have my own world, my characters however have faces it freaks me out any other way. i hate distorted images.

but my imagination doesn't stop there it is very vivid causing some of the strangest dreams and thoughts i've ever seen.

my family says i live in the fantasy most of the time.

I do it!