did you engage in any dramatic play as a child?

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I remember getting up one fine Christmas morning to find a beautiful Lionel train set under the tree. By the time Mom and Dad got up and dressed, I had the train, track, controls and all placed neatly back in the boxes, and was sitting, admiring them. Mom assumed I was disapointed in the gift. Dad sat and admired the orderliness of the display with me.

I bought a new Schwinn bicycle and Dad brought it home after work one fine evening. We had it completely apart before dinner time. We had it completely back together before bed time. Mom made us take it out of the living room and put our tools away before I was excused to go to bed.

I bought a military surplus rifle and a new Winchester .22 bolt action rifle. Dad and I disassembled both of them and laid each of the respective parts next to one another to examine the differences. Mom berated us for not taking the tablecloth off of the dining room table first. We had laid down newspaper, but that wasn't good enough to suit her. Grease and oil had seeped through in only a few places.

I had no friends until I was in fourth grade, second time. Even after I made a friend (another AS) I still did almost everything by myself. I didn't care to play with the other kids because I might have to do something the "wrong" way. I would rather wander off into the desert and be alone.

Finding out I am AS at the age of 66 explained so many of the things that had set me apart from "normal" relationships over the years. I have always used my imagination, but only to solve a problem or design something for the first time.

Pops

alot of my play involved making things

I liked imaginative play, but I remember that no one ever did it "right" when they played with me so I prefered playing by myself. I'm still like that; I love making up fantasy worlds and writing stories, but I can't seem to work with another person (like in roleplaying) without being nervous because I can't predict or control the other party's actions, and I'm usually unsure how to proceed.

I played, school, house, dolls, cars, action figures, knex, blocks, legos, Brio Trains, lincon logs, polly pockets, mighty max, and I did pretend play with all of them. I was also very bossy when I played with other kids and everything had to be my way.

I used to think I had a much bigger imagination than I really did. But now that I think back, with other kids I let them take the lead, but by myself I was very repetitive. Even when I was obsessed with pirates when I was about 8, I collected pirate gear, learned about them in books, drew treasure maps over and over again. But even when I was wearing pirate clothes, I rarely actually pretended to be a pirate unless I was playing someone else's pirate game, and I usually got bored fast.

Even though I was a constant daydreamer, even my daydreams were repetetive and lacked much drama. For example one of my favorites was that I was stranded by myself on an island. It consisted mostly of imagining what the cave or tree I lived in would look like, what things I'd have with me to help me survive, what kinds of plants and animals I'd see, and spending most of my daydream listing those things in my head over and over instead of imagining what happens after that.

I did like to pretend to be a wherewolf alot at school when I was about 9. It didn't require much in the way of imagining a character, the character was basically just me acting like a wolf. It got me teased alot, especially by this small group of girls who were themselves pretending to be adult women. I still don't know why I did this since I hated the teasing. Mabe it was because my younger friend found it amusing and that gave me a way to connect with him without having to talk much, mabe being a wherewolf just made me feel less vulnerable. But before 10, that's really about as imaginative as I got.

They say we aspies supposedly don't have imagination, but I did and I loved imaginative play. But my Aspie father didn't.

i was to shy, also to shy to play RPG's with friends if i have any
but i overcompensate that with WoW

i play wow

I could generally only do it if my older brother led me through it step by step and told me all the stories and stuff.

I could not make up any of my own, and found it baffling when others my age were doing it. I eventually would, if expected to do it, pretend to be a cat, because cats were my special interest and easy to imitate. It got to the point where when I was in a play once, which had a specific script, they wrote in a cat part for me.

Well, hmm. I remember I was very big on playing with Barbie and baby dolls. I would act out scenes I already had in my head with the barbies, like someone above me mentioned I didn't like it when others joined because they often would mess up the scenario I already had in place. I also sat and braided all the barbie's hair, I still do that when I get around dolls/toys with hair. With the baby dolls, I was their Mother and acted like it. I would cut my stuffed animals hair. I remember I used to get tea party sets at birthdays and Christmas, but I never played with them... I do remember I liked looking at the cups, but I don't remember what I did with them.

My Son doesn't play 'appropriately' with toys, but I don't like it when they say doesn't participate in imaginary play. Because I know he is imagining things. For instance when he lines up his cars (he has 85 matchbox cars that he likes lined up) he lays down next to them and kind of pokes at them while making car noises, sometimes moving them slightly, or placing them somewhere else. I think he just has a very vivid imagination to the point that he doesn't need to move them in order to have them doing things. Same with his car books, he looks through them and he'll trace the wheels in the photos around and around, while making car noises. I know he's imagining them driving.

Yes - I did play with toys from everything to barbies to action figures to toy animals to puzzles; both by myself and with my siblings. I didn't play too well with other children though, very rarely.

When I wasn't playing I was reading. Books were my favourite "toys" growing up.

I never really played with toys. I more or less just collected them. I remember when I was a young child, for birthdays and christmas people would buy me dolls often. I just used to sit them on a shelf in my room and look at them and occassionally get them down to change their clothing.
In regards to playing with others in 'pretend games' such as house or school...I was never interested in such things. I had a friend who wanted to play them with me all the time when she came over to visit me. My mother used to force me to go and play those games with her. My friend used to complain that I "wasn't pretending enough". My mother would sometimes come outside and try to encourage me (and sometimes join in with us), but it never interested me in the slightest.
My 'play' as a child consisted of mainly helping my mother cook, clean, or gardening with her. I used to enjoy that a lot and she used to teach me a lot about plants and the environment when gardening, which I was really interested in.

I did however, eventually get interested in imaginative play. This was when I was 11-12yrs. I have videos of myself jumping around in circles on the trampoline talking to myself as if I were two different people.

I got in trouble because I had Action Men and I pulled all their fingers off. I would draw on my toy dolls (grew up to be lesbian, didn't hugely appreciate girl's toys as a kid) dissect them, put them back together.

I loved my Lego, there would be a story going in my head as I was building something, but as soon as the thing was built I'd be out of story, I'd try play with it, but got quickly bored and would tear it all apart to build something else.

I drew constantly (a good way of purposely avoiding eye-contact)

I collected Star Trek figures. I didn't play with them but I would line them up on top of my tv, as accurately as possible.

As a child I loved to read adult factual books: volcanoes, animals anything as long as it wasn't fiction.

At age 9 I was doing core samples of my back garden, although I didn't know this was what it was called at the time.

I never kept friends, I think my ideas were too weird, but at the same time I felt the same about their ideas.

I loved to play with my stuffed animals and barbies, but i hated playing house with my sister. that game usually ended in a power struggle and was an absolute chore. I did like to make my own stuffed animals talk to me. They were a lot more patient. I absolutely loved to play dress up. Mom's camisoles made gorgeous silk evening gowns. I had a closet full of possibilities and a very resourceful imagination to go with it. I still like to play dress up.

My second favorite was a little thing called 'bristle blocks'. They were plastic blocks that had little rounded 'teeth' all over them and would interlock together. I just loved the look and feel of them. They were great for cutting teeth and even better to play with for hours and hours. My parents had a quilt on their bed made out of blue jeans with numerous pockets.... just the perfect place to hide bristle blocks. Dad did'nt think it was so great when he would lie down for a nap and get a backful of them, though.

I also loved to go out into the field and 'harvest' different weeds. we had wild tomatillas and all kinds of odd plants in the country. THey were perfect for the little chef to prepare and cook. I made everything from braised rocks to cockleburr soup. Not to mention a mean herb dressing. Mom had me so scared of poisoned plants that i luckily never tasted anything. But my stuffed animals feasted and they were just fine.

I am a cook now and still get the same rush from picking ingredients and cooking them. Seconds on the flagstone biscuits anyone?

Dramatic play meant nothing to me. People would make me try to pretend to be someone else but I didn't have the desire to do it. It's just too stressful to think of something that is not real and has nothing to do with me. It makes me anxious