AS & Imagination

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I'd say I'm pretty clearly creatively gifted. I have won contests for creative writing, and I have five or so unpublished novels waiting for me to get the thermals for publishing them.

In my case as a child I played pretend more than most children. I would carry twist tye people with me everywhere I went and act out stories with them. In school I got into trouble for pretending to be an animal instead of doing schoolwork. At recess I had a couple of friends who I'd play pretend with all recess long, though I usually dictated everyone's roles.

That's part of why I think I have Newson Syndrome.

All of my imagined thoughts always seem to be based of memories that have happened or that I want to happen. They're more like fantasies, and they cause me a lot of mental anguish. They can also be a bit intrusive at times...

I must be a very, very, very strange Aspie then, because when I was a child I often enjoyed playing imaginary games with other children, which involved social interaction. For example, I remember playing a game with another child who lived down my road, and we pretended we were two friends living in different houses, and we used the two trees at the bottom of his garden for our ''houses'', and we both used our imaginations to turn the trees and bushes into our ''houses'' and ''gardens''. But not only that - I don't think I lack theory of the mind, because whoever I played games with, we always imagined exactly the same thing. I knew we were imagining exactly the same thing as eachother. So games were very easy to play with me.

How strange for a person diagnosed with AS, being able to use theory of the mind and being able to enjoy playing imaginary games with other children when I was a child.

Reading the comments on this question, I suppose it's more a question of how you use your imagination. I, too, observed that other children seemed to play either by acting out social roles (playing "house") or by picking up ideas from other children, if that makes sense.

I played "make-believe" all the time - by which I mean I populated several worlds with peoples, cultures, scientific laws, history, and so on. My notebooks have pages and pages of language notes, alphabets, "cultural" drawings and invented field notes. Every sketchbook had its own small doodle government, that regulated the doodles from taking over the nice pictures. I made civilizations out of nut shells and dirt, and Lego blocks, ignoring "set" toys, and played at being an archaeologist by stealing broken dishes, burying them in the yard, and digging them up again. I had a little sister, which was entertaining, and we played Barbies, but never "house" Barbies. It was "Dr. Barbie Gets Lost In The Jungle And Eaten By Cannibals." And the Barbies had a specific culture, political system, and they all had fixed names, and we moved the game along by saing "Make her say..." to each other, so that it would go where we wanted.

Children's games from outside my family made no sense to me, unless I could create and dictate them. Still, the way my friends in college create seems strange. My friend, R. writes fantasy, and she says "characters just walk into my head" and she spends more time fussing over their identities than anything else. Whereas I know my characters' histories and worlds in great detail, but neither know nor care how, for example, they feel about their mothers (and if I do know/care, I'd be able to sum it up in a sentence or two, instead of talking about it for three hours).

Does any of that make any sense?

I'm totally avoiding editing/writing right now, so...

when I was a kid I prefer to play alone, not so much thinking just outside looknig around
I draw pictures all my life so that is imagination I guess... not so much with others tho

I think Aspies can have wonderful imaginations, the theory that they don't is complete BS!! I know when I was little, I had a very active imagination and probably still do today.

My sister once said something about me lacking imagination. But I couldn't imagine what she was talking about.

I've always had a very active imagination. I have an imaginary world called Aspergeria which is where all of my imaginary friends live. My imaginary friends are always based on my special interests, so whenever my special interests change, so does my roster of imaginary friends.

In addition to the adventures I go on with my imaginary friends and the good vs. evil battles we fight together, I always make up side stories where the characters marry each other, get pregnant and raise families. This includes same-sex couples, since in Aspergeria, anyone is able to get married and have their own children regardless of their orientation. Screw biology, I have the power of imagination!

Although the roster of imaginary friends changes to reflect my interests, the stories are more or less the same. Despite being told I'm good at writing, I never write my stories down for fear of ridicule. Hopefully one day I'll stop caring what other people think and write only to please myself, as it should be.