大象传媒

David, 12 and Harry, 10, are able to transport themselves into their own entirely imaginary worlds... Fiona, David's mum and Paul, Harry's dad, came with them to the Home Truths studio to tell us how it's affected their lives...

When David was about 3 years old, his mother Fiona first realised that her son, David, was disappearing off into an imaginary world, "He's always had a vivid imagination, and enjoys books, then I noticed his hands coming up to his eyes - he almost flickered his fingers - moved them spasmodically and this took him on his trip to his fantasy land." David told his mother he saw landscapes, and met people along the way. Gradually, with the influence of computer games have woven their way into David's fantasy world. David says, "If it's a movie I've seen, I'll re-enact it in my head, but have different things happening... it's not very different from my dreams - I like it - I've got a lot of ideas in my head just waiting to burst out..." Fiona approves of her son's fantasy world, but wary of him becoming a target for bullying with his hand movemennts, she warned him when he started school that it may not be a good idea to do this in front of other children - so David keeps his world to himself.

There is one person his own age who knows about it, Harry, David's friend, who shares the ability to transport himself into a fantasy world. "I have a rod, a stick with a piece of string on the end, and I move it against the background of the brown carpet at home." Harry doesn't visit just one fantasy world, "Two are fictional worlds and one I pretend to myself is real - one of them has monsters, the other is a space one in the future and the one I pretend is real is a continent, Jelema, with lots of countries in it..." According to Harry's dad, Paul, his son was about 3 when he started his trips to his fantasy world, "He was given a toy fishing rod, and he played with it for an inordinate amount of time - I was never worried about it - it seemed an entirely sensible thing to do. After I realised that this was a gateway to his imagination, I had dim memories of a similar thing in my own childhood..." Harry visits his world at least three times a day, "I start up a story and a character, a big hero, I choose a time for him to be in, he might have enemies or friends - I'll run out of ideas, so I'll go and walk about a bit, and come back to it, I can't get there without the stick ... " Harry thinks that his fantasy world is better than a visit to Disneyland - and he's been there!"I can control them - and I like to have control of things..." Asked if he writes it down, Harry replied, "I don't think I could write it well enough, it's all so complicated... sometimes I can't even imagine it well enough!"

Fiona and Paul are glad their sons have each other to talk to about their imaginary worlds, "It's very nice they have this understanding - as they've got older, it's been very difficult for them to share it with anybody as they've realised that socially it's not acceptable. We wondered if it was something that all children did, but supressed at a very early age."

David thinks he'll stop fantasising when he's eighteen, "Half of me would be glad to get rid of it, but the other half would miss it."

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