015 - Imaginary Friends

​Everyone has heard stories about little kids and their imaginary friends. Maybe you even had one when you were little. Someone only you could see and only. You could talk to. Your imaginary friend probably had a name. Too or maybe. You both had a song that you liked to sing together. Imaginary friends are a strangely common phenomenon with children. All over the world. But what if imaginary friends aren't imaginary? What if they're real? I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story. Before I start this episode, I want to. Thank you for listening. And if you really like my stories and would like to show your support, you can buy me a coffee. Just go to the website buymeacoffee.com/my paranormal and you can literally buy me a coffee. And hopefully the caffeine will help me with making more episodes real soon. Thanks again for your support. For the first six or seven years of my life, I grew up living with my mother and father in a house in Providence, RI. It was a nice little single family home on a nice little side Rd. just down the street from the park. I was pretty young so I don't have too many memories from living there, just little glimpses of memories and feelings. From when I was a little boy. None of them were scary at. The time, at least, I don't remember being scared. But I feel like maybe I should have been afraid because some of these memories are probably the first paranormal experiences I've ever had. I can vaguely remember spending lots of time in the backyard just playing by myself. The yard was mostly dirt with patches of grass here and there. It had a small garden which hadn't been tended to in at least a summer or two. There was a chain link fence going around all three sides of the yard right up to the edges of the house and the back of the house was Gray, mostly with little sections of different colors. The front and sides of the house were painted yellow, but the back was where my dad would try out different paint colors to see which one he liked best. And then he would just paint the three visible sides of the house that color. And most of the time I'd be in the backyard making up games to play or riding around in my big wheel. I think for a while I used to collect. Bugs too, but. Like I said, most of the memories are fuzzy now. But one thing about the backyard that I definitely remember is that one big tree. The trunk grew out of the ground in the corner of the yard and the huge branches covered most of the yard and the neighboring yards too. From a distance it was probably a beautiful tree, but I only ever remember seeing it from below where it always looked. Kind of creepy. My dad hung a tire swing on one of the branches for me and I used to spend a lot of time on that tire. Just daydreaming about who knows what. But often I would sit there on the tire staring up into the branches of the tree and the branches and. The leaves were. Always moving and swaying, almost as if the tree was alive and animated in some way, like not just a living thing, but something that was actually alive. And the way the rope from the tire swing would creak as I swung back and forth. Sounded like the tree was moaning. It was like it was talking to me sometimes. I felt as if someday the tree was just going to reach out and pick me up with those branches. Even at night when I would be in bed, I would lie there listening to the branches creak and moan in the wind and some nights the shadows from those branches would shine through my window and make it look like the tree was climbing into my bedroom. Whenever I watch the movie, poltergeist and I see the scene where the tree crashes through the window and takes Robbie. It brings me back to being a little kid in. My bedroom. And thinking about that tree that I had in my backyard too. My bedroom itself was a little bit eerie. It was located on the 2nd floor to the right of the staircase. There was just the one window looking into the backyard. It had slanted ceilings over most of the room and there was a huge pillar going up through the middle which housed the brick chimney that went from the 1st floor up through to the roof. They all made the room feel so much smaller than it really was, though I suppose I didn't need much space at six or seven years old. I had a small kids bed, a small Bureau for my clothes, a toy box, and probably a bunch of other toys and kids stuff lying around. One thing I don't remember though is any colors. As hard as I try, I can't recall what color the wallpaper was or if I had a rug with any designs on it. The only color I can remember is the small white door in the far wall. It was sort of a small closet door that led to the crawl space in the small of the wall under the slanted ceiling. It was used for storage and I of course wasn't allowed to go in there. But for some reason, to this day I still remember that little white door, not just because I wasn't allowed in there, but because. That's where my imaginary friends lived. At least. I think they were imaginary. Children all over the world seem to have imaginary friends. Experts say at least 1/3 of all children will claim to have an imaginary friend. And that's just the ones who tell us about. It's one of those strange things that we all have in common, regardless of where we're from. Are they just figments of our young imagination? Or is there more to it? Some people believe children are more sensitive to unknown things around us. Their young minds haven't yet developed fully. Or maybe it's that their senses haven't been narrowed yet. Perhaps a young, innocent mind is what is required to see the invisible things that exist all around us. And for several generations now, if not further back, there have been thousands and thousands of stories about children claiming to have imaginary friends, friends who suddenly teach them words and phrases that they couldn't have learned anywhere else. Little kids who suddenly know all about events or people that existed before they were even born. One of the stories that I remember reading was about a four year old girl named Jenny. She kept telling her mother and her grandmother about her imaginary friend, how they would have tea parties together and watch cartoons. Then one day, Jenny's grandmother decided to ask about the imaginary friend. It's your friend with us right now. Yes, said Jenny. Well, where is he? He's a she grandma and she's sitting right next to me. Well, what's her name? Her name is Tracy, she said. And the grandmother asked, how old is Tracy? And Jenny replied she's 32. Oh yeah, and what does she do for a living? Her grandmother asked and Jenny replied she doesn't do anything. She's dead. But when she was alive, she used to. Do what daddy does. See, Jenny's dad is a police officer. And his sister Tracy was also a police officer who died on duty at the age of 32 six weeks before Jenny was born. There are so many stories like this one, some of them a little bit spookier, some of them straight out of horror movies. But as an adult, for some reason I still remember my imaginary friends and they weren't people from the past or evil monsters or anything like that. They were actually animals and they would come out and visit me at night. Along with my mom. And Dad, I also had two dogs growing. Up a French poodle named fufu. Who mostly hated people and used to just hide under the couch in the living room. And we had. A big shaggy white sheepdog named Tuffy. He was one of my earliest, most pleasant memories in life every night when my mom would put me to bed, she would yell to Tuffy, to come upstairs and say goodnight to me, and he would stomp up those stairs into my room. Jump halfway up on my bed and then give me a big sloppy dog kiss on the ear. For some reason he loved kissing people's ears and then he would head back downstairs with my mom. But sometimes during the night, my mother would hear me talking to someone in my room upstairs. She'd go up there thinking it was one of the dogs, but there'd be no one in. There but me. She'd check on me and I'd still be sleeping, or at least appear to be sleeping. I think she just thought I was talking in my sleep. But strangely, I remember those moments. Because I wasn't talking in my sleep, I was talking to my imaginary friends. Like I said, I don't remember many colors from my bedroom. But strangely enough. I vividly remember the imaginary animals and how colorful they all were. They would be floating around my room and over my bed, red ones, blue ones, green, yellow, purple. They wouldn't always be there, and sometimes it would only be one or two. Of them, but when they showed up. I would set up talking and laughing with them. They were all shaped like strange animals. Much larger than typical stuffed animals. But nothing like any kind of a real life animal. They were just these strange, colorful creatures that come out of the little white door on the wall and visit me at night. Once in a while, my mom would sneak up the stairs and try to catch me in the act and a few. Times she did. She would ask me who are you talking to? I'd say to my animal friends. She would look around to see if the dogs were there or if there was a stuffed animal on my bed, but there'd be nothing. So to get me to go back to sleep, she'd literally tell my imaginary animal friends to call it a night. Tommy needs to sleep. All you animals have got to get out of here. And then she'd close the door. The animals would leave one by one, and I'd go back to sleep. They never scared me. I don't think they even meant to harm anyone. But they did get me in trouble a few times. Quite often my mom or dad would come into my bedroom and would see the small white door was open a crack and they'd get mad at me for opening it and I'd tell them every time it wasn't me, it was the animals. But they never believe me. And I couldn't even open the door if I wanted to. I can specifically remember the door had a really tough spring like lever on it that you had to squeeze really hard in order for it to open. And my little hands were never strong. Enough to do it. One morning really early in the morning before my mom or dad had gotten up. I remember sneaking out of my bedroom and down the stairs into the kitchen to make breakfast for my animal friends. But I wasn't planning on toast or cereal. I wanted to cook something for them. But I couldn't even reach the stove, let alone know how to cook anything. But for some reason I was determined. I don't remember if it was them telling me to do it or just me being a hospitable 6 year old boy, but I took out several pots and pans and filled them with water and food from the fridge just like I'd seen my mom do it 1000 times. I pulled the dining room chair up to the stove, climbed up, and put all the pots and pans on the stove and turned on all the burners. And I stood there on the chair, in my pajamas, thinking I was cooking breakfast for my friends. But then suddenly I slipped. And knocked over one of the pots. Boiling hot water spilled everywhere and the pot landed on the floor and burned a hole in the linoleum. Of course my parents heard the loud bang and rushed downstairs to the horror of their only child inches away from burning himself with hot water and. Minutes away from burning the house down. They quickly got me out of there, shut off the stove and cleaned up the mess. When they asked me what I was doing, I told. Them the truth. I was making breakfast for my friends. Not too long after that we ended up moving my mother and Father divorced when I was about 7:00 and I went to live with my mom in an apartment in Pawtucket, RI. And that was the last I ever saw of my imaginary friends. But to this day, as an adult, I can still remember what they look like. I still remember the creepy tree creaking out back, and I still remember that hole I burned into the kitchen floor. None of it seemed imaginary. It all seemed. Very real to me. My paranormal story is written, produced and narrated by me. Tom Stewart. Music from this episode, courtesy of [email protected]. If you enjoy my stories and would like to. Support the podcast. You can go to buymeacoffee.com/my paranormal or just click on the donate button on my website at my paranormal story.com. I also have T-shirts and coffee mugs for sale. Unfortunately, podcasts cost money and your support helps me keep this podcast running. Thank you for your support. Please don't forget to subscribe so you'll know when I've added new episodes and feel free to follow me on Facebook and Instagram. Just search for my paranormal story. If you have a podcast and you'd like to have me as a guest, or if you would like to ask me a question or tell me your paranormal story, you can e-mail me at [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Tom Stewart and this is my paranormal story.