Over the years, I've created people in my head which whom I talk to
I did this as a kid. It feels a little funny saying this here, it's not something I ever tell people about.
My social peers were not the kids that I grew up with, my peers only ever lived in my own imagination. There's no schizophrenia, I have no alternative personalities. In fact quite a few girlfriends over the years commented that it must be a bit boring to wake up in exactly the same mood every day. There was never any projection of imaginary friends that were in the real world with me either. I was always a daydreamer though, some of the happiest times of my life happened inside my own head, that's where I went to escape from everyone else.
My friends inside my head were always the best friends I ever had, I always trusted their judgement. There's three of them, there's an old man from the 1600's, a primitive jungle boy, and a modern era little girl. None of them have names, they never needed any, we all knew who we were.
The old man. He's from roughly the 1600's, sometimes earlier, sometimes a little later, always pre-steam age. He's usually a Blacksmith, although sometimes he's a Musician and sometimes he's a Court Legal Advisor, sometimes he's just a poor Farmer. He represents society itself, how society would react to my decisions. I spent a lot of time talking to this bloke, trying to explain my problems in what I imagined are terms that he could understand. 9 times out of 10 I came off sounding like a whiney little b-word.
The jungle boy. He is me but completely unfettered. He is the human animal. His preferred aspect is as a young man completely naked except for a pair of long knives, that's how he catches food to eat. He stole the knives. He is completely solitary and social issues have absolutely no meaning to him. Eat or be eaten, that is the only consideration. Trying to discuss anything with him takes a lot of effort but it's worth it, once again you have to explain yourself in terms that he can apply to his own life. He occasionally appears in my head unexpectedly with a warning, usually something like "This place smells wrong. We should hunt elsewhere.". I never listened as often as I should have.
The little girl. She's only three or four years old, at that age children have a very strict view of right and wrong, they are not yet capable of understanding social nuance and grey areas. She represents Absolute Morality, if you want to justify your actions or decisions try explaining it to her in terms that she can understand, if you ever make her cry then you really are a sick individual. She points her finger at me a lot, "You behave!".
I always consulted my three best friends with any decision I ever made, all four of us had equal votes. Any decision always required consensus, three to one. If there was a tie I did not have the power of veto, if there was a tie then I did not have enough information to make a decision. The only answer to that is to go looking for more information. I had to create a cheat for myself in the end, if I could supply two valid reasons for doing what I wanted then I got two votes. That's actually a lot harder than it sounds, try it sometime, never making a decision unless there were at least two separate reasons for doing so. Even today they're still my best friends, there's a lot of comfort in knowing that they'll be with me until I die. Funny how I keep getting older and they don't.
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