Were you imaginative as a child?

[Ezra]

Yes. But when I see the movie version of a book I read, I realize I envisioned things in a limited way.

 

[Anonym]

Visually and environmentally, yes. Socially, no.

My childhood play was predominantly focused around creating attractive arrangements with my toys and building environments for them. I too, have a complex and detailed paracosm I’ve been developing throughjout my life, but as a child I never actually acted out/imagined social scenarios, just setting up and moving through the highly detailed imaginary space (eg horses running through the enchanted forest). I’m also terrible with names and don’t remember ever naming a single toy.

Social scenario/story development came later, around 17, after a period of prolonged trauma. My world took a rather dark turn and the tone of my paracosm definitely reflected that.

I still struggle with dialogue (my residents don’t talk much) and I imagine scenes and sequences in a predominantly physical and emotional sense. What’s interesting is that irl, I’m quite good with words (not often spontaneously or in person), but suck at understanding body language and emotions.

 

[Mia]

Drew the world I wanted to live in, they were like large maps with trials and tribulations that you had to go through to an interesting life, or to find candy or go to a fair or to the library. The rest of the time I lived in books, I was Sam in LOTR or Jane Eyre or Samuel Cortez and many others.

 

[tlc]

No, I wasn't very imaginative as a child. I didn't engage in imaginary play or games, didn't have imaginary friends and hated dolls, I was never into comics or superheroes or stuff like that, though I did like to read science fiction or adventure stories. I liked building or making things, exploring the countryside or doing experiments, learning about how things work and trying to invent things.

I was/am not imaginative either. All my stories and play were derivative, not original. Not that I would even write the stories. I really hated creative writing and would get anxious about it and become catatonic (art of selective mutism?) but also I still can't do imaginative art, only art from observation. That's okay though. I am still creative!

Pretty much sums me up. Never played action figures, playground games, anything like that. I lived on real concepts like how things worked. Couldn't do creative writing, only could write stories about actual happenings in my life and hope it sufficed as creative writing. I could draw well but only manmade things like houses and cars and tools. I design and draw and build things based on existing concepts, can't really come up with much of anything original. I can play music well but mostly just use bits and pieces of what's been done, and play it how it works best for my fingers. Same with grammar, I can do it better than my writings here, and technical instructions very well, but reading and understanding fiction is completely hopeless.

Even today, whether or not it's an aspie thing, I don't understand games or people unless it's a predictable cut and dried encounter. I stick with undersanding mechanical things.

 

[Theta.G]

Yes. until my father killed it off because it bothered him.