To have an imaginary friend is to interact with a character who is not really there -- like fiction writers do all the time.
Make-believe characters populate made-up cartoons, stories, movies and plays for grown-ups as well as children, including these about imaginary companions:
• Harvey: 6-foot-tall invisible rabbit, the friend of Elwood P. Dowd -- James Stewart in the 1950 movie version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Mary Chase.
"Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: 2004-2009 Cartoon Network series about the place where make-believe buddies go when they've been forgotten. Residents include Eduardo, the timid monster, and Bloo, the blue blob.
"Here, let me get that secret door for you." -- Bloo.
• Gremlins: invisible imps. British pilots blamed gremlins for mechanical glitches in World War II.
Royal Air Force Flight Lt. Roald Dahl's first children's book, The Gremlins, came from experience including a plane crash.
• Wilson: a volleyball, Tom Hanks' imaginary friend in Cast Away (2000).
• Jimmy Jimmereeno: imaginary friend of 11-year-old Ramona in J.D. Salinger's short story, "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut."
Salinger despised Hollywood's sugar-frosted screen version of the tale, My Foolish Heart (1949). He stayed more and more to himself -- a famous figure hardly more visible than Jimmy Jimmereeno.
Family on 03/11/2015