History Main / NotSoImaginaryFriend

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/CloakAndDagger'', Davey's imaginary friend, Jack Flack, seems to demonstrate this trope periodically, as we see him picking up objects and opening and closing car doors.

* ''Manga/TheUnpopularMangakaAndTheHelpfulOnryoSan'': Senai's neighbor assumes he has a girlfriend from hearing him talking through the wall, but then sees him talk to empty space, and assumes his "girlfriend" is imaginary. Nope, just a StringyHairedGhostGirl. (and it's just InnocentCohabitation)

* ''Series/Lucifer2016'': After a near-fatal car accident as a child Ella Lopez started seeing an imaginary friend called Ray-Ray who Ella believes was a ghost that decided to hang out with her. Ella is mildly disturbed when Ray-Ray suddenly shows up again as an adult and assumes it's just her subconscious acting out. The audience eventually learns that "Ray-Ray" is actually Azrael, the ''[[{{Psychopomp}} Angel of Death]]'' and Lucifer's sister. She was supposed to reap Ella during the car accident but Ella pulled through and Azrael was so enchanted by Ella's positive nature that she decided to keep visiting as much as she could.

* In ''{{Webcomic/Archipelago}}'' Claire's imaginary friend Benjamin is actually the holographic avatar of the artificial intelligence that runs the ancient war machine buried under her home. He appears to Claire alone in order to save power, because a little girl wouldn't question such things, and because he saw that she was lonely.

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': Baltar can see (and feel) Six, which can sometimes lead to some rather frightening scenes. And [[CoitusUninterruptus sometimes hilarious ones]]. It was definitely proven in one episode where Six picked Baltar up and everyone saw him being lifted by an invisible force. And for bonus points, the "real" Six has a Baltar running around that only she can see. And [[spoiler:Baltar's Six and Six's Baltar can see each other.]]

Website/TheOtherWiki [[WeAreNotAloneIndex has an entry]] on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect Martha Mitchell effect]], cases where an individual is misdiagnosed over hallucinations that were, in fact, real.

* Inverted in ''Manga/KingOfThorn''. [[spoiler: One of the effects of the Medusa disease is materialization of imaginary friends. Cue the world getting overrun by monsters born of people's imagination.]]

** A bigger revelation is that this is also true of [[spoiler: Shonen Bat.]]

* In ''Film/HideAndSeek,'' David doesn't believe his daughter when she said her imaginary friend Charlie killed his wife. [[spoiler: But he soon discovers that ''he'' is Charlie, whom he created to cope with his anger when he saw his wife sleeping with another man, and ''was'' responsible for killing her.]]

* The eponymous canine of ''Film/{{To Dance with the White Dog}}'' is seen only by the film's elderly protagonist [[spoiler: at first]]. She turns out to be [[spoiler: the spirit of his dead wife]].

* ''Chocky'', in the Creator/JohnWyndham novel of the same name, was thought to be the imaginary friend of a young boy. It turned out [[spoiler: it was really an alien that was scouting the Earth for its species, looking for a child it could teach to advance human knowledge with ETGaveUsWiFi.]]

* Creator/BruceCoville's ''The Enchanted Files: Diary of a Mad Brownie''. [[spoiler: Protagonist Alex Carhart's little sister Destiny has an invisible friend, Herbert the Goblin, who later supposedly disappears after her teacher tries to convince her he isn't real (angering Angus, the titular "mad Brownie"). Later on, when the protagonists (including said teacher) travel through the Enchanted Realm, they meet Herbert and learn he's a crewman on a ship there -- he met Destiny while he was on shore leave, and left with a promise to keep in touch when his time was up.]]

** Subverted with "Good Friends" from ''Literature/TalesToGiveYouGoosebumps''. [[spoiler: It turns out that the main character's best friend and bratty sister, who has an imaginary friend, ''are'' in fact imaginary themselves.]]

* In ''Literature/TheGraveyardBook'', Scarlett's parents think that Bod, the protagonist, is her imaginary friend. [[spoiler: At the end, she barely remembers him.]]

* Zig-zagged in ''Series/TheHauntingHour'' episode "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin My Imaginary Friend]]". We deal with a preteen boy who's being influenced by a {{jerkass}} bad boy who tries to help the kid become popular. His older brother informs him that his new friend doesn't exist and doesn't see him until he exposes himself as real. [[spoiler: Eventually Subverted, when it turns out that the kid's Bad Boy friend ''and his older brother are both'' imaginary.]]

* On ''Series/{{Lost}}'', Ben has an invisible friend named Jacob who can only be perceived by being completely delusional, being innately connected to the island, or by [[spoiler: [[BerserkButton turning on a flashlight]] in [[{{Poltergeist}} his]] presence]]. Jacob is [[spoiler: later proven to be much, much more than even a typical not-so-imaginary friend]].

** Plank, [[CloudCuckoolander Jonny]]'s CompanionCube, is also heavily implied to be more than a hunk of wood. In one episode, he somehow "told" Jonny about Eddy's schemes, even though Jonny was [[ItMakesSenseInContext suspended in a tree far away from them]], and in TheMovie, he [[spoiler: drives a bus into a heavily populated city]].

%%* The GreatGazoo in ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones''.
* ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'': "Imaginary friends" in this series are {{Tulpa}}s, but one episode has a [[spoiler: [[MockMillionaire fake]]]] millionaire who [[FlatEarthAtheist thought imaginary friends were ones only their creator could see]], and only agrees to give Foster's money [[InvertedTrope if they "showed" him those]].

Wiki/TheOtherWiki [[WeAreNotAloneIndex has an entry]] on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect Martha Mitchell effect]], cases where an individual is misdiagnosed over hallucinations that were, in fact, real.

** Happens in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', where a new kid has an imaginary friend, but others don't notice. So when his imaginary friend starts to play bad pranks, he got blamed until that thing fully plays pranks even without him near, forcing the girls to create their own imaginary friend when they found out that they can't beat him physically.

* On ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', Candace is never able to convince her mother of her brothers' various projects being real because all evidence is destroyed by the end of each cartoon. A running gag is that the ''entire extended family'' except their mother is already aware of at least some of it.

* England and his magical friends from ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' - nobody else, save for Norway perhaps, can see them, so they think he's delusional when they catch him talking to or about them, but the fact that he saw a tengu and a youkai when he was at Japan's house as well proves that Flying Mint Bunny and the others have to be real as well.

* The title character in ''Film/RainMan.'' As a young child, Charlie Babbitt had an imaginary friend known as "Rain Man" who told him stories and sang him songs. Then he grew up. [[spoiler:The "imaginary friend" turned out to be his autistic much-older brother, Raymond - "Rain Man" was how little Charlie pronounced his name.]]

* Creator/BruceCoville's ''The Enchanted Files: Diary of a Mad Brownie''. [[spoiler: Protagonist Alex Carhart's little sister Destiny has an invisible friend, Herbert the Goblin, who later supposedly disappears after her teacher tries to convince her he isn't real (angering Angus, the titular "mad Brownie"). Later on, when the protagonists (including said teacher) travel through the Enchanted Realm, they meet Herbert and learn he's a crewman on a ship there - he met Destiny while he was on shore leave, and left with a promise to keep in touch when his time was up.]]

** ... it sounds as though [=McBeevee=] is an ImaginaryFriend, and Andy and Barney are skeptical about his existence. Things turn serious when Opie shows his father a quarter (that [=McBeevee=] had given him as a present), leading Andy to conclude that his son may have stolen it,[[note]]Because [[SarcasmMode Imaginary Friends are the first step on the slippery slope to juvenile delinquency]], Andy never considers Opie could have found or worked for the quarter and then just ''said'' it was a present from [=McBeevee=]. [[/note]] and things become worse for Opie when they go to [=McBeevee=]'s worksite, only to find nobody there. (Shortly before Andy and Opie arrived, [=McBeevee=] was called to assist another worker.) Andy decides he has to punish his son for lying, but can't bring himself to do it when Opie insists that [=McBeevee=] is real. Just as Andy goes to a clearing to cool off, he muses aloud, "Mr. [=McBeevee=]" – and it isn't long before [=McBeevee=] responds.

* In the ''Series/InsideNo9'' episode "Tom and Gerri", Migg is this. In the opening scene, when he's begging outside Tom's apartment, Gerri doesn't see him (ostensibly because he's hidden by a car); and later, after Migg moves in, he's always in another room or out of the house when Gerri visits. She soon starts to question whether he's real at all. [[spoiler:It turns out Migg ''is'' real, but Gerri is not - she had died in a road accident, and Tom was hallucinating her.]]

* One episode of ''Series/SirArthurConanDoylesTheLostWorld'' sees Marguerite stepping into a booby trap and falling into a pit with spikes. She gets hurt and while Challenger gets help she hallucinates about her best friend Adrienne who keeps her awake so Marguerite doesn't fall asleep with a concussion. Later it turns out that she's not so hallucinated at all - which freaks Marguerite out.

* In ''Series/TalesFromTheDarkside'' episode "Ursa Major", a little girl tells her mother that her teddy bear is actually alive and her best friend. Naturally, her mother doesn't believe her, but plays along with it. However, when bad things start happening around the house and the teddy bear is always seen at the crime she assumes that her daughter is doing these actions at first...until the teddy bear ''[[NightmareFuel growls at her and its eyes begin to glow]]''.

* In ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'', Danielle Moonstar is found injured by Kitty in a cave and taken to the Xavier Institute. Then when Kitty wakes up the next day... No one knows anything about Danielle. It turns out she had been dreaming the whole ordeal (after she had a dirt bike accident and fell unconscious), but the images of Dani were so vivid that Kitty is determined to find her, and she drags Kurt along for the ride, if only to have a witness. [[spoiler:Eventually, Kitty manages to find her for real (she had been trapped in an underwater cave for ''two years'' - only her powers prevented her from dying) and take her to be treated at the Institute. It is revealed that Dani had unknowingly created a mental link with Kitty just before she suffered the accident. When they meet physically, Dani responds with disbelief that ''Kitty'' is real.]]

SubTrope to ImaginaryFriend (a specific [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] where the "friend" ends up being real). Compare with CassandraTruth, IgnoredExpert, ItWasHereISwear, MistakenForAnImposter, GirlfriendInCanada, and {{Tulpa}} (where an [[ImaginaryFriend imaginary person]] is transformed into a real being by people [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve literally believing in it enough]]). Often overlaps with CryingWolf (because the character(s) seeing them have lied in the past) and MissedHimByThatMuch.

** ''Literature/MyBestFriendIsInvisible''. [[spoiler:The invisible friend is the last survivor of an alien invasion of the Earth. [[TomatoSurprise The main character and his parents are actually alien abominations]].]]
** Subverted with ''Literature/GoodFriends''. [[spoiler: It turns out that the main character's best friend and bratty sister, who has an imaginary friend, ''are'' in fact imaginary themselves.]]

* In the ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' episode "Imaginary Fiends", a demon appears to Wyatt and acts like his friend, all the while trying to corrupt Wyatt into serving the cause of evil. Because only Wyatt can see the demon, the adult characters think that Wyatt merely has an "imaginary friend". The demon, who has done this with other [[WitchSpecies preschool-aged witches]] in the past, is counting on the fact that adults tend not to suspect that there's anything more unusual going on than just a kid playing with an imaginary friend.

SubTrope to ImaginaryFriend (a specific [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] where the "friend" ends up being real). Compare with CassandraTruth, IgnoredExpert, ItWasHereISwear, MistakenForAnImposter, and {{Tulpa}} (where an [[ImaginaryFriend imaginary person]] is transformed into a real being by people [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve literally believing in it enough]]). Often overlaps with CryingWolf (because the character(s) seeing them have lied in the past) and MissedHimByThatMuch.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', it's ambiguous as to whether or not Quasimodo's gargoyle friends are real or products of his imagination, and Frollo at one point reminds Quasi that stone can't talk. Near the end, just before [[spoiler:Frollo's DisneyVillainDeath]], a different gargoyle Frollo's clinging to for support ''growls'' at him. His expression is one of [[OhCrap shocked horror]].

* ''WesternAnimation/HortonHearsAWho'': While most of the animals think Horton is insane for talking to the (Whos on the) speck of dust, the children he teaches belive it's a game he's playing and make up their own worlds.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Up}}'': Zigzagged in a dark way. Ellie did exist once, but she died, however [[CopeByPretending her husband sometimes pretends to speak to her]]. Russell hears him and believes Ellie is just a mundane imaginary friend.

* The title character in ''Film/RainMan.'' As a young child, the protagonist had an imaginary friend known as "Rain Man" who told him stories and sang him songs. Then he grew up. [[spoiler:The "imaginary friend" turned out to be his autistic much-older brother.]]

* No one believed then-President Jimmy Carter when he claimed that he was attacked by a giant swimming rabbit while on a fishing trip until a White House photographer came forward with a picture of the event. It was a regular-sized ''swamp rabbit'', quite a bit bigger and uglier than the cute little pet-shop bunnies people think of when they hear "rabbit". Even Carter had to agree it was damn funny; he first presented it as an amusing anecdote from his trip.

* The focus of the poem "Antagonish" by Hughes Mearns: