The speck of dirt on the window. I would move my head around to change my perspective in such a way that it would really look like it was gliding and jumping.
Idk why but the point of view for my mental image of your comment has me running outside, alongside the car, watching a kid jerk his head around a speck of dirt on his window.
Not quite the same thing, but I still do something similar - when I'm bored and have a window or something, I move my head around to line up things in he foreground and background of my vision.
Bro I thought I was crazy for doing this.. my dad saw me bouncing my head around and hit me with a “what the fuck are you doing?!” And That little speck of dirt just plowed through any obstacles from then on
Yes my man exactly the same thing until I got older and put in a mental upgrade system where at first it could only cut down trees then I got better and better and I'd have to judge when to retract it and stuff then I got into calculating the tensile strength and stuff
Yes, yes!
Except for the fact that there were always trees next to my streets, so I'd mow down the forest so that three witches could burn the wood during the winter.
I know that it sounds weird. But at the time, I didn't question it.
Mine was a black horse with white socks, white blaze, and salt pepper mane named Midnight. Imagine how it blew me away when Tina introduced us all to Jericho!
Sonic the hedgehog, and I always imagined pinky demons from doom chasing behind and catching up more and more the longer we stayed stopped at red lights
Funny, for me it was Knuckles because he could climb up the telephone poles, run along the wires, and glide to the next one if the wires didn't connect.
It was me but on a dirt bike. All the maintenance roads along the highway look like sweet jumps
Or sometimes me in a kayak
Now I have a dirt bike and a kayak it's not really how I imagined it
Not only did I not do this, I was so confused by the question I was honestly expecting all the replies to just be people asking OP “dude, what are you *talking* about?” lol only to find out I’m the weirdo and I wasted so many car trips
I didn’t do this, but I’m also bad at visualizing things in my mind in general ([aphantasia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia)) - I wonder if they’re related.
I also have trouble visualising, but I did play this game. I wouldn't 'see' a character, though, I would literally focus on a mark or piece of dirt on the window. Which, I guess makes sense!
Fellow dirt biker checking in. There’s this game I swear I had on gameboy that as an adult I’m like 90% sure doesn’t exist and it was just my little dirt bike man doin the flips and shit.
It was just a body. No face. No features. Just a featureless human. It wasn't scary...at least it didn't seem to be until now. Now that I describe it, it seems so so weird and wrong.
I thought I was the only one! And get this: I used to call these ‘characters’ the “Thinkandoos”. I would blame everything I did wrong on them, because they sidetracked me, which was the truth! Now, I know THAT was particularly weird, but a 6 year old has to do what he has to do
I would never do this, but I could always see them running around my house messing with stuff but one day they just faded, and when I stopped imagining them, everything would go back to normal. They were sorta like my imaginary friends, but I had more. Their names were all basic like Steve and Joe, but my life sized imaginary friends were all like law enforcement so I just called them like "Cop 1" or Ambulance 3"
It was beside the car. It was an Imperial Biker Scout on a speeder bike. Later, it was Spider Man sliding along the power lines doing killer flips when he reached the poll tops.
Oh, lol I think whenever I drove long distance I would imagine the fields running beside the car because the lines all in a row would create an optical illusion that made it seem like something was running beside you.
i had three- a flying dog, a bird, and a velociraptor. they were racing and would do tricks off of the light poles to go faster. and dance to the radio when the car stopped.
Man in business suit, late to the office.
Alternatively, young farmer guy in plaid and overalls out for jog.
Sometimes a superhero from my favorite cartoons.
Usually man in business suit, though. I was a weird kid.
Not really a character, and maybe the earliest sign that I had mental issues! It looked humanish, and it was running on all fours. But...it had two more legs and two more arms. So it was running on all eights. No other discernible features really, aside from piercing white eyes that watched me was I watched it. In my mind it was always “racing” with our car, and it got really mad if it lost the race home.
...I didn’t know other people did this...
mine was a small, red, ball dude named Fibbles.. he was literally a fluffy Pom Pom ball with arms and legs.. sometimes he’d wear a hat... he rode a skateboard
Most people, when they were kids, in the backseat of a vehicle looking out the window to the side, imagined some type or figure/character basically parkouring/jumping/driving on the various obstacles, structures and powerlines, following/keeping up with you.
These could have been superheroes, ninjas, skateboarders, various video game characters that are highly mobile and many more.
This concept gained traction on the internet/reddit some years ago when people revealed this to each other, and discovering that it wasn't unique to them, but actually quite universal. (With a higher tendency in introverted individuals)
A tiger! They were my fave animals when I was little and still are to this day! 🧡 Sometimes I’d give wings to the tiger if there were especially long distances to cross or tall obstacles to jump.
I used to have different animals for each speed. I've since forgotten but i think it was something like: super slow = turtle?, yellow light= a walking cat, speed= cat, speedier=a fox, super fucking quick = horse, somehow quicker?= a blue fox or a mythical animal. And sometimes i would just imagine a cat or a being with no body.
This is a good one. I didn’t have a character. For me, the whole car jumps over breaks in the curb: crosswalks, driveways, cross streets. Still do it, I’m 36
It was actually a ninja, jumping of of each car that drove by. He landed on every car one afte another, even if there was traffic, he had to land on all of them before moving forward.
Spiderman but instead of running he would swing from the telephone poles.
Edit: I'm talking about the OG tobey maguire spiderman in my opinion he was the best.
Sometimes Balto the dog from the movie and a few Pokémon that I liked. The Pokémon were Entei, Suicune, and charizard (flying besides the car). Also Naruto characters like Sasuke haha.
Usually a huge green doglike monster because he was big and fast. He would sometimes shapeshift into the ground and go through the terrain like a wave.
Oh, wow, we're talking the 70s here... Most of the time, quite literally, the moon. The hatchback gave a panoramic upward view, so I rode in the back more than the seats. It obviously passed over the obstacles without having to dodge.
But on the moonless nights it was something very large and very dark. Not malevolent, simply well suited to the woods at night. It was big enough to simply step through the branches.
If I'd been in a city, I know I'd have picked Spiderman.
It was a minitaure me i felt.She(?) had the same hair,but i would always feel her in my peripheral vision so for some reason her face was never clear and she wore blue t shirt and beige pants.
So I was (and still am) a massive paleo nerd and would imagine different extinct animals running alongside the car. There were velocoraptors, smilodons, pterasaurs, etc
For me it was a random bad ass shadow lady that would cut down weeds and skate on telephone poles. I still find myself mentally clearing the sides of the road if I'm riding passenger.
The speck of dirt on the window. I would move my head around to change my perspective in such a way that it would really look like it was gliding and jumping.
The mental image of a kid doing this is hilarious.
Idk why but the point of view for my mental image of your comment has me running outside, alongside the car, watching a kid jerk his head around a speck of dirt on his window.
Yeah.... Hahaha (¯∇¯٥)
I'm an adult and I still do this. I can't be the only one though 🤔
Not quite the same thing, but I still do something similar - when I'm bored and have a window or something, I move my head around to line up things in he foreground and background of my vision.
Bro I thought I was crazy for doing this.. my dad saw me bouncing my head around and hit me with a “what the fuck are you doing?!” And That little speck of dirt just plowed through any obstacles from then on
OMG I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE
We have all found eachother
I used to do that too lol
I did that too!
Your parents probably:honey i think our child is possessed they seem to be flailing violently
I kept doing this until I slammed my head on the window
I did this and would get ridiculed by an older sibling who turned into an alt-right wing nut cop.
I still do this, its just too fun!
Not really sure. It was humanoid in shape but looked like a solid shadow.
Same for me Edit: why is reddit not letting me reply to peoples comments
It is
[удалено]
Same for me. Just a shadowman, sometimes running and jumping like a ninja, others like a superhero
I actually always imagined Tony Hawk on a skateboard!
I just had a generic dude on a skateboard, but it would switch to a surf board if there was a creek and a snow board if there was snow
I had generic skateboard guy but he had rocket boosters on his board for if I thought he would lag behind after many obstacles
and a mountain board for offroading. at least that was how it was for me
Mine was also just a random skater dude, but his skateboard could instantly turn into a dirt bike, car, jet, anything so that he could keep up!
why havent we invented magical shapeshifting boards that turn into skate/snow/surfboards upon contact with a certain surface?
Same
Same here, except he'd bail if the car randomly stopped.
I had huge saw blades mowing down signs and pedestrians.
For me it was a massive sword that cut through stuff like a lightsaber
Same
Yes my man exactly the same thing until I got older and put in a mental upgrade system where at first it could only cut down trees then I got better and better and I'd have to judge when to retract it and stuff then I got into calculating the tensile strength and stuff
Lightsaber for me but same idea.
Me too !!!
Holy shit same
I was a laser beam guy but same same
Yes, yes! Except for the fact that there were always trees next to my streets, so I'd mow down the forest so that three witches could burn the wood during the winter. I know that it sounds weird. But at the time, I didn't question it.
Blades are supreme, I did the same.
Mine was a horse. Sometimes I would be riding the horse.
Mine was a horse too, it was Spirit from the film Spirit Stallion of the cimarron
Mine was Rain!! Lol I used to love that movie!
Mine was a horse too! Or at least horse shaped...
Mine was a pegasus.
Well that got creepy fast
Horse shaped lizard with big floppy ears... This is wild!
Read this one in Tina Belcher's voice.
Mine was a black horse with white socks, white blaze, and salt pepper mane named Midnight. Imagine how it blew me away when Tina introduced us all to Jericho!
Mine was a horse, too. A champion eventer. I turned driveways and cross roads into water obstacles so he didn't have to run on asphalt. Lol
Mine always jumped over the driveways!
Mine was always a dude on a horse. I miss him now that I'm always the driver :/
I had a horse too.
Sonic the hedgehog, and I always imagined pinky demons from doom chasing behind and catching up more and more the longer we stayed stopped at red lights
I knew this would be fairly high up. Sonic is just a perfect match for something like this. Literally designed for running and dodging stuff.
Funny, for me it was Knuckles because he could climb up the telephone poles, run along the wires, and glide to the next one if the wires didn't connect.
It was the height of sega when I was a kid, and I had no other character but the blue blur. Nice to see there are others who did the same thing.
My son approves of you
Haha same!
Holy shit, other people did this??? My mind is blown. Tigger, of tail-bouncing Winnie-The-Pooh fame.
Yup. And it was actually difficult to not do it.
Myself! Edit : I still do this sometimes lol
Same and same, lol
Same but with a skateboard!
Same. Red Trial bike, 275cc.
It was me but on a dirt bike. All the maintenance roads along the highway look like sweet jumps Or sometimes me in a kayak Now I have a dirt bike and a kayak it's not really how I imagined it
Same!
Same, i was into parkour as a kid..
Ssmeeeeee, I was obsessed with Parkour and I still think it's cool
I imagined myself too, but I would be wearing a flowing white dress while doing lots of acrobatics
Mario. How aren’t more of you saying Mario?
Mine was Wario for some reason
Man the Wario Land games were good. Nintendo seems to have given up on them - the last one was on the *Wii!*
Either Spider-Man or one my characters
Same!
YEP! haha spidey was swinging along on power lines and jumping across cars
...am I the only one who didn’t do this (and was extremely confused for a minute)?
I am still so confused
Not only did I not do this, I was so confused by the question I was honestly expecting all the replies to just be people asking OP “dude, what are you *talking* about?” lol only to find out I’m the weirdo and I wasted so many car trips
I didn’t do this, but I’m also bad at visualizing things in my mind in general ([aphantasia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia)) - I wonder if they’re related.
I also have trouble visualising, but I did play this game. I wouldn't 'see' a character, though, I would literally focus on a mark or piece of dirt on the window. Which, I guess makes sense!
Same. I don't understand this.
Luke Skywalker! Great question!
Dirtbike rider, he would do a lot of jumps.
Dirt bike. The lines in the road were the jumps. Doubles and triples... I still do this as an adult from time to time...
Fellow dirt biker checking in. There’s this game I swear I had on gameboy that as an adult I’m like 90% sure doesn’t exist and it was just my little dirt bike man doin the flips and shit.
Same here, more specifically Excitebike guy
Grim Reaper on a dirtbike
Commander Keen. I'm old.
I too have played this game.
I understood that reference!
I haven't played Commander Keen in 25 years, but I still remember the god mode cheat. F10 + G
Wow this might seem stupid but TIL it was not just me...
Obama
What’s his last name
Jenkins
Understandable have a great day
Care
Marty McFly on a hover board
Spirit- the horse. Sometimes Simba but mainly spirit.
Myself, I didn't have a character for this, it's funny I didn't know other people did that though!!
It was just a body. No face. No features. Just a featureless human. It wasn't scary...at least it didn't seem to be until now. Now that I describe it, it seems so so weird and wrong.
mine was the same and yea now that it's said out loud it is weird and creepy
Oh good! Now I don't feel like such a demented kid!! I wonder if ours knew each other. ;)
This is my answer too and the closest character I can think that looks like that is Gumby.
The Greendale Human Being?
Was, is, and always will be Sonic the Hedgehog [Probably cause of that one McDonald's commercial for Sega LCD games that had Sonic on a racetrack].
12 hour drive to our yearly vacation spot in Northern Minnesota. 5 lb bag of gummy bears. Any time the bear failed to clear an obstacle it was eaten
A ninja
My forefinger and middle finger, in a running motion
Yes! How is this so far down? Are we weird?
I thought I was the only one! And get this: I used to call these ‘characters’ the “Thinkandoos”. I would blame everything I did wrong on them, because they sidetracked me, which was the truth! Now, I know THAT was particularly weird, but a 6 year old has to do what he has to do
I would never do this, but I could always see them running around my house messing with stuff but one day they just faded, and when I stopped imagining them, everything would go back to normal. They were sorta like my imaginary friends, but I had more. Their names were all basic like Steve and Joe, but my life sized imaginary friends were all like law enforcement so I just called them like "Cop 1" or Ambulance 3"
Me, but as a cat-human creature with angel wings.
Check out Thundercats. I'm old but we have much in common.
It was beside the car. It was an Imperial Biker Scout on a speeder bike. Later, it was Spider Man sliding along the power lines doing killer flips when he reached the poll tops.
i imagined luke skywalker in a x wing
A miniature Winnie the Pooh in a tiny red convertible.
A cougar and I could hear it if I covered my ears and moved my hands off and on my ears! Wowww...woww...wowww
It must be clarified, which kind of cougar?
The feline kind
Okay just making sure you weren't imagining forty year old horny women running across power lines when you were a kid
This belongs in /r/Nocontext
My best friend from kindergarten who moved away unexpectedly.
My imaginary friend named Elizabeth. She was physically my twin but obviously with some superpowers.
What the hell?
I don’t understand the question
When you were 8 and watching the scenery go by while riding in a car, did you imagine a character running alongside the vehicle, and if so, which one?
Oh, lol I think whenever I drove long distance I would imagine the fields running beside the car because the lines all in a row would create an optical illusion that made it seem like something was running beside you.
i had three- a flying dog, a bird, and a velociraptor. they were racing and would do tricks off of the light poles to go faster. and dance to the radio when the car stopped.
I thought I was the only one doing this.... Mine was my Uncle Sammy who passed when I was young. I still do it too.
A velociraptor Or at least what 7 year old me thought velociraptors looked like.
Man in business suit, late to the office. Alternatively, young farmer guy in plaid and overalls out for jog. Sometimes a superhero from my favorite cartoons. Usually man in business suit, though. I was a weird kid.
I imagined a man with long deer-like legs, and imagined it so that he could only jump on shadows.
Not really a character, and maybe the earliest sign that I had mental issues! It looked humanish, and it was running on all fours. But...it had two more legs and two more arms. So it was running on all eights. No other discernible features really, aside from piercing white eyes that watched me was I watched it. In my mind it was always “racing” with our car, and it got really mad if it lost the race home.
...I didn’t know other people did this... mine was a small, red, ball dude named Fibbles.. he was literally a fluffy Pom Pom ball with arms and legs.. sometimes he’d wear a hat... he rode a skateboard
What?
Most people, when they were kids, in the backseat of a vehicle looking out the window to the side, imagined some type or figure/character basically parkouring/jumping/driving on the various obstacles, structures and powerlines, following/keeping up with you. These could have been superheroes, ninjas, skateboarders, various video game characters that are highly mobile and many more. This concept gained traction on the internet/reddit some years ago when people revealed this to each other, and discovering that it wasn't unique to them, but actually quite universal. (With a higher tendency in introverted individuals)
I always imagined the car itself dodging the obstacles.
A magic flying horse.
I always loved bicycles and bmx. I always imagined myself riding and doing tricks off of obstacles.
Rurouni Kenshin. He'd jump from sign to sign or run along telephone lines. Only on the ground when we were going through really desolate country
For me, it was a sleek and powerful black panther.
I went between mario and captain falcon
Bigfoot
A tiger! They were my fave animals when I was little and still are to this day! 🧡 Sometimes I’d give wings to the tiger if there were especially long distances to cross or tall obstacles to jump.
I used to have different animals for each speed. I've since forgotten but i think it was something like: super slow = turtle?, yellow light= a walking cat, speed= cat, speedier=a fox, super fucking quick = horse, somehow quicker?= a blue fox or a mythical animal. And sometimes i would just imagine a cat or a being with no body.
Ball of flame or lightning
So I ain't the only one. Mine was spiderman.
The truck from the TV show Fall Guy.
This is a good one. I didn’t have a character. For me, the whole car jumps over breaks in the curb: crosswalks, driveways, cross streets. Still do it, I’m 36
It was me driving a go-kart. (1950's)
It was actually a ninja, jumping of of each car that drove by. He landed on every car one afte another, even if there was traffic, he had to land on all of them before moving forward.
I had a bull that charged along the power lines and jumped the posts, have not thought about this in a long time.
Super Mario
a guy on a motorcycle doing sick tricks across the rooftops
A remote control car that could jump over obstacles and shoot missiles to destroy some
Most of the time it was Yoshi. Sometimes it was me, but a cooler version.
My damn self
Me, but with rollerblades and mad skillz
The guy from the Sega Genesis game, Altered Beast, who could turn into a dragon and fly. But on roller blades.
Luigi
I never experienced the whole "person running beside the car" thing, which makes no sense because I have ADHD.
It was actually a t-rex chasing behind our car
Spiderman but instead of running he would swing from the telephone poles. Edit: I'm talking about the OG tobey maguire spiderman in my opinion he was the best.
Sometimes a large black dog, sometimes a horse! depended on the day I guess.
My fingers
Really I was into the hand thing, which is more like flying, so when the window was up it was the Starfox ship.
I didn’t imagine a person, I just envisioned chopping down all the obstacles with a lightsaber.
Me In the summer it was me on a motocross bike or a mountain bike.. In the winter it was me on skis/snowboard.
It was a horse and it would jump the fences.
Sometimes Balto the dog from the movie and a few Pokémon that I liked. The Pokémon were Entei, Suicune, and charizard (flying besides the car). Also Naruto characters like Sasuke haha.
Shadow cat
Oh my god I’m not the only one. Mine was Lucario
N64 Mario
Spiderman!
Naruto
A dirt biker
Usually a huge green doglike monster because he was big and fast. He would sometimes shapeshift into the ground and go through the terrain like a wave.
Generic 4 wheeler rider.
I had a half human half dragon OC.
Mario from the 64. The game was to jump over obstacles using the triple jump and long jump
Oh, wow, we're talking the 70s here... Most of the time, quite literally, the moon. The hatchback gave a panoramic upward view, so I rode in the back more than the seats. It obviously passed over the obstacles without having to dodge. But on the moonless nights it was something very large and very dark. Not malevolent, simply well suited to the woods at night. It was big enough to simply step through the branches. If I'd been in a city, I know I'd have picked Spiderman.
Either it was a dragon, a mechanical dragon or a mechanical saber-toothed tiger.
Sonic
As a kid? I’m 47 and my skateboarding ninja Jedi is alive and well.
A horse running in the wind!
It was a minitaure me i felt.She(?) had the same hair,but i would always feel her in my peripheral vision so for some reason her face was never clear and she wore blue t shirt and beige pants.
So I was (and still am) a massive paleo nerd and would imagine different extinct animals running alongside the car. There were velocoraptors, smilodons, pterasaurs, etc
A PINK AND WHITE DRAGON CALLED SKY
For me it was a random bad ass shadow lady that would cut down weeds and skate on telephone poles. I still find myself mentally clearing the sides of the road if I'm riding passenger.
A fox with wings! 🦊🕊️
A red fox named...Red. Sometimes his girlfriend (a arctic fox) would run with him. I still do this, particularly if I'm on a bus!
「 STAR FINGER 」
Mine wasn’t really anything. I did imagine something doing parkour alongside the car but I never imagined that thing itself. Invisible I guess.
WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS MEAN?
I was a poor kid and couldn't afford a large enough car to ride inside it. Just had one RNG-controller miniature car.