I have an intense obbsession about pillows to which I find nothing to relate it with. Does anyone have any ideas?

Sounds like it might be mama’s breast that you’re longing for.
Never seems to be enough of our mamas or the right kind.

I flip mine to the cold side. I will wake up during the night to flip it to the cold side. I am in the FB group “People Who Flip Their Pillows to the Cold Side”.

But that’s as far as it goes with me and pillows.

If it does not interfere with your day to day life and close personal relationships, then it is no problem. Many people find pillows sensual and comforting.

Don’t think too much. Pillows are pleasant and decorative and soft and comfy and huggable. What’s not to like?

@Dr_Lawrence Right, people do notice it, but it’s never interfered with anything at all, at least not to my knowledge.

@dpworkin That’s what I say when people ask me about why I like pillows so much. :D

@Symbeline
ehh..I like chocolate but i don’t smear it all over my face..and by your own admission it’s not sexual…it’s presexual…nope Dr Freud says it’s something back in the wee years. maybe you hugged on when you were scared…object constancy etc…i’ll send you the bill

Hmmm, you would have to provide us with some random details only you know about. Did you ever have pillow fights as a kid, or have a lot of pillows on your bed as a kid, or maybe never had good pillows as a kid, so when you found some awesome pillows you became abnormally attached to them lol.

I had one of those long pillows as a kid, so now I have a tendency to like to cuddle or sleep with a pillow between my legs because of that.

I don’t think it is all that strange. Pillows are comfortable and comforting. You can smoosh down into them or hug them tight and make them smoosh into you – they cover a wide range of emotional needs. :-) I even get the smell thing as far as my own pillow goes or throw pillows at my grandma’s. Can’t quite figure out the squeaky noises, but I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s kind of a fun quirk.

I want a room with just pillows…all different shapes and sizes. No furniture…just pillows! ...and a mounted flat screen. I don’t think your affinity with pillows is in any way strange:)

…cough, cough.

@Symbeline
Why ask a question when you already are comfortable with it have an answer to in your own estimation? Either you question it, have a pillow fetish or there’s something deeper. Of course the most obvious answer is that you just like them. And by your own admission you reeeaaally like them, but you have an attachment that is more than average so there is more than likely some underlying cause, ancient memory or something. Else it wouldn’t even come up. It would be like, “I like hot cocoa” or muffins or whatever. But you questioned. Unless you’re just rapping about woman on pillow love. And I guess that’s cool. But if your friends think it’s odd it probably has some merit. It doesn’t have to be a negative thing but a child usually finds comfort in a soft squeezable thing.
What was your home environment as a child? Was it stable, loud, changeable?

I have one of those long body pillows that I wrap my arms and legs around :-p

@Blackberry All pillows are great in my eyes. Whatever the kind. There has never been any discrimination on my part. So I don’t know if a specific pillow may have caused it. Thing is, it seems innate to me, since it always felt so natural.

@SeventhSense—Well yeah, I’ve got my own theories, my dad helped me out with some of them. And while I am happy and people don’t care even if they notice it, I’m curious.
However it feels so natural that I never really asked myself anything about this till recently. It sticks out a lot more now than when I was a kid. People then just thought I guess, that it was like a stuffed animal, but with pillows.
My childhood wasn’t very stable because I was always moved back and forth from group homes to back with my dad and on and on, however the pillow thing started long before my parents separated. My dad said it might be a way to compensate for the lack of attention my mom gave me (That dude bout the boobs might be right haha.) through pillows, but I’m really not sure if I buy that. Not fishing for attention here or nuthin’, either.
But yeah, since there’s something more than to just liking pillows a lot, it would be neat to know just what’s up widdat.—

I would think it has to do with “object constancy”: and something leftover from childhood.

When a child is first born, as long as it is wanted and loved, it will be bonded and attached to mother in a healthy way. Here it feels safe and secure. As the child grows it not only needs to be weaned from mother’s breast but also, little by little, from mother’s presence so it can begin to find its own identity.
During this process, as long as it has a deep inner sense of being loved, mother can leave the room and baby feels fine. And as long as mother’s love is constant and baby is an object of mother’s love, the baby has object constancy.
That is, it constantly feels loved.

However, if the baby doesn’t have this deep sense of love and security, it may panic when mother leaves the room. Or even when mother is there, without a sense of constant love, baby will feel very insecure, and cry. But if and when it cries repeatedly and mother isn’t there or doesn’t come to comfort it, it will eventually stop crying and turn its pain inward. It has a lack of object constancy.
hubpages

This can turn to an actual object for comfort in the absence of the primary caregiver like a stuffed animal or soft thing.

P.S.-that dude with the boobs? i guess you meant me.

@SeventhSense And this is meant to remain with you until your late 20’s? Interesting, I never knew anything about this.

@Symbeline
It’s not meant to remain with you but it’s a leftover imprint from a very primitive part of one’s psyche. It should be left behind comfortably like the weaning from the breast but if it is not given the opportunity to then neurosis and pathology can arise. If it was never fully resolved the transition from one developmental stage to another is incomplete. Personally I have issue from a lack of object constancy in which I’ve experienced impairment in the quality of the my relationship with primary caregivers in that parents were unable to form a healthy, empathic attachment to me and this instilled a deep sense of shame which took me many decades to unearth and even now it is unresolved and may never be resolved. It causes me great personal pain in my relating. It becomes even more pronounced with age as the body’s natural coping mechanisms/defenses are compromised by aging. And not that you should dissect this or attempt to change it but it may help to notice what’s happening internally when you are acting out these “rituals”.

@SeventhSense
It makes me happy and giggly when I do, so I’ve never thought much of rectifying the problem. Like your example about shame, even if hugging a pillow lasts seven seconds, I usually forget anything else that sucks at the moment. It’s kinda hard to explain, as simple as it might actually be.
I’m curious though, while problems, or issues, such as these may primarily define themselves through abnormal attachment to things, can it cause greater problems elsewhere? (Social life, expressing oneself, whatever?)

It’s an issue when it hampers other things and is necessary to have at hand etc. Maybe it’s not as pronounced as Linus with a blanket but do you return to something again and again, know it’s nearby, or know you’re returning to it? Do you like to drink a bit much?

@SeventhSense I drink all the time. I’m doing it right now. That’s another problem lol. If it’s in any way related to what we’ve been talking about, it might be worth investigating after all. :/

Oral fixations are part of it and again this doesn’t necessarily always mean the same thing for every person but for you it seems significant. Picture it safe, warm, fuzzy with a bottle among pillows.

@SeventhSense Sorry, but I really think that’s a lot of jargon. Have you read Winnicott? I have. He named the transitional object. For one thing there is nothing in the literature about generalizing a transitional object from the specific to a class of items. For another, where is the empirical evidence for this psychodynamic? That’s right, you have none! So leave the poor woman alone, let her enjoy her damned pillow, and quit acting like you know about things that you don’t know about.

Where is the empirical evidence? There are countless examples of people who have attachment issues, substance abuse problems and coping mechanisms hampered by failure to make significant and complete bonding with their primary caregiver. Do you think the inner city ghetto, gang violence, substance abuse epidemic is as a result of well nurtured infants and children who were attended to? This site is no doubt rife with examples of such and of people find it a safer way to communicate. And I would never deny her her comforts or tell her to abandon them. Just offering some insights and some from very personal experience.

How does an attachment issue translate into a perseverating transitional object (a phenomenon I have never encountered until I read your post)? When you turn your feelings into jargon, you are just intellectualizing, and further avoiding them.

@dpworkin
Whatever. She has some issues as do we all.