My daughter helped me realize that Ghost Kingdoms are not always accessible to us, even as they aid in our cognition. Though the term “Ghost Kingdom” was famously coined by adoptee author and psychiatrist Betty Jean Lifton as a psychic reality adoptees retreat to in order to play out what-if scenarios and create characters of lost biological relatives, I think the idea of an internal fantasy world applies to everybody as a basic function of the mind.

We were talking in the car on our way home from picking up dinner, and I genuinely don’t remember what I was telling her, but when I paused for her response, she said, “Wait, what? I wasn’t listening, I was in Emery Space.”

Immediately, my ears perked up because in my studies of adoptee Ghost Kingdoms, it’s become clear to me that we all have inner worlds where we sometimes retreat to. Fantasies and what-if scenarios are inherent to the structures of our minds, adoptees or not. What I used to call Mom Space when my mom would drift off at the dinner table is actually a secret internal place all of us have inside our minds. 

“Oh?” I asked. “What’s Emery Space?”

“Well, you know how sometimes you can leave your body and go into space and then you come back like, boom?” She explained. “That’s where I was, but I’m back.” 

“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” I said. “What is Emery Space like? What do you think about when you go there?” 

“I don’t know,” she said. “I know I go to Emery Space, but I don’t know how to explain it and I don’t know what I think about there because I’m back now.” 

And I really liked that answer. As I worked on my thesis project, it became clear early on in the writing process that it would be imperative for me to take time away from the academic writing to give myself time to reflect on my own Ghost Kingdom and how my mental processes over my lifetime have informed my worldview, especially regarding my adoption. 

My first exploration of my own experience reflected on how my birthmother has appeared to me in dreams over the years. As I explained in a guest blog, my dreams seem to be the clearest insight I have into my own Ghost Kingdom as it was when I was a teen and now as I’m currently in reunion with my biological aunt. 

Though the two dreams I discussed there were important for me to recognize as entryways into my personal fantasy world, I felt frustrated because I couldn’t recall any such dreams or thought behavior indicating a ghost kingdom from my childhood. They must be deeply repressed memories, I thought. 

But now, as I reflect on this conversation between my daughter and myself, I can’t help but think that whatever my Ghost Kingdom was as a child was helpful to my emotional growth as I navigated the world around me whether I remember that place I escaped to or not.