Paracosms

I am reading a book called The Philosophical Baby that’s about how our minds develop in early infancy, and I was reading along rather bored until I came to this extraordinary bit in a chapter about how our imaginations develop:

When children grow older, imaginary companions are usually replaced by a new kind of imaginary activity. “Paracosms” are imaginary societies rather than imaginary people. They are invented universes with distinctive languages, geography, and history. The Brontës invented several paracosms when they were children, as did the teenage murderers who inspired the movie Heavenly Creatures (one of them, in real life, grew up to be the novelist Anne Perry).

I’m sorry, what? You could not think of a better second example??? The parenthetical really puts it over the top. “Just as you’d expect from someone who bludgeoned their friend’s mother to death with a brick, she was indeed very creative!”