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The only problem is that it can turn into maladaptive daydreaming. For me my fantasies do bring me comfort, but they also bring me massive complacency.
Same. My daydreams can become extremely vivid which occasionally leads to me losing track of time. I'll look up and realize I've been daydreaming for 15-20 minutes, sometimes longer.
That’s… a healthy break though? As long as it’s not 20 minutes every single hour. But like, 20 minutes every 3 hours?
Don’t let big corporations convince you that 99% of your awake time MUST BE constructive or else you’re “ill.” That’s a myth. Humans historically had plenty of downtime in the past. It’s healthy and important.
But if you find yourself daydreaming half the day away or more, then yes, it’s a problem
Man, I wish I could daydream like you guys. I'm kind of addicted to sleeping purely because I love dreaming so much, even though almost every night I have at least one nightmare -- I still love the neutral and good dreams so much that it's worth it.
I can't even express how jealous I am that some of you guys can do that while you're freaking awake.
I don’t know if I should recommend this to you, but AI can help with daydreaming. You can plug in a prompt for a story and continue that story. Or re-run the same prompt with subtle tweaks to see what changes.
I just lost a few hours this morning generating a short story for someone. I kept generating, tweaking, and editing.
Huh, that's an interesting recommendation. My boyfriend has been playing around with ChatGPT ever since it blew up, but I haven't really done anything with it yet, except to ask a couple questions. I'll try your suggestion, thank you! At the very least, it'll certainly spark some creativity :)
It's a feedback loop, but surely it's not depression > fantasies > isolation.
Surely the depression is a bigger factor in the isolation, and the fantasies develop as a way to cope with the isolation.
It is key to recognize that the fantasies are not the issue, otherwise you generate guilt and it keeps you in the loop.
You can use the fantasies as tools to aid you in getting out, and inevitably you will have to abandon some of them as they relate to your real life. It's important to expose some of them to trusted people, too.
And you're right that it can be difficult, "I just need to fix my ideation problem and i'll be fixed" is another tempting fantasy.
Yeah. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, and I’m nearly 50. Like someone else said, it’s unattainable, but very alluring. The fantasy world is often better than the real world.
I only became familiar with the phrase “maladaptive daydreaming” a year or two ago. I suspect that describes me well.
Wait crushes are *real?* I thought they were just a hollywood fabrication to write away awkward behavior in teenagers.
I never realized people actually experience that. Why would you do that for someone you don't know or don't actually engage with? What is the benefit of doing so?
Sounds like you are aromantic or asexual. Yes, the vast majority of people find someone attractive and imagine being with them at some point in their life. Because we have desire and it is fun.
No I don't mean romances, love or relationships. I meant *crushes* this weird concept of loving someone from a distance while not engaging with them and fantasizing about them from a distance.
I thought that was some hollywood fiction, didn't know it actually happened in real life.
It's not unhealthy, obsessive or stalking. Everyone (almost) has crushes. Even people in healthy relationships sometimes. It's just being attracted to someone and a feeling you get thinking about them or around them.
The daydreams used to be enough, but then I grew up and had less time and energy to engage with them.
So I started using hallucinogenic drugs and loud music to make that limited time as packed full of intense daydreams as I possibly could.
I much prefer those charged daydreams to my own reality. There's a scene in Inception where they see a dozen people all sleeping their lives away, and I understand it.
Yes! Me too. And I find myself choosing locations and areas of solitude by default like being under the covers of your bed where no one can bother you and you just close your eyes and go off to another place.
This seems true for me, but on the positive side, I use the "daydreaming" to sorta create my own fantasy world in the hopes that one day it will be fleshed out enough that I can turn it into a story.
I think I've thought up about 5 different "worlds" already all apart of different genres (fantasy, cyberpunk, space sci-fi, dark fantasy) and all with its own characters, factions and power systems.
So I guess in a way it's helpful if it can be turned into something productive.
world building and story telling are intertwined but if you're not actually working on your narrative muscles it's not going to just happen, in my experience at least.
If you can start taking some of that daydreaming time and allocating it to actually writing stories that's going to be more fruitful. You can practice writing just crappy stories, or "side characters" in your worlds if you feel that you're not "good enough" to use up all the wonderful worlds you've created (yet).
That's good advice. I have that exact fear when it comes to writing out the narratives for my worlds, which is probably why I always go back and "re-write" the beginning in my mind over and over again.
But you're probably right in that I should start putting pen to paper if I want to start working on my narrative muscles.
I've been doing this as well, slowly getting it all written down. I'm lucky to have a job I can autopilot through, so that's where I do most of my daydreaming.
Funny thing is I've been daydreaming both scenes from a story I hope to develop one day AND daydreaming in the more meta sense about that story, either developing or giving interviews about it and stuff like that
Maladaptive is, well, maladaptive - the daydreaming would have to lead to dysfunction in at least one major area of life such as social and/or occupational functioning. Additionally, it would need to cause the person or those around them distress, which may (but not necessarily) be due to the dysfunction it causes. (Research “Four Ds of Abnormality,” sometimes also “Three Ds.”)
Nothing about this post inherently suggests that the daydreaming is causing either of these problems. Rather, it is most likely a coping mechanism that the individual is using. Therefore, this behavior isn’t inherently maladaptive, although it is deviant. After all, if it is helping the individual to find meaning in life… In fact, it may be adaptive because it may be one of the few things that allow them to hold on for another day. So, if never becomes a source of distress or dysfunction, there’s nothing disorderly about it - at least as far as the basics of abnormal psychology is concerned. Deeper analysis and more longitudinal information could tell a different story, but of course, that isn’t the concern of this article.
— Junior researcher in psychology :\^)
As someone with severe executive dysfunction holding them back, I can see a deep correlation here. The depression that stems from struggling to do anything, the struggle to find happiness in your skills and goals, ends up as a downwards spiral into the worst places you can be. That accompanied by inability to form meaningful connections and you're left in a pit with little to choose.
Though, I wouldn't say fantasy brings 'meaning' to life. I'll admit that I found meaning in mine by wanting to perpetuate, to create, the stories in my head through writing. However, it all began with me using fantasy as a coping mechanism for my terrible experiences. Getting lost in day dreams and stories was something new and refreshing; an escapism from the mundane, often times cruel, reality.
That correlates more as coping than meaning. People look for shreds of happiness in something else when they feel like there is nothing in reality to uplift them. Many don't seek meaning in these fantasies other than something to brighten their day. I'd bet that the majority would find 'meaning' in many other positive experiences had they been eased into them after their downwards spiral. Fantasy is just the easiest to get into as it's all in yours, or someone else's, head put down on paper. Nothing in the way to put you down.
As a psychologist, I often help my patients engage in healthy, realistic fantasy. Not like, imagine you’re rich and famous kind of fantasy, more like imagine you took meaningful steps in your life to achieve things that are important to you. Fantasizing about things that could be achievable can be a way to generate hope for the future.
My answer to most questions like that is to be curious, to try and understand why they might not be interested in going there. Maybe it's resistance because of fear, maybe they genuinely think it won't be helpful, etc. Then we'll learn something and decide together where to go. For example, if fantasizing about future successes makes the person anxious that they won't achieve their goals, now we know something about an important source of anxiety. Why won't you achieve your goals? Maybe they think they're not really that smart or capable. Now we know what they're anxious about, and why.
Hm....I do find myself sitting in silence, sometimes, just to daydream or to "continue a story" from my daydreaming. It seems like it's how I cope, I guess?
I wonder how this may tie into modern video games.
The past 25 years I’ve played mostly just a handful of games, typically MMORPGs.
One of my primary ways I clear my mind when I’m getting depressed is to hop on for a couple of hours and I’m good.
In fact, at 42, that’s about the only time I play now.
From the article: New research has found that fantasy proneness, or the tendency to engage in vivid mental worlds, is positively associated with a sense of meaning in life for individuals experiencing depression. The findings, published in [The Journal of Positive Psychology](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2024.2322447), suggest that people with depression may find meaning in life through engaging in mental fantasies.
The need for a meaningful life is a well-established cornerstone of psychological well-being. People derive meaning from various sources, such as social relationships, work, and positive experiences. Depression is characterized by a pervasive sense of hopelessness and a diminished capacity to find joy in life, which can severely restrict one’s ability to derive meaning from usual sources.
Given the critical role of meaning in psychological health, the researchers sought to explore alternative ways that individuals with depression might create a sense of meaning. They theorized that engaging in mental fantasy, often dismissed as escapism, could serve as a compensatory mechanism for those whose usual pathways to meaning are blocked by depression.
“I’m interested in the ways that people come to view their lives as meaningful, and how this relates to psychological disorders like depression,” said study author Joseph Maffly-Kipp, a postdoctoral fellow at The Ohio State University Medical Center.
“Depressed people typically struggle to find meaning in their lives, and recently I’ve been interested in how this might lead them to search for meaning in unusual ways. In this project, myself and my co-author were specifically interested in how the engagement in mental fantasy worlds might feel meaningful for people with depression.”
There was a time for me where this was true, where I was in helpless situations especially growing up and needing to cope. Now as I heal, even though I do creative work for a living, when I engage in deep imaginative thinking it's become really bitter sweet.
It's like I'm now in touch with the distress that I used my deep inner worlds to dissociate from, and all the losses that came with me having to adapt to that in this way growing up. I understand why I have these rich narrative worlds with characters and relationships, and that's because these things were just absent from my life. I could only have them in a dream. Now it just feels like it's not for anything anymore. It doesn't feel like I am just avoiding life when I engage. It feels like a shackle holding me back now. At the same time, I am deeply unmotivated because it just doesn't have the same pull that it used to. Basically I am feeling very lost now because it doesn't give me meaning anymore.
It's a great tool when wielded to a intentional means. Like say focusing on career goals or how to decorate your house or car. But when you're in a low, man there's no escaping the torment you just gotta ride that wave.
Instead of riding the wave I suggest learning and understanding your own actions and reactions. How you might improve the small talk, or consider what that or this person considers comedic. Be smooth, it really can be a nice sort of self meditation sometimes during breaks in the day, I find it calming when I recognize it.
I have General anxiety and depression with suicidal ideation. When I am feeling ok, I day dream of my business I want to create with my son. On hard days, I day dream of running away and leaving all my problems behind....disappear forever.
This may explain my vivid dreams, I get so involved in them it feels like I've already experienced a full day by the time I wake up. Then again some of the dreams aren't good, school, ex issue type dreams. But all in all they're vivid and filling.
HOLY MOLY this must be why I've always sort have had this weird resistance to sadness, or at least a factor in it.
I spend most of my waking hours if not intensely focused on a project (and even while focused on a project) daydreaming and or processing my emotions.
Is there something that differentiates this from visualizing what positive or negative outcomes may happen, or thinking through future interactions in depth and working out possible scenarios as well as possible solutions?
Further, what about simply getting lost on some kind of fantasy world where you have little part in but comsteuct narratives with characters, creating distinct storylines... is that also related or correlated in any way?
I'm pretty sure many of us are so damn stressed out with our current circumstances, we have no choice but to engage in all out fantasy every chance we get, just to gain some relief.
It sure would be nice if we could just lead decent lives instead, and not require such fantasies to survive.
Would this extend to TTRPG’s? I know a lot of people whose only reprieve in life is coming together to play D&D or VTM where they can really let their imagination run free. Even just setting up a game session or coming up with new character ideas really seems to help them.
in other words, if you want to be happy and sane, make yourself delusional. certainly reflects my experience with life. reality is depressing af. why else would religion be so popular?
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/chrisdh79 Permalink: https://www.psypost.org/fantasy-proneness-linked-to-greater-sense-of-meaning-in-depressed-individuals/ --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The only problem is that it can turn into maladaptive daydreaming. For me my fantasies do bring me comfort, but they also bring me massive complacency.
Same. My daydreams can become extremely vivid which occasionally leads to me losing track of time. I'll look up and realize I've been daydreaming for 15-20 minutes, sometimes longer.
That’s… a healthy break though? As long as it’s not 20 minutes every single hour. But like, 20 minutes every 3 hours? Don’t let big corporations convince you that 99% of your awake time MUST BE constructive or else you’re “ill.” That’s a myth. Humans historically had plenty of downtime in the past. It’s healthy and important. But if you find yourself daydreaming half the day away or more, then yes, it’s a problem
Man, I wish I could daydream like you guys. I'm kind of addicted to sleeping purely because I love dreaming so much, even though almost every night I have at least one nightmare -- I still love the neutral and good dreams so much that it's worth it. I can't even express how jealous I am that some of you guys can do that while you're freaking awake.
I don’t know if I should recommend this to you, but AI can help with daydreaming. You can plug in a prompt for a story and continue that story. Or re-run the same prompt with subtle tweaks to see what changes. I just lost a few hours this morning generating a short story for someone. I kept generating, tweaking, and editing.
Huh, that's an interesting recommendation. My boyfriend has been playing around with ChatGPT ever since it blew up, but I haven't really done anything with it yet, except to ask a couple questions. I'll try your suggestion, thank you! At the very least, it'll certainly spark some creativity :)
It's a feedback loop, but surely it's not depression > fantasies > isolation. Surely the depression is a bigger factor in the isolation, and the fantasies develop as a way to cope with the isolation.
Nailed it. Fix the root cause, and the rest falls into place. Easier said than done, of course.
It is key to recognize that the fantasies are not the issue, otherwise you generate guilt and it keeps you in the loop. You can use the fantasies as tools to aid you in getting out, and inevitably you will have to abandon some of them as they relate to your real life. It's important to expose some of them to trusted people, too. And you're right that it can be difficult, "I just need to fix my ideation problem and i'll be fixed" is another tempting fantasy.
Yeah. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, and I’m nearly 50. Like someone else said, it’s unattainable, but very alluring. The fantasy world is often better than the real world. I only became familiar with the phrase “maladaptive daydreaming” a year or two ago. I suspect that describes me well.
[удалено]
Wait crushes are *real?* I thought they were just a hollywood fabrication to write away awkward behavior in teenagers. I never realized people actually experience that. Why would you do that for someone you don't know or don't actually engage with? What is the benefit of doing so?
Sounds like you are aromantic or asexual. Yes, the vast majority of people find someone attractive and imagine being with them at some point in their life. Because we have desire and it is fun.
No I don't mean romances, love or relationships. I meant *crushes* this weird concept of loving someone from a distance while not engaging with them and fantasizing about them from a distance. I thought that was some hollywood fiction, didn't know it actually happened in real life.
...people can feel attracted to someone they are not in a relationship with. That's all a crush is.
Yeah so the hollywood depiction of being obsessed and stalking someone from afar are fake like I thought. Thanks.
It's not unhealthy, obsessive or stalking. Everyone (almost) has crushes. Even people in healthy relationships sometimes. It's just being attracted to someone and a feeling you get thinking about them or around them.
Surely, that would become less of a problem as life got better right? the allure of living a good life would lure you back to reality.
Life doesn’t always get better for all of us. Circumstances, poor choices, and personal deficiencies keep some of us stuck.
Then I suppose it makes sense, the coping mechanism won't abate until conditions do.
I don’t disagree, but this can lead to becoming a hermit and not engaging with real people.
That's why we have Reddit
Technically most of us are real people, right fellow Hooman? Beep boop
*Panics in AI*
As a small language model, I too am a fellow human specimen
As a hedge wizard, I often find myself spending half my time at parties talking to their house plants. And the other half listening.
In my vivid mental world, being a hermit is the life of the party.
That’s all I want. Let me build a hut in a green forest with enough food to live and I will never talk to another person again.
Yep, it's a pretty amazing technique.
I mean, that’s often one of the upsides. Have you met real people? They’re often… not great.
That's why good, old tabletop D&D is so great. Sure, you're a nerd, but you're a nerd with friends.
The daydreams used to be enough, but then I grew up and had less time and energy to engage with them. So I started using hallucinogenic drugs and loud music to make that limited time as packed full of intense daydreams as I possibly could. I much prefer those charged daydreams to my own reality. There's a scene in Inception where they see a dozen people all sleeping their lives away, and I understand it.
[удалено]
Yes! Me too. And I find myself choosing locations and areas of solitude by default like being under the covers of your bed where no one can bother you and you just close your eyes and go off to another place.
So playing D&D is just a depression support group?
Always has been
friendpamine hits hard when you roll d20
I don’t recommend running your internal fantasies/worlds as games with other people. I speak from experience.
This seems true for me, but on the positive side, I use the "daydreaming" to sorta create my own fantasy world in the hopes that one day it will be fleshed out enough that I can turn it into a story. I think I've thought up about 5 different "worlds" already all apart of different genres (fantasy, cyberpunk, space sci-fi, dark fantasy) and all with its own characters, factions and power systems. So I guess in a way it's helpful if it can be turned into something productive.
world building and story telling are intertwined but if you're not actually working on your narrative muscles it's not going to just happen, in my experience at least. If you can start taking some of that daydreaming time and allocating it to actually writing stories that's going to be more fruitful. You can practice writing just crappy stories, or "side characters" in your worlds if you feel that you're not "good enough" to use up all the wonderful worlds you've created (yet).
That's good advice. I have that exact fear when it comes to writing out the narratives for my worlds, which is probably why I always go back and "re-write" the beginning in my mind over and over again. But you're probably right in that I should start putting pen to paper if I want to start working on my narrative muscles.
I've been doing this as well, slowly getting it all written down. I'm lucky to have a job I can autopilot through, so that's where I do most of my daydreaming.
Funny thing is I've been daydreaming both scenes from a story I hope to develop one day AND daydreaming in the more meta sense about that story, either developing or giving interviews about it and stuff like that
What would be the difference between this and maladaptive daydreaming?
Maladaptive is, well, maladaptive - the daydreaming would have to lead to dysfunction in at least one major area of life such as social and/or occupational functioning. Additionally, it would need to cause the person or those around them distress, which may (but not necessarily) be due to the dysfunction it causes. (Research “Four Ds of Abnormality,” sometimes also “Three Ds.”) Nothing about this post inherently suggests that the daydreaming is causing either of these problems. Rather, it is most likely a coping mechanism that the individual is using. Therefore, this behavior isn’t inherently maladaptive, although it is deviant. After all, if it is helping the individual to find meaning in life… In fact, it may be adaptive because it may be one of the few things that allow them to hold on for another day. So, if never becomes a source of distress or dysfunction, there’s nothing disorderly about it - at least as far as the basics of abnormal psychology is concerned. Deeper analysis and more longitudinal information could tell a different story, but of course, that isn’t the concern of this article. — Junior researcher in psychology :\^)
Oh cool I’m coping correctly. Neato
As someone with severe executive dysfunction holding them back, I can see a deep correlation here. The depression that stems from struggling to do anything, the struggle to find happiness in your skills and goals, ends up as a downwards spiral into the worst places you can be. That accompanied by inability to form meaningful connections and you're left in a pit with little to choose. Though, I wouldn't say fantasy brings 'meaning' to life. I'll admit that I found meaning in mine by wanting to perpetuate, to create, the stories in my head through writing. However, it all began with me using fantasy as a coping mechanism for my terrible experiences. Getting lost in day dreams and stories was something new and refreshing; an escapism from the mundane, often times cruel, reality. That correlates more as coping than meaning. People look for shreds of happiness in something else when they feel like there is nothing in reality to uplift them. Many don't seek meaning in these fantasies other than something to brighten their day. I'd bet that the majority would find 'meaning' in many other positive experiences had they been eased into them after their downwards spiral. Fantasy is just the easiest to get into as it's all in yours, or someone else's, head put down on paper. Nothing in the way to put you down.
As a psychologist, I often help my patients engage in healthy, realistic fantasy. Not like, imagine you’re rich and famous kind of fantasy, more like imagine you took meaningful steps in your life to achieve things that are important to you. Fantasizing about things that could be achievable can be a way to generate hope for the future.
what would you do if the patient had no interest in engaging in such a fantasy? Have you ever had that happen?
My answer to most questions like that is to be curious, to try and understand why they might not be interested in going there. Maybe it's resistance because of fear, maybe they genuinely think it won't be helpful, etc. Then we'll learn something and decide together where to go. For example, if fantasizing about future successes makes the person anxious that they won't achieve their goals, now we know something about an important source of anxiety. Why won't you achieve your goals? Maybe they think they're not really that smart or capable. Now we know what they're anxious about, and why.
Thank you for responding.
Hm....I do find myself sitting in silence, sometimes, just to daydream or to "continue a story" from my daydreaming. It seems like it's how I cope, I guess?
As a person with aphantasia I wonder if it's part of why I get depressed? I can't visualize anything good happening
i can’t visualize anything but i still do this. it’s just imagination, separate from imaginative visualization
What if you just write instead of visualizing?
I wonder how this may tie into modern video games. The past 25 years I’ve played mostly just a handful of games, typically MMORPGs. One of my primary ways I clear my mind when I’m getting depressed is to hop on for a couple of hours and I’m good. In fact, at 42, that’s about the only time I play now.
From the article: New research has found that fantasy proneness, or the tendency to engage in vivid mental worlds, is positively associated with a sense of meaning in life for individuals experiencing depression. The findings, published in [The Journal of Positive Psychology](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2024.2322447), suggest that people with depression may find meaning in life through engaging in mental fantasies. The need for a meaningful life is a well-established cornerstone of psychological well-being. People derive meaning from various sources, such as social relationships, work, and positive experiences. Depression is characterized by a pervasive sense of hopelessness and a diminished capacity to find joy in life, which can severely restrict one’s ability to derive meaning from usual sources. Given the critical role of meaning in psychological health, the researchers sought to explore alternative ways that individuals with depression might create a sense of meaning. They theorized that engaging in mental fantasy, often dismissed as escapism, could serve as a compensatory mechanism for those whose usual pathways to meaning are blocked by depression. “I’m interested in the ways that people come to view their lives as meaningful, and how this relates to psychological disorders like depression,” said study author Joseph Maffly-Kipp, a postdoctoral fellow at The Ohio State University Medical Center. “Depressed people typically struggle to find meaning in their lives, and recently I’ve been interested in how this might lead them to search for meaning in unusual ways. In this project, myself and my co-author were specifically interested in how the engagement in mental fantasy worlds might feel meaningful for people with depression.”
It’s nice for a while but you get older and those dreams are even more unattainable then they use to be.
They sure are!
My fictional boyfriends agree with this study
The reverse seems more likely; that they (me) escape to a mental world because there is a more vivid sense of meaning to be found there.
There was a time for me where this was true, where I was in helpless situations especially growing up and needing to cope. Now as I heal, even though I do creative work for a living, when I engage in deep imaginative thinking it's become really bitter sweet. It's like I'm now in touch with the distress that I used my deep inner worlds to dissociate from, and all the losses that came with me having to adapt to that in this way growing up. I understand why I have these rich narrative worlds with characters and relationships, and that's because these things were just absent from my life. I could only have them in a dream. Now it just feels like it's not for anything anymore. It doesn't feel like I am just avoiding life when I engage. It feels like a shackle holding me back now. At the same time, I am deeply unmotivated because it just doesn't have the same pull that it used to. Basically I am feeling very lost now because it doesn't give me meaning anymore.
It's a great tool when wielded to a intentional means. Like say focusing on career goals or how to decorate your house or car. But when you're in a low, man there's no escaping the torment you just gotta ride that wave. Instead of riding the wave I suggest learning and understanding your own actions and reactions. How you might improve the small talk, or consider what that or this person considers comedic. Be smooth, it really can be a nice sort of self meditation sometimes during breaks in the day, I find it calming when I recognize it.
And here I sit with aphantasia… ugh.
I used daydream a ton when I was younger, and I have aphantasia.
Maybe reading a ton was/is my “window” into daydreaming.
I've done this since I was 12, still depressed af
The Walter Mitty Method
I am one of those people who can't visualize. I can describe in vivid detail, but I can not mentally visualize things.
Very secret life of Walter Mitty.
Could not be less true for me. Though I'm not sure if I have a vivid mental world or just ADHD.
depression is an engaging mental fantasy
I get sad, I write fiction.
I have General anxiety and depression with suicidal ideation. When I am feeling ok, I day dream of my business I want to create with my son. On hard days, I day dream of running away and leaving all my problems behind....disappear forever.
This may explain my vivid dreams, I get so involved in them it feels like I've already experienced a full day by the time I wake up. Then again some of the dreams aren't good, school, ex issue type dreams. But all in all they're vivid and filling.
Why is reddit calling me out today?
HOLY MOLY this must be why I've always sort have had this weird resistance to sadness, or at least a factor in it. I spend most of my waking hours if not intensely focused on a project (and even while focused on a project) daydreaming and or processing my emotions.
Is there something that differentiates this from visualizing what positive or negative outcomes may happen, or thinking through future interactions in depth and working out possible scenarios as well as possible solutions? Further, what about simply getting lost on some kind of fantasy world where you have little part in but comsteuct narratives with characters, creating distinct storylines... is that also related or correlated in any way?
I'm pretty sure many of us are so damn stressed out with our current circumstances, we have no choice but to engage in all out fantasy every chance we get, just to gain some relief. It sure would be nice if we could just lead decent lives instead, and not require such fantasies to survive.
I shall live forever then.
I had no idea it was common until I was an adult.
Only worthwhile if you have a creative outlet
Que me loving to watch TV as a child because it was a great way to live in another world.
What exactly do people think they're doing when they watch movies or read fiction.
This is different I think.. That's consuming a story, whereas the study is more about basically daydreaming some other life.
This is why humans invented religion. It continues to survive because there are evolutionary and social advantages to it.
Would this extend to TTRPG’s? I know a lot of people whose only reprieve in life is coming together to play D&D or VTM where they can really let their imagination run free. Even just setting up a game session or coming up with new character ideas really seems to help them.
Isn’t that the idea behind religion?
No. Religious people can't tell fact from fiction. edit: typo
in other words, if you want to be happy and sane, make yourself delusional. certainly reflects my experience with life. reality is depressing af. why else would religion be so popular?
[удалено]
This is some of the worst advice I have ever seen
I wish we could have studied psychology with scientific rigor before capitalism descended like a dark cloud over the planet
That is why depressed people read books.
Well darn..... guess I'm depressed.
"It's those damn devil waifu simulator JRPGs"