Getting lost in daydreams is a very human thing to do
October 27, 2024 12:49 PM Subscribe
For some, though, the delight of daydreaming can turn into a curse: The fantasies become such a successful form of escape that they take over the mind, becoming compulsive and preventing the dreamer from paying attention to important facets of reality—work, school, other people. from The Strange Rise of Daydreaming [Nautilus; ungated]
Yikes this is very me. Lately I've been a little overcome by daydreaming and I've been pulling myself out of it by forcing myself to inventory my surroundings and how I feel physically when one begins to overtake me. Fortunately my surroundings are pretty ok.
It's been an issue my whole life, except for a few years when I was on Prozac, when I was kind of bemused by the lack of daydreaming. I missed it a little because I can see how it might be helpful but I have been known to let it get the better of me. I still think it can be good but I do acknowledge there are times when you need to be aware of real life.
posted by maggiemaggie at 1:31 PM on October 27 [5 favorites]
It's been an issue my whole life, except for a few years when I was on Prozac, when I was kind of bemused by the lack of daydreaming. I missed it a little because I can see how it might be helpful but I have been known to let it get the better of me. I still think it can be good but I do acknowledge there are times when you need to be aware of real life.
posted by maggiemaggie at 1:31 PM on October 27 [5 favorites]
oh man, I just had a dream. I was in the Castel Sant'Angelo, trying to find the exact location of Hadrian's tomb when a guy came out claiming to be a pope and started talking. He just wouldn't stop talking.
we went out for espressos on his Vespa.
posted by clavdivs at 1:35 PM on October 27 [5 favorites]
we went out for espressos on his Vespa.
posted by clavdivs at 1:35 PM on October 27 [5 favorites]
An earlier draft of this article stated that having very vivid mental imagery is known as hyperplasia
This is probably the funniest correction I have seen all year.
posted by mittens at 1:39 PM on October 27 [10 favorites]
This is probably the funniest correction I have seen all year.
posted by mittens at 1:39 PM on October 27 [10 favorites]
So I'm not defective!
posted by Czjewel at 1:51 PM on October 27 [3 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 1:51 PM on October 27 [3 favorites]
“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”
Written somewhere in the ballpark of 300 BCE, plus or minus a few decades.
posted by mhoye at 2:57 PM on October 27 [10 favorites]
Written somewhere in the ballpark of 300 BCE, plus or minus a few decades.
posted by mhoye at 2:57 PM on October 27 [10 favorites]
So I’m not so bad that it becomes all consuming but now I have to ask who else has constant daydreams of being interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel? Maybe I’m just lonely for someone to talk to…
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:27 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 3:27 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]
That article is a bit disappointing.When people consume fantasy media that other people have produced that makes money for media companies then that's fine and normal. When someone has their own inner cinema where they produce the content - that's often pathologised.
Psychiatrists wont be seeing the people for whom immersive daydreaming isnt a problem. When it does get intrusive it means for me that something else is deeply wrong in my life. It's a symptom not a cause.When bad and anxiety-provoking circumstances go away it comes back into balance for me. It can trap you if the bad circumstances are beyond your control - if you procrastinate stressful work that makes you unhappy, at some point your boss and employer will intervene and that can go very badly. On the other hand if you are lucky enough and have enough privilege to get help at that point and to escape the stressful and unhappy situation then as your life improves the day dreaming can come back into balance and become an enriching pleasure like reading a book or watching a film.
That's my personal experience - obviously other people's mileage may vary.
posted by Flitcraft at 3:33 PM on October 27 [17 favorites]
Psychiatrists wont be seeing the people for whom immersive daydreaming isnt a problem. When it does get intrusive it means for me that something else is deeply wrong in my life. It's a symptom not a cause.When bad and anxiety-provoking circumstances go away it comes back into balance for me. It can trap you if the bad circumstances are beyond your control - if you procrastinate stressful work that makes you unhappy, at some point your boss and employer will intervene and that can go very badly. On the other hand if you are lucky enough and have enough privilege to get help at that point and to escape the stressful and unhappy situation then as your life improves the day dreaming can come back into balance and become an enriching pleasure like reading a book or watching a film.
That's my personal experience - obviously other people's mileage may vary.
posted by Flitcraft at 3:33 PM on October 27 [17 favorites]
When I was a kid I would occasionally daydream. Mostly they were nothing extreme, but I have on particular instance I recall in 3rd grade. I had a lot of crushes on girls in those days. The daydream was me marrying the crush of the week on the playground at school.
Visually I was so enrapt in it, that I was unaware of my teacher calling my name.
I sat next to a student with the same name as me, so when she called it out, I could hear her direct my name, but it was distant the way something is distant when you're in a dream and hearing someone call out.
Finally I felt a poke on my arm (my deskmate/co-named had poked me) and I snap out of it.
The teacher was like : " (my name) Did you hear me?"
I said I did but thought she was calling on the other guy (which was true but a weird answer).
I don't think I've ever been engrossed in a daydream as much as that. Also? We never would have made a good couple, so I'm glad that was just a schoolboy fantasy. I don't think it was even a girl I tried to pursue in any meaningful sense.
I sometimes think I'm slightly aphantastic when it comes to reading. My dreams are super vivid though or can be. I don't daydream anymore, though I did have a couple "visions" as a kid. I also had a lot of posts about how I loved to sleep, and as an adult got diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. I wonder how much of these feelings of loving sleep and occurrences of daydreams and visions were like hypnogogic imagery from lack of sleep as a child.
posted by symbioid at 3:42 PM on October 27 [2 favorites]
Visually I was so enrapt in it, that I was unaware of my teacher calling my name.
I sat next to a student with the same name as me, so when she called it out, I could hear her direct my name, but it was distant the way something is distant when you're in a dream and hearing someone call out.
Finally I felt a poke on my arm (my deskmate/co-named had poked me) and I snap out of it.
The teacher was like : " (my name) Did you hear me?"
I said I did but thought she was calling on the other guy (which was true but a weird answer).
I don't think I've ever been engrossed in a daydream as much as that. Also? We never would have made a good couple, so I'm glad that was just a schoolboy fantasy. I don't think it was even a girl I tried to pursue in any meaningful sense.
I sometimes think I'm slightly aphantastic when it comes to reading. My dreams are super vivid though or can be. I don't daydream anymore, though I did have a couple "visions" as a kid. I also had a lot of posts about how I loved to sleep, and as an adult got diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. I wonder how much of these feelings of loving sleep and occurrences of daydreams and visions were like hypnogogic imagery from lack of sleep as a child.
posted by symbioid at 3:42 PM on October 27 [2 favorites]
Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
Wow, the is this a pigeon? meme is older than I thought.
posted by surlyben at 3:59 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]
Wow, the is this a pigeon? meme is older than I thought.
posted by surlyben at 3:59 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]
nostalgia and fantasy keep us away from the present moment. significant energy leaks. tbc, I am as guilty as anyone.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:07 PM on October 27 [2 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 4:07 PM on October 27 [2 favorites]
I was a huge daydreamer as a kid, as a way to deal with situations I couldn't control. As an adult an uptick in daydreaming is a clear sign that I need to address something going on in my life.
posted by jeoc at 4:41 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]
posted by jeoc at 4:41 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]
Me. I've gotten so good at coming up with vivid scenarios that address unmet emotional needs that it's become a serious impediment to building a good life. It was useful back in my youth when I did construction or worked on assembly lines and couldn't have earbuds. Safety blanket one day, prison another.
posted by wanderlost at 5:18 PM on October 27 [5 favorites]
posted by wanderlost at 5:18 PM on October 27 [5 favorites]
It's called dissociating, and people do it when their lives are fucking garbage. Be here next week, when Dr. Kittens explains why you become irritable when people are irritating, and, if there's time, we look into why not being able to buy groceries makes you sad.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:31 PM on October 27 [23 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:31 PM on October 27 [23 favorites]
Or, you know, you could just not come into a thread and be reductive and dismissive and let people discuss it
That's odd, why do I feel so irritated of a sudden
posted by ginger.beef at 7:49 PM on October 27 [16 favorites]
That's odd, why do I feel so irritated of a sudden
posted by ginger.beef at 7:49 PM on October 27 [16 favorites]
Wow some of y'all telling on themselves for being boring af!
Yes, daydreaming takes me out of the present situation. I know it's hard to imagine but sometimes that situation is neither horrible dissociation-inducing trauma nor an important moment I'm missing out on.
Sometimes it's just a ride on the bus or waiting in line at the grocer, or drifting off to sleep.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:18 PM on October 27 [5 favorites]
Yes, daydreaming takes me out of the present situation. I know it's hard to imagine but sometimes that situation is neither horrible dissociation-inducing trauma nor an important moment I'm missing out on.
Sometimes it's just a ride on the bus or waiting in line at the grocer, or drifting off to sleep.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:18 PM on October 27 [5 favorites]
People with undiagnosed ADHD can often be called daydreamers. Just another useless label for us that does more harm than good. Maybe the reason ADHD treatment and understanding is suppressed in the modern world is that it is to the benefit of those seeking to exploit us through amplifying the symptoms of our disabilities to their profit. Of course it would be dismissed as daydreaming. Then it’s our fault and responsibility when there are costly consequences.
posted by omegajuice at 8:27 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]
posted by omegajuice at 8:27 PM on October 27 [4 favorites]
Am I a butterfly dreaming I'm a man? Or a bowling ball dreaming I'm a plate of sashimi?
posted by biogeo at 8:40 PM on October 27 [2 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 8:40 PM on October 27 [2 favorites]
It's only maladaptive daydreaming if you're not writing it down. Once words are involved, people can rapidly deteriorate into calling themselves novelists.
posted by thivaia at 8:55 PM on October 27 [18 favorites]
posted by thivaia at 8:55 PM on October 27 [18 favorites]
The title of the article is pretty misleading. It doesn't actually present any evidence that daydreaming is on the rise, or even claim that it is. It just vaguely implies that it might be.
It would be interesting to know if people are actually daydreaming more or less these days. I could easily imagine it might be less, since our phones provide so many other ways to distract ourselves from reality.
posted by Redstart at 9:26 PM on October 27 [6 favorites]
It would be interesting to know if people are actually daydreaming more or less these days. I could easily imagine it might be less, since our phones provide so many other ways to distract ourselves from reality.
posted by Redstart at 9:26 PM on October 27 [6 favorites]
dreams are okay. but visions are the real currency.
posted by philip-random at 11:17 PM on October 27 [2 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 11:17 PM on October 27 [2 favorites]
Not having control of your thoughts sucks. If you can control daydreaming, you're fine, but when it becomes a process that you cannot escape, it's hell. Trying to live becomes unmanageable and it is frightening. Not being able to die is the worst condition.
posted by waving at 2:58 AM on October 28 [2 favorites]
posted by waving at 2:58 AM on October 28 [2 favorites]
The headline is misleading. Also, this article is about problematic daydreaming so no. It's not about your mind wandering when you're waiting for the bus or whatever.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:58 AM on October 28 [2 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:58 AM on October 28 [2 favorites]
“The more vivid the daydream becomes, the more it comes to feel like it’s happening to you. You’re not inventing it. It’s something that imposes itself upon you,” she says. “There’s a point at which it begins to overwhelm the ordinary sensory world.”
Sounds like the plot of an sf/fantasy/horror novel.
posted by doctornemo at 7:07 AM on October 28 [1 favorite]
Sounds like the plot of an sf/fantasy/horror novel.
posted by doctornemo at 7:07 AM on October 28 [1 favorite]
The epidemic of loneliness that is the curse of our modern era could also play a part in the recent surge in obsessive fantasizing, Somer says.
I think that's the point in the article when it starts to consider we might daydream, even obsessively, in response to problems in the world we inhabit. I'm reminded of Ernst Bloch's work, especially Principle of Hope, where he asks us to think through such imagination as a response to the world, then as a guide to making the world better (through revolution, of course).
posted by doctornemo at 7:11 AM on October 28 [3 favorites]
I think that's the point in the article when it starts to consider we might daydream, even obsessively, in response to problems in the world we inhabit. I'm reminded of Ernst Bloch's work, especially Principle of Hope, where he asks us to think through such imagination as a response to the world, then as a guide to making the world better (through revolution, of course).
posted by doctornemo at 7:11 AM on October 28 [3 favorites]
Not having control of your thoughts sucks.
Wait, are you telling me that there are people who can control what they think about? Seriously? Damn, if I could do that I'd have likely lived three times the semi-productive live that I have. If that makes sense.
posted by jokeefe at 12:38 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]
Wait, are you telling me that there are people who can control what they think about? Seriously? Damn, if I could do that I'd have likely lived three times the semi-productive live that I have. If that makes sense.
posted by jokeefe at 12:38 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]
It’s important to differentiate between immersive and maladaptive daydreaming. Basically, if it ain’t messing up your life and causing you or others distress, then it ain’t maladaptive.
I’ve always considered it a blessing, myself. Armed with this power I have virtually infinite patience. I am not usually troubled by delayed transit or long lines. I am beyond the reach of boredom, usually.
Occasionally you can even wring the odd novel or screenplay out of it.
I’m saying this so that people recognizing themselves in this article don’t beat themselves up thinking they’re insane now.
Also: Is the problem with these maladaptive folks the fact that they’re escaping reality, or the fact that their realities all need escaping from?
posted by Construction Concern at 3:04 PM on October 28 [6 favorites]
I’ve always considered it a blessing, myself. Armed with this power I have virtually infinite patience. I am not usually troubled by delayed transit or long lines. I am beyond the reach of boredom, usually.
Occasionally you can even wring the odd novel or screenplay out of it.
I’m saying this so that people recognizing themselves in this article don’t beat themselves up thinking they’re insane now.
Also: Is the problem with these maladaptive folks the fact that they’re escaping reality, or the fact that their realities all need escaping from?
posted by Construction Concern at 3:04 PM on October 28 [6 favorites]
The maladaptive part comes for me, when the daydreaming takes away from the agency of actually getting something you want.
I daydreamed a lot as a kid and I definitely had a good childhood. As I grew up I began to realize I could actually make things happen for myself, but then as I got further into adulthood it seemed like that ability to make things happen kind of waned so I retreated back into daydreaming when I maybe should have spent a little more time focussing on reality. I liked to think that daydreaming was a kind of problem-solving but it just doesn't work that way for me at least. I agree that life without daydreaming is kind of boring, and as I said above, when I was on Prozac I was not daydreaming.
Lately I've been daydreaming so strongly that I've started telling my friends about it and they were acting a little uncomfortable, so I figured out on my own one of the techniques mentioned in the article, being mindful of my actual reality. And my actual reality at the moment is pretty good. It's fall, the leaves are turning and the air is cool, but I have things I need to do (...and promises to keep).
posted by maggiemaggie at 6:51 PM on October 28
I daydreamed a lot as a kid and I definitely had a good childhood. As I grew up I began to realize I could actually make things happen for myself, but then as I got further into adulthood it seemed like that ability to make things happen kind of waned so I retreated back into daydreaming when I maybe should have spent a little more time focussing on reality. I liked to think that daydreaming was a kind of problem-solving but it just doesn't work that way for me at least. I agree that life without daydreaming is kind of boring, and as I said above, when I was on Prozac I was not daydreaming.
Lately I've been daydreaming so strongly that I've started telling my friends about it and they were acting a little uncomfortable, so I figured out on my own one of the techniques mentioned in the article, being mindful of my actual reality. And my actual reality at the moment is pretty good. It's fall, the leaves are turning and the air is cool, but I have things I need to do (...and promises to keep).
posted by maggiemaggie at 6:51 PM on October 28
« Older Green Flag Guy | Salmon return to the Klamath River Newer »
posted by HearHere at 1:29 PM on October 27 [3 favorites]