Does anyone else do this in order to fall asleep?

[ldontWanna]

I need (and I do mean need) to roleplay in my head before I go to sleep. A bit like a bedtime story. Mostly inspired from whatever book or tv show I'm currently reading/watching . When I have a bad night's sleep/can't fall asleep it's normally because my brain is buzzing so I can't focus on the "story" and keep coming out of it. Even when I'm exhausted I still do it but it might only take a few minutes before I drift off. Reading or listening to something before bed is not enough.

It came up today when talking to a friend and she said it was really weird and has never heard of it. She's the head on pillow , fast asleep type though.

So any others that need to do this to fall asleep?

Yes since I was a child
I thought I was the only one who did this glad to find out I am not alone

I've done this for so long that I forget that it's weird. Like every now and then I'll think shit I've got this whole other life in my head that nobody knows about wtf.

I often try to rationalise it by thinking I'll write a book of whatever storyline is going on at the time but I doubt anyone would want to read a book about a person who is basically me but gorgeous, witty, successful, well motivated and fancied by everyone.

Yes, I imagine i am a new character in whichever tv show I am currently enjoying (so it's Vera at the moment) & play out in my head a storyline. Done this since being young - when I was a teenager I would imagine meeting & marrying Mark Owen 😆

Love the thought of it being like choosing a bedtime story - sounds better than fantasizing about a secret life with a celebrity

In my fantasies, I have a huge stunning house and I am absolutely gorgeous with a perfect figure...so no wonder my crush falls madly in love with me

I’ve always done this too usually based on a favourite book series or film. When I was younger I was definitely on the side of maladaptive day dreaming and could disappear into my version of a fantasy novel I’d been reading.
I’ve found as I got older it was a good way to protect myself if I was really stressed or having a bad time. So at least at bedtime I could go elsewhere and not dwell on all the worries.
It’s never interfered with my real life though. Sometimes it’s annoying when I’m so tired I can’t get past my first few minutes
The last few years I’ve been working on a novel in my head that I’m role playing and might see if it’s ever worth writing down.

I did this from childhood until they invented wireless headphones. Now I fall asleep to the dulcet tones of a true crime podcast.

Yes I do this too. Got 3 stories I have done over and over in my head for years. I often add in extra scenes.

I do it and assumed everyone does!

Yes but I’ve always been too scared to ask if it’s normal. Most I’m a character in a movie or book.
Most recently I’m married to a famous sports star and living the high life.

Yes, I do this. The stories have changed over the years but usually involve some kind of 'cosying down in a completely safe house with very cold weather outside' .

You have to practice the same story for it to work, in my experience. It lulls your brain into a familiar pattern, I think, so you simply tune out and drift away.

Yes! well said! that does seem to be how it works for me - I sometimes get no further than the familiar old beginning scene!

Yes! Two different stories. Can’t get more than 5 mins through either before I’m asleep. I edit stage directions/camera angles as well and am very picky, hence why I never get past the opening sequence of my own daydream.

Yea I do this. It stops me thinking about things that keep me awake. I have a few recurring stories I run in my head…I’m the heroine in all of the stories obviously.

I’m so glad you posted this because I’ve always done it since I was a child and I wondered if it was slightly weird. But it’s not I feel validated!

I do this. When I put my book down I look forward to switching off and having a little daydream.

It's definitely a lot more common than I thought regardless of what form it takes.

I'm quite poorly with covid and i was telling(all this via text before someone jumps) my friend I couldn't sleep well at all because I struggle to fall asleep. She laughed and asked how come since most people can barely stay awake with it. Apparently "I'm too poorly to focus on the story in my head" wasn't the answer she was expecting.

Place marking to read tomorrow. Love the idea of bottomless pit of money but can't move house. Off to do this right now. Night lovely people of MN.

I can happily invent other relationships (friends/lovers/perfect aspirational bosses) but no kids! I feel too disloyal to my actual kids, so all the daydreams are necessarily child-free.

Thinking back to the stories I thought up when I was a child, they were rather morbid. There was one when I climbed into the big old school chimney and ran out of air or something, got rescued at the last minute but it was too late, I said my wise and noble last words to everyone present (something along the lines of don't play in chimneys) then died

I've been doing this since at least 7-8 yo. It tends to run on a fantasy adventure theme. I remember the earliest ones being based on living in tree-houses and inspired a bit by Miss Honey's cottage in Matilda.

They tend to get stuck and undeveloped due to falling asleep but they can move forwards in a restless night.

As a teenager I would daydream in a controlled way and continue them on while walking to school. CD walkman's were expensive, bulky and impractical My imagination was vivid and occasionally got me into trouble as it could impose like a layer of Monty-Python-esque animation into real life and then get me giggling over apparently nothing. Proper hyperventilating tears down my face giggling. I was the "wrong age" to have watched Monty Python.

I think of it as the starts of novels that I know I'll never write

I've only skim read at speed through the thread as I have to go to work, so sorry if this has already been said!

This is exactly what the sleepcasts on Headspace do; it's a form of visualisation and meditation which can help your brain to unwind.

Maladaptive daydreaming indeed

I lie in bed and imagine being in love with someone who cares about me and we’re happy together. It’s a way of living out the emotions I can’t feel in real life, because I’m trapped in an unhappy marriage for the sake of my kids.

Yep I have 5 or 6 fairly tame and chaste romance stories where I am the main character that I cycle though. I eventually tire of them and come up with new ones involving new scenarios.

One of my main ones since covid is that I'm one of the few survivors in a dystopian pandemic filled world, and I need to find my daughter who has ended up in a survivor camp that I can't find, and along the way I meet a brooding and handsome guy who helps me and we fall in love

Like @Moaningturtle, after years of the role play, I graduated to the alphabet game. Now I have some sleep headphones and listen to sleep casts on Headspace, they are marvellous.