Does anyone else almost live a different life in their head?

[Wheelerdeeler]

I hope this doesn't make me sound unhinged but I do this sometimes. For context, I am a mid 40s married mother.

However, I spend part of my day living a completely different life. In my head.

At the moment, the fake life centers around a silly crush I have on a work colleague - 20 years my junior.

I imagine us getting together but I am 20 years younger, how it would happen, the way it would happen right through to us having twins!

I am happy in my own real life. Why do I do this? I know there is the crush element, it isn't serious and I would never do anything about it but I do laugh at myself. How ridiculous am I being like this? The poor guy is blissfully unaware that as he sits opposite me at a meeting I am planning our next date/holiday/child.

If it wasn't about him, I would still have this alternative life sometimes in my head. Different characters but there nearly always is something.

As I type I can see how mad this all is but am I alone? Do others do this?

I do! Until reality hits me…. Like i am so smart, so beautiful and everyone is in awe of me… and then i open my mouth and people ignore me or i try something on in the shop and i look like a caterpillar buldging in its clothes 😩

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23336-maladaptive-daydreaming

Yes done this sort of thing since childhood. Used to keep myself awake by fantasising, still do sometimes. As long as all real life tasks get done, why not? It's when you can't tell the difference that you need to start worrying!

Yes, absolutely. It makes me feel better, love a day when I'm alone in the house and can indulge 😂

I don't tend to focus on a person, it's just a completely different (much more interesting) life. I have a cottage by the sea I go back to in my head frequently.

I used to do this- interestingly right up until I hit perimenopause and then my imagination just seemed to dissipate sadly.

Not about me, but about family members (who actually don’t exist but I’ve made up in my head). I had a very vivid imagination as a teenager. I never had a boyfriend as a young teen but in my head I dreamed up a couple of sisters, and a friend, who had very loving relationships with boys I went to school with. I don’t think about them as much now but sometimes in bed, or going for a walk alone, I do daydream about them. They’re all still together, had children and mostly became successful actors and singers. Often if I’m watching something I imagine that one of my (imaginary) relatives is the star.

I do sometimes worry that if I become old and senile I’ll start talking about all these people who don’t exist and my actual family will be very confused!

I live a lot in my head. I fixate on people, but I put that down to loneliness, because I’m mostly alone, and I make up conversations with them. I was very imaginative as a child, but my imagination has changed from fairy tales and love stories to being able to travel without caring about the cost and having flings with unsuitable men! I also think about my perfect house. I’m introverted and shy, though.

Don't be silly. The secret relationship I have with the musician who gets falsely imprisoned abroad and is joyfully reunited with me after I bravely suffer in silence whilst facing a media storm of why I've suddenly plummeted in weight is very real.

Yep! I’ve done this since I was a small child too

Yes. I have a lovely life with dp all day and then before going to sleep an entire alternative mad affair going on with a certain academic. Currently we’re both accidentally staying at the same glamorous hotel.

This is just fabulous. I'm off to read about the maladaptive daydreaming. Never heard of it

I’ve done this when I was a child. A lot of daydreaming about being a famous child pop star/ clothes designer. Probably also a bit when grown up and single/ alone.

Not sure when it stopped.
Im too busy going over who said what and why and what I should’ve said back in response these days.

Yes, I go to sleep living my fantasy life every night.

I've done it since very small. I sometimes pretend I'm swishing down the champs Elysee in paris and not trudging through the fields with dogs.

I don't in reality want to live in paris!! I just like thinking about it sometimes.

All the time.
Mainly around someone I was in love with 30 years ago.
He can be the perfect person with no flaws, unlike DH who I very much love and want to be with but who has flaws.
This man doesn’t snore, he never ever gets grumpy if I ask him to do something and he cooks every night. What’s not to love?!

Edited to add:
I am another one who has done this since I was small. As a child I sometimes found it hard to pull myself back from the imaginary world - it was just a nicer place to be and felt very real.
Now I don’t get immersed in it in the same way so that has changed. I talk out loud though, especially in the car. I have whole conversations where my fantasy DH says exactly what I want him to. Unlike real DH who has an annoying habit of having his own, sometimes different, opinion!

I wish I did this it sounds wonderful. I guess the closest I’d get is becoming immersed in a book for a while. But I could never have the imagination to invent my own story in my head.

Another daydreamer, I used to worry about the maladaptiveness but made my peace with it!

One thing I find helpful is trying to notice what the story is telling me about my unmet needs. So maybe you're feeling a bit stifled with the mundanities of being a parent to young kids and in this fantasy you get to be carefree and spontaneous for example. Then you can work out some ways to fulfill that need in your actual life.

Out of interest- it does sound like a very cheap way to add entertainment to your life?! Is that fair?

Have done this all my life. I love it but suspect it's not entirely healthy as real life can never be as good.

Always involves some sort of public figure/celeb crush to project my perfect partner onto. Never a real life person.

I'm always bilingual, have worked for the UN or saving lives in war zones, have written a best selling song (in my spare time as a hobby. Didn't mean to write a hit!), have some sort of creative passtime like designing knitwear/knocking up my own clothes (which always look great, of course), and am also asked to give talks to people about important subjects - usually doing all of these things at the same time. I'm amazingly witty, intelligent and likeable. Obviously, younger and beautiful but in an approachable way. Oh, and flit between living in New York and France.

I love it - keep refining storylines when they get repetitive or don't really make sense/seem credible 😄.

I do this too, although usually have multiple different scenarios/people going on rather than living one set parrellel life. I find it to be a great way to relax and always send myself off to sleep quickly and easily by daydreaming like this. I pick and choose from a kind of 'library of lives' in my mind, with different lifestyles, people etc. It's also a great form of escapism at a time of stress, similar to reading a book. And yes, as a pp asked, it is a fantastic form of free and immediately accessible entertainment. I am never bored, with all these lives and people in my head! I do completely know they are not real scenarios/people though, so I am not mad! It's a form of self-soothing i think, mainly, as I do use it as a sleep aid or to take my mind off any stresses.

Mine used to be very elaborate sexy fantasies about rock stars when I was young.

Now I'm old, I'm either a woman from a Jackie Morris book wandering about with a polar bear beside me, or I'm a tall willowy elf with long silvery hair and my dog is a white wolf. My real home is an enormous treehouse in summer or a snowbound castle for winter.

Found my people!!!

This is just fabulous. I'm off to read about the maladaptive daydreaming. Never heard of it

Yes.

I've kept a journal my entire life.

What you see on the outside is the "mask".

What I write in my journal, the "head" stuff. That's the real me. The biggest secret I carry, one no-one will ever know.

Oh yes. I have stories I've been telling myself for years- 30+ years, some of them.