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?

Yup. I have a completely different life running in my head constantly.

I prefer it to my shit reality.

I think everyone does this

Nope. I don’t even have an internal monologue let alone a whole other imagined reality. I only learnt that others have an internal monologue from MN! I wonder if those who imagine alternative realities are good at storytelling and languages… I’m better at maths and art.

I do this with DP. In the real world we’re only a few months in, but in my head we’ve just celebrated my 40th birthday (I’m 35) on a hiking trip in Alaska while his parents looked after our baby girl.

Pretty normal, non-mad behaviour (I hope).

I always wondered how limerance worked. Sounds good to me I think I'll have a go myself 😎😀

Yes, and have done for as long as I can remember. Definitely maladaptive for me as it takes up every waking second that I'm not actively thinking about something else (and even then the daydream often creeps in). I have lived a thousand different lives since I was a child. And when I was little it was often quite morbid, daydreaming about dying in a dramatic way with everyone I knew around me.

I have a whole universe of characters in my head who I visit on a daily basis. They all have backstories and families. They are so much a part of my life that they feel almost real.

I don't think daydreaming can be maladaptive I think it's how we imagine bigger and better things and just make our lives more fun and interesting. I've always done this my childhood imaginary friends have grown up with me and their world has expanded around me. My daydreams used to be more magic and fantasy orientated but they're more practical these days, I'm often a lottery winning garden designer who travels the world creating incredible wildlife gardens. I plan the gardens out in detail so luckily it helps me plant my own garden too.

Oh, I wish I didn’t.

In addition to the life that constantly runs in my head (as I typing this and thinking about the words, it’s still running in my head, I can “see” it as well as my phone screen), I also talk to myself in my head at the same time.

My head is a very noisy place.

I also have this awful thing, where I “dream” as soon as I start to nod off and I dream all night, until the second I wake up.

I never get any peace or a break. It’s constant noise, me talking to myself as well as the daydreaming.

This is just bizarre. I've never heard of such a thing. I'll be eyeing everyone up with suspicion now, wondering if they're off in some fantasy land.

This is called maladaptive daydreaming

No I looked it up. Mine is just simple day dreaming. Definitely escapism but doesn't impinge on my daily life. Mostly active as I fall asleep.

I'm so delighted to see many of you do this & love hearing your current alternative reality 😂

It's only this if it starts to affect your real life. For most of us it is not that extreme. It's just like reading a book or watching a play, but inside our head. I can go for months (or years) without having a fantasy life but then something I see or read can start me daydreaming again.

Me! I've been daydreaming about other lives for as long as I can remember.

I do this.
In my head I’m currently walking the Compostela De Santiago - alone so I’m very mysterious and various interesting fellow pilgrims are walking sections with me.

The truth is I’m so unfit five miles would mean I’d need a week to recover.

It is when it interferes in your life. I couldn't listen in school because daydreaming would take over, I start daydreaming in the middle of conversations, happens in meetings so I miss what was said, things like that.

I've done this since I was a child. I do have periods when I don't do it, but then something triggers it off. Currently I am living in a gorgeous french chateau in Provence with my whole family who just happened to be there before WW3 broke out. We are quite self sufficient with our potager and are largely unaffected in our region by the war. I am exceedingly wealthy due to my successful property empire. All good fun!

@Natsku but is that because your daydreaming is maladaptive or because the lesson/job wasn't good/interesting enough? I just wonder why it's seen as the daydreaming must be the bad thing, rather than the boring task. If I'm daydreaming more than concentrating at work I take it as a sign that task is not for me and I try to avoid it or break it down in a different way next time. I do daydream through meetings though, thankfully copilot fills me in afterwards. I often daydream about useful things related to work, but it tends to be creative problem solving and how the whole workplace could be reorganised to be more efficient and reach a better end goal rather than about my boring admin work or pointless meeting. I would have Strategic Vision if I was in a big management role.

I don’t have an ongoing narrative but sure once in my bedroom my inside life I’m slim and adored and a favourite ‘fantasy’ is being snowbound somewhere or pretending the foxes I hear are invading aliens and we are hiding out…but it doesn’t carry on through the day.

Even when lessons were interesting and I wanted to listen I'd still start daydreaming. Its really hard to maintain the level of focus I need to stop it.

I sometimes daydream improvements too, and have put them into action, so not all bad but for the most part I think its not good for me that I daydream so much.

I’ve been doing this since I was a child. I usually do it when I’m unhappy and bored in my life which has been most of my life 😂.

mine always center on what I wish I had or who I wish I was - being rich, beautiful, married to a handsome loving man.

Are you all INFP like me on the Myers’s briggs. The dreamer.

I’ve tried to get through the myers briggs test before, but I get bored shitless half way though and zone out and just start randomly clicking until I think what’s the point.

I think that says more about my personality than any test could tell me 😆

INTJ

😂 😂