To live most of my life in my own head

[LionRichie]

Today, in between playing with the toddler and doing all the boring house shit that comes with being a SAHP, I've spent maybe 80% of my time fantasising about a life in which I'm kidnapped by a hot 19th century highwayman. Turns out I'm an amazing sword fighter even in a corset and flowing dress.

Does anyone else make up these complex imaginary scenarios or am I going insane?! AIBU to spend most of my time in my own daydreams and not care?

Surely it's only a 'disorder' if it interferes with your life in a negative way? Otherwise it seems like an emotional defense mechanism. I used to dream of being in a good relationship when I was in a bad one, and it helped me to feel hopeful that I would find the perfect guy in the future. (And I did!)

That also implies that it's an addiction not a choice. I can stop if I have to. It makes me cross if I haven't finished a thought of course but I lead a normal life with work and school runs and coffee mornings and such things. But if there's a time in the day when I'm not required to interact with people then off I go.

And I wish I walked five miles unnoticed while doing it. I'd be a stick not a fatarse!

If it's a 'disorder' then I'll take that particular brand of 'insanity'. It doesn't interfere with my day to day life nor my ability to make well thought out decisions.

It does, however, 'shorten' a long drive (pretending I'm being interviewed about my Best Actress Oscar win or singing 'my' big hit at the Emmys), help me do housework (I'm a Martha Stewart-type handing out household tips on my own TV show), and helps me relax at night (riding down a beautiful beach on my white horse).

I'm good. I have two lives, each is equally satisfying.

A couple of people have asked about what people who DON'T daydream think about. Well, I tend to think about the job I'm doing at that moment in time. I try to practise mindfulness, which is about concentrating on the here and now and being aware of one's surroundings and emotions.

If I am preoccupied, then I often rehearse conversations that I'd like to have with people. However, I need to be careful with that; I overstepped the mark at work recently for actually telling my colleague exactly what I thought of her - my mouth just said everything I'd imagined saying to her! So that incident has taught me that I need to be more aware of when I am drifting off and force myself to return to ground!

I practice mindfulness too as I go about my day. I think it is one of the reasons I can imagine such real scenarios and emotions in my daydreaming. I dislike daydreaming except when I have time to. All that real stuff gets in the way of the flight of fancy and if I go off on one while I am doing something it can be a bit stressful.

By the way, I am reading Mrs Dalloway at the moment. It happens a lot - but I mean A LOT - in that book, so nothing new at all!

I do this, OP, but I don't think I have any kind of disorder - just a wonderfully colourful inner life.

My favourite daydream is the dinner party. I visualise the space, then go round the tables laying out place cards - I can invite people from history, fictional characters, people I know etc, and decide who sits next to who. Then they arrive, and because I'm invisible I get to snoop around and listen in on the conversations. It's brilliant!

I also like to liven up boring events like shopping trips by doing them in character. So if you're in Sainsbury's and some woman says to you, 'Great Caesar's bathmat! Those biscuits are jolly expensive', don't worry, it's just me doing my shopping as Joey Bettany from the Chalet School.

I like imagining someone from history has tunred up and I hahve to explain all the things that they won't understand to them. It really makes me think about what would seem strange to them. For example, to an eighteenth century villager, it would be very strange that people these days don't really know their nighbours, or I think it would. And cars, of course!

I do this and, while I don't think it's a disorder, I do think there's a downside for me. I wonder if it's the reason why my working life and personal life are failures, almost like there's no point me making my real life a bit better because I'm already amazing in my fantasy life.
I'm an introvert (in the sense that I get my energy from time alone, not that I'm quiet), not a big reader, but was more so in my childhood, and played alone as a small child.

I just came across this and I'm sure a lot of you feel the same

Oh yes!

Ooh, I do this. I go through phases when I hardly do it at all for months, and then get really into it again. I think it is related to stress somehow, but it is fun and I love it.

I do have to pull myself out for a while occasionally because I start getting annoyed when real life gets in the way!

I'm a definite introvert and was a real bookworm as a child, although I don't read quite as much now. I would love to have the skill to be a writer. I did write down a few imaginary scenarios in my late teens when I was having a really hard time, and I found them again a few years ago. Objectively, they were pretty rubbish, but reading them again was like walking back into my own 18 year old mind. They were so exposing. I shredded them.

Nowadays, fanfic has a lot to answer for , but again, in phases. Actually, for my long time love tv show I was creating fanfic in my head before I even knew it existed. I can still spend hours doing so.

I do find it all wonderful, but slightly frustrating at times. I'm not satisfied until all the details are just right, meaning I can get bogged down in the detail at the expense of progressing my 'story'. Any tips on how I can get around this?!

It's lovely to have found some like-minded fruitloops

I don't drive and one of the things that scare me about it is drifting off and not being able to concentrate on driving. Do any of you day dreamers have problems with this?

No, I've never had a problem driving. Sometimes if I'm alone in the car I will do some 'daydreaming-lite', but the road is always my main focus.

Nope it never interferes with real life. I can happily do it while doing something else like cooking tea, washing dishes though. Multitasking is easy😀

When I'm driving I'm fine. Although that isn't to say that I'm not filming Dempsey and Makepeace on the back of a low loader as I drive through deepest Surrey

I don't drive - driving terrifies me, so even if by some miracle I passed a driving test, I doubt I would be relaxed enough to drift off on the road.

As a passenger, though, long car journeys are far more fun than their destination (even if the destination is somewhere I really want to go)!

I drive and the only problem I have is that I can't concentrate enough on my day dreaming.
So it just shows that driving obviously comes first.

I really liked this thread so thought I'd resurrect it and see where people are this week in day dreaming land.

Haha Singing. This week I'm mostly running through scenarios for an upcoming wedding I'm attending where there will be a lot of people I haven't seen for years, including a kind-of ex who was a total twat.

Also in the background is a new 'what happened next' scenario for an episode of my fav TV show. I have recently realised that a detail given in the actual episode couldn't be true (geek), so my brain is feeling compelled to find a work-around for that!

How about you?

I'll add that so far I've upstaged the bride without meaning to and drawn the admiring gazes of everyone to my natural and effortless beauty and poise. I've devastated the kind-of-ex with short but fabulous put downs when he tries to talk to me, which are overhead and circulated around the room. I'm a dance-floor star (I'm not!) and dh and I only have eyes for each other as we have a lovely mushy little slow dance, ahh (likely, though dh rarely dances). I think at some point I retrieved a tool kit from my car to fix the sound system, allowing the first dance to go ahead (to the cheers of the crowd) too

I'm normal me, honest!

Sometimes, yes, but not always.

It's nice to slip into a fictional character's life and daydream too when I read.

But I do prefer to draw a thick line between daydreaming and reality and not have many "blurred lines".