To think daydream is a perfect waste of time

[ColdForFive]

This probably isn’t daydreaming as such, rather concocting situations and all the subsequent consequences.

But a couple of nights ago, that’s exactly what I spent my evening doing. I considered continuing my jigsaw or watching something but actually just sat for about two hours just inventing situations and what would happen/ what I’d say, etc

I told my friend and she thinks it’s an insane way to spent time. I really enjoyed it. I used to do that a lot in my teens. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever just spent two hours of my adult life just fantasising different situations.

So do you ever just spend long amounts of time lost in your thoughts/ daydreaming. Or is it a crazy thing to do?

I love a good daydream. It’s my favourite way to spend a journey or drift off to sleep. I have some daydreams which have been running for years one way or another in my head!

I think it’s a sign of creativity and imagination, myself.

Talking about it being similar to reading a book... I've heard the OPs description pretty much verbatim from authors, who set up the situation and then write down how the characters play out. So yes, just like!

(Some authors, others plot and plan of course).

Anyway, I'd consider it a far more mentally interesting way of spending time than watching the average TV soap, drama, or popcorn movie.

Daydreaming actually got me through a very difficult time once. Help me stick to my projects, which led to me reaching my goals and eventually had a much better life. It was a very emotionally distressing time and I'd have been consumed by anger and sadness to a greater degree without the lovely daydreams

I love this thread. I've spent alot of time in my own head doing this over the years. I like to call them my books/stories that I can go back to anytime. They sit on a private shelf in my mind and it's something that belongs to me and nobody else. I've never talked about it. My longest stories are 15 years old. I may not go back to these stories often at all. Or I may go back to them for a few days or a week. Sometimes I'm stuck in a story for weeks/months.

It doesn't take over my real life as I tend to only focus on it in bed at night. I can't relax enough to daydream in the bath or whilst cooking. Sometimes I do look forward to bed so I can go back to my stories. It's definitely an escape.

I don't think any of my stories are that interesting.

I have one where I end up working with a handsome older man and we have a fling and fall in love.

I have another (major crush on pe teacher at school) so obviously we got together when I grew up and had a family.

I have another where I fall in love with a gypsy boy.

Another where I'm a gangsters daughter and marry a gangster that works for him.

I can't believe I'm actually writing this down. Its nice to know I'm not alone.

I've noticed in all my stories I never bring my family into them. Friends often come into them but my family never exsit. I never have a relationship with them. So I presume my day dreams are often around wishing my life was more adventurous. My parents were so boring.. never bothered with holidays, birthday parties or anything. Felt like we were a quiet boring family. I guess I've always envied the outgoing confident women and wish I could have been more out there when younger.

This is so interesting! I do this too. I tend to use it as a way of settling down to sleep and have “favourites” but the one I love is how my dream house is laid out, right from the minute you open the front door. It’s so familiar to me now. I think it’s a comfort thing.

I’m another one who loves being at home and also enjoys my own company. I tend to include men I’ve got a crush on as my own relationship is very unfulfilling but I normally fall asleep before the sex

I’ve always been a bit of a daydreamer. Even as a child in school I could escape to my own little world. I was diagnosed with ADD last year when I was 41. I don’t watch television at all so think this is my way of making entertainment!

I’ll say exactly what I said on the thread about playing Sims: your leisure time is to spend how you please.

I love it! It's good to keep active mentally and better than most TV. Some very positive things have happened to me through daydreaming. It's like dreaming when awake and often lets you know your real hopes and desires. It's no different to getting immersed in a book or movie.

Btw I'm only 36 bit have won Olympic medals, sold millions of records and have won a record 16 Oscars!

@Zoflorabore

It's nice to imagine yourself falling in love again isn't it. I'm in a happy relationship with two children. But I like to daydream about being free and falling in love. Having fun and being spontaneous. I know I'll never be that girl but it's nice to imagine just for a while.

My stories are all about passion, falling out and falling in love.

I like my own company too weirdly.

If I'm having trouble sleeping I walk through the first house I can remember, room by room, narrating in my head like Homes Under The Hammer or Phil & Kirsty - saying what would need today to bring it up to date. We moved out in 1975.

Isn't that just thinking and enjoying your own company? 🤷🏼‍♀️
It's not massively different to having a conversation with someone else.
You just happen to enjoy your own company more than some other people.
I love to do this btw, I can get so lost in 'daydreams'!

I do this too. I love it. It makes me the most happy. Just silence and my thoughts.

Tbh though with two small kids, if I do have the luxury of daydreaming, it usually quickly turns to sleep 🤦🏼‍♀️🙈😴

It's funny how you just presume it's not normal and you never talk about it isn't it.

Perhaps we all need to do this to keep our emotions alive. For many people life is a little boring. You can be the happiest girl on earth with children, a home, a husband. But life never stays exciting. Life becomes repetitive. Or the money isn't there. Or the friendships are not there. I think now I'm early 30s and two kids in I miss the old me. I miss not being able to go out for a drive, music blasting and grabbing a coke from macdonalds. Chatting with friends and having a good laugh before going to bed ready for work. I miss the days when you were falling in love. Excited to see a lad you liked. Getting yourself pretty before they pick you up. I miss kissing someone and just not wanting to stop or the night to end. I definitely think I daydream to replace that void. Age and having a family has meant leaving behind my youth and my immaturity and fun. It's given me so much happiness and love but I think it's ok to miss the old you too.

I do that all the time. When I walk the dog, when I cycle, sometimes just in the evening, listening to some music. Also at work, during meeting, while a part of my brain is still processing what people are saying.

I had many different lives. I love my real life and wouldn't change it at all, it's just like reading book or watching a movie.
I sometimes daydream in french, sometimes in english, a bit in russian when I was trying to learn.

I think I read recently in a book about neuroscience that it was a sign of creativity.

I do it, and I see my GD has inherited it. I'm sorry for anyone who doesn't :-)

I do this and have done all my life. Its peaceful and harmless. Much nicer than arguing with randomers on the Internet

I daydream loads. I have whole other lives in my head that I dip in and out of throughout the day. Some have been going on since my childhood. I can easily spend hours daydreaming. Music can really help to extend/develop my daydreams. If I'm home alone, I put on music and daydream. I've always done this. I always thought it was perfectly normal until relatively recently, but now I think I perhaps do the "maladaptive daydreaming" thing. Although I'm perfectly able to focus at work and on my kids - if I'm busy I focus on what I'm doing and save the daydreams for quieter times (usually bedtime).

I do it - it's the only way I can fall asleep.

I can't imagine falling asleep without thinking about things.

This is such a coincidence. I was chatting to a friend about this last night.

She sometimes daydreams about her "other life". She's very happily married and in a job she loves but she sometimes looks back to forks in the road and wonders what would have happened if she'd taken the other fork. She tries to imagine being in the other profession she considered or living in a place they looked at but discounted. And many other forks.

It doesn't make her feel discontented, just curious.

I don't think it's coincidence that last night I dreamt about riding and Arabian horse in the sea in West Wales. That was my "when we win the lottery" dream - a stud farm on the coast.

I can't see how it's any different to being lost in a book or becoming absorbed in a drama on TV. It's all fantasy and at least with daydreaming you can go where you want with the storyline!

I think that's called maladaptive daydreaming?

FFS. Maladaptive Daydreaming is a psychiatric disorder (and not a widely recognised one) that involves extensive fantasy activity that replaces human interaction and/or interferes with academic, interpersonal, or vocational functioning.

It is not a person spending one evening of their adult life enjoying imagining different scenarios.

It's Great! I have two kids now which limits my time but I use it when walking or in bed. Like pp have said it's a great creative vehicle and I use the narratives I create to inform my writing (fantasy) and my art (I'm a 3d designer) that then feeds back into the daydream. Mine are about tv shows and films where I create my own plots so like fanfiction but also unique works.

It's only a problem if it takes over your life and you don't get happiness out of every day things.

That adds up to why people are doing it more in lockdown. We've had alot of different things taken away. Even with things restarting, people have anxiety, they don't know how to go back to "normal" with the new rules. They don't have as much money as they have lost jobs and have been put on lower pay. Perhaps masks and queues are putting people off.

If it helps people feel happy and switch off from the reality of this world at night I think it's a good thing. Especially because it can help you sleep better. I am starting to think this is a normal part of the human brain and there must be science behind it. If daydreaming didnt exist then stories, films and books wouldn't exist. But also without it people perhaps would be abit more low and depressed.

You can't always be who you want to be in real life. Perhaps you didn't knuckle down at school. Perhaps you never had the money or opportunity to do things you would have loved. Perhaps you were born into a family that didn't have anything interesting about them. It is just a way to explore how things would feel to be different. It's normal to wander about other people and their lifestyles. Weird things will trigger my stories. Peaky blinders triggered one of my stories. Hilarious because in real life I couldn't be any further away from daring and badass and is never want to hurt anyone. the same with my gypsy story. I'm so far away from that lifestyle too. Its just making up for things that never were going to be apart of my life but naturally I am curious about it.

I always wonder what it would feel like to be "known" popular and respected. To an extent I am liked and that's because I am nice. I feel like such an average with everything in real life. I'm actually ok with that. I actually don't want drama. I'm also thankful I'm just average looking. I'm not a huge eye catcher. The blondes I worked with always got the attention over me with my aurburn hair. So in my day dreams I'm free to be perfect as I am.

I can't imagine a life without it. It's definitely something that's all mine. I never will share it.

If anyone will share what there favourite stories are about I'd love to hear what others like to escape too.