Do you sometimes pretend for fun?

[Mrsphilmiller]

For instance, if you work in retail, do you pretend you actually work in a hospital and get your tasks done pretending they’re something hospital related?
Another example could be what I was just doing. Cleaning my living/kitchen area, but I was pretending I’m working in a restaurant and getting ready for a busy dinner service.

does anybody else pretend or am I a weirdo? 😵‍💫

I don't but I feel like I'm missing out!
I love a good daydream and have a while load of scenarios I come back to normally before bed. It's less over the years as I've been so tired I'm asleep almost instantly.

I'm also highly suspcious I have adhd. Pretty sure my 8yo dd has it too. She's started saying random things out loud and then apologising as it was a daydream.

@Angelofthenortheast - that’s really lovely!

You’re all so wholesome - I love it!

My daydreams always involve Gerard Butler turning up at my work/sainsburys/wherever I am at the time, and saying something along the lines of
”Dear god, this plump, middle aged, blonde woman is exactly who I’ve been looking for all my life! I must shag her immediately!”

I grew up in a freezing cold farmhouse. I used to pretend to make getting out of bed and dressed with ice on the inside of the windows more bearable. I still (in my 30s!) pretend the same scenario when I have to get up but feel a bit emotional or upset.

I take everything off, lay my clothes out, and imagine I’ve been pulled from the sea after a shipwreck and that some kind person on the rescue boat is giving me warm, dry clothes. I sometimes even instruct myself on how to put them on, as though my old jeans and mismatched socks are deeply culturally significant for a culture I’m unfamiliar with. As a kid, I’d wait and let myself get almost painfully cold just to experience the deliciousness of warm layers going on one by one.

I do this too. I just imagine shit all the time. I used to think it was weird but then I wondered if this is what maybe authors do the only difference being they're actually disciplined enough to write it all down.

I also pretend I've been asked to do the CBeebies story time when I'm reading the sodding gruffalo for the 99th time.

I've daydreamed for so long that every now and then it strikes me that if other people do it that's millions of people going around living their actual life and then another life in their head. Like other posters I do it to get myself to sleep or to get through mundane tasks and if it's interfering with life (ie I'm staying awake to daydream rather than going to sleep) then I stop doing it. Interestingly I stopped completely each time I was pregnant; no idea why, I just didn't feel like doing it.

The other thing I do is when I'm walking to work listening to music on my headphones I imagine that I'm performing the songs at karaoke or something to a shocked crowd, including my friends and family. They had no idea I was so talented.

I can confirm. I have written 15 novels and although they change and grow in the writing, this is how I started off.

I have often suspected I'm not the only one. 😁

I do the exact same!

With boring tasks

I have a special metal/rock playlist for cleaning the house, the hoover is a guitar being dragged around the floor and the duster is a microphone

The hoover can also be the mix, anything goes.

In the supermarket I shop pretending I am on tv and have to explain why I buy certain products (I did this for a living actually, for a bit, companies paid my employer to find out why middle aged mum chooses certain brands of crisps. Or cereal. Or butter. I had to film myself in the supermarket deliberating) I was sad to lose that gig!

If I am out and about, I like to pretend I have a heads-up display in my vision that gives me stats on everything I am looking at.

@Angelofthenortheast glad you had something to help you through your tough times 💐

Yes!

When I'm weeding I'm a WWII evacuee Digging for Victory
When I'm cleaning either a social worker or the Queen is coming over in 5 minutes
When I'm cooking it's to feed an orphanage of malnourished children in some foreign land
When I'm swimming in the sea I'm always about to go dramatically save somebody from drowning

And about 500 more. I have many many characters that I imagine myself as, some invented by me and some I've adopted from books that I replay scenarios for in my head. Sometimes extending their stories a little but often just repeating what I've already told myself, kind of like snuggling a comfort blanket. I've always done it. I think I may have ASD. It'd be interesting to hear if other people do this too!

Get one of these! Life changing!

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Walking anywhere: I always have music on, I pretend I'm in the video for that music. There are lots of 90s hip hop music videos featuring a middle-aged white British woman on her way to Morrisons, you know.

I always love threads about this - for ages I wondered if it was just me. I've never spoken to anyone about it before, or replied to a thread, but here goes!

I'm a maladaptive dreamer and have been for as long as I can remember, as a very young child I remember making up a story where I lived on the farm that was in a painting I had on my bedroom wall. It really ramped you during my teens though, and has always been
mostly before going to sleep, but sometimes during moments of boredom/repetitive tasks.

My daydream of choice often lasts for months, even years, at a time, and always features my current phase or tv/film/book obsession. They always have a love storyline and I replay my favourite parts of the romance over and over. Through the years I have been in a rock band, a vampire, a world famous DJ, and a ballerina, but for the last 5 or so years they've all been related to a tv show. I've just got out of an almost 2-year relationship with Rio from Good Girls, and that's after a good few years with Tommy Shelby In my head I both re-enact scenes from the shows/books it's linked to, as well create my own storylines in the world. I do often look forward to going to bed so that I can continue the story a bit more! But I never opt out of things or slack off deliberately to daydream, or let it interfere with reality.

I have done this for as long as I can remember and I've never told anybody because I was worried they'd think I'm crazy!
When I was at boarding school I imagined I was in some sort of Enid Blyton scenario or had been forced to go by my childless uncle who was my guardian after my parents deaths. I actually loved boarding and it was my choice but I loved that internal narrative.

As an adult I frequently imagine my life as a TV chef or house cleaner and I have myriad alternative lives in my head, my current favourite is I'm some sort of second Mrs de Winter (minus Rebecca, Mrs Danvers and the fire of course) and I love to roam around my country estate with my sausage dog at my heels before I return to a roaring fire and a cup of tea or spend the day reading in my well stocked library. I also have a heated indoor pool in this life so swim at least once a day and have got a much better figure.

If I'm on a bus I like to pretend I'm a tourist in a completely different part of the world. I close my eyes and tell myself I can hear the local language, smell dust or rain or the goat someone has brought on the bus.

If I'm anywhere remote and can see nobody else I imagine I'm a spy on the run from my enemies or in a post-apocalyptic landscape (though that one's less fun these days).

Thank you OP for bringing this up and making me feel less like a weirdo! I'm another one with ASD so I wonder if it's one of my coping mechanisms for when life was too confusing and overwhelming.

This is sad, but I’m a bit of a foodie and I pretend I’m on “come done with me” everytime I eat 🤣🤣 sad I know

*dine

@Smorgasbordbaby you’re amazing 😄
In fact, you all are!! 😆

@2boysand1princess you have probably just shared the funniest way to eat EVER!!!

I mostly sing and act little bits from plays and musicals & pretend I'm on the stage or TV and amazing. I'm definitely not! Lol Only when I'm home alone. I love to hold a hairbrush and go for it!!

I day dream a lot too.. make up scenarios in my head when I'm falling asleep.

I don't do what you do OP. But I do talk to myself out loud a lot and have imaginary conversations e.g. having an argument with someone at work or pretend I'm telling a funny story to my friend.

I pretend I'm Jeeves when I'm folding up clothes or doing ironing (before heatwave obvs), smoothing out my old t-shirts etc as if they are top quality fabrics which I have the specialist skills to manage professionally..........

I pretend to be an opera singer when I'm vacuuming.