Intense and Extremely Vivid 'Daydreaming'/Fantasising....

Does anybody else sometimes willfully have intense fantasies (that is, non-sexual) in their head?

In the recent months, I've sometimes lay on my bed and just daydreamed for hours to the extent that they are much more vivid and life-like than actual nocturnal dreams and at their most intense, it's almost like I've been transported to another world and it takes some time to re-orientate myself back into the real world? Is it even possible to have such intense waking dreams?

I've had so many waking dreams/fantasies that if I had used the ideas for books, I'd be an extremely prolific writer. Listening to music (for example, film music) whilst doing this further intensifies them.

What makes it even more extreme is that they some times rival movies, even though the fantasy worlds are self-created.

What do you think? What's the science behind? Would I be 'suffering from a problem' with such intense dreaming?

P.S. It's not as if I have an overactive part of the brain (like the right brain) as I currently study maths (which is popularly said to be a 'left-brained' subject)...

:dontknow:

Reply 1

PoGo HoPz

Absolutely! I daydream literally all the time! Reality has just never been good enough for me. Put simply, if I'm not daydreaming then something is seriously wrong! :tongue:

You should join my society! :awesome:

Reply 2

prog2djent

I wish I was you. By the sound of it, the only thing I've come close to is listening to some particular songs whilst looking through a bunch of concept art for sci fi stuff.

Reply 3

ArthurWinterthurII

Original post by prog2djent

I wish I was you. By the sound of it, the only thing I've come close to is listening to some particular songs whilst looking through a bunch of concept art for sci fi stuff.

Well, sometimes it's quite serious. For example, here is what I've written in another post, in the Daydreaming Society thread:

My daydreams are intense, especially when I'm in optimal health.

They began when I was slightly younger, around secondary school age and were just innocent and simple daydreams when travelling on the bus or tube and I would daydream about people I liked from school and really, they were mostly intense love/sexual type of daydreams.

This continued throughout secondary school (they were frequent and continuous because most the things I was daydreaming about were frowned upon in the real world etc). During A-Levels, I barely had many daydreams - maybe a limited few about getting into Oxford, but nothing too amazing. But, it was this year in uni that was really different - when the daydreams and fantasies left the love/sexual themes and started to increase in vividness and intensity and most of all became epic. I was now daydreaming about myself being taller, better, stonger and more intelligent. They further evolved into me daydreaming about lots of wild and grand things - from me becoming a world-renowned genius, to me being a superior human landing on Earth, having come from another dimension, to being Prime Minister, autodidactic super-genius, super-Etonian, going through a rapid next stage of evolution, being superior to everybody else, being a lost member of an ancient human race falling to Earth with amnesia, travelling alternate dimensions, reversed history (e.g. a dominant Africa etc), super-warrior in ancient times, being an ultra-famous celebrity, being so clever and super that I'm labelled by some as a 'Saviour' or alternatively, 'The AntiChrist', being an amateur superman, having enhanced human abilities, having a long-lost recessive gene which sees me having amplified human characteristics, therefore making me mentally and physically superior, being so clever and of genius-intellect that technological advancement is made even more rapid therefore seeing mankind plunge out into space much more quickly than could have occurred without me etc etc.

I plan to have another intense daydream today, possibly something about a hegemonising inter-dimensional state taking over each alternate dimensional Earths etc.

The funny thing is, I barely daydream realistically about my own personal future in real life - it's almost as if it's not needed. I'm doing quite well in uni (averaging 1sts and 2:1s) and I'm quite confident in my plans for a future career. Rather, the daydreams are of unrealistic quality and ideas - hence why they're all the more enticing. And it doesn't help that I'm not tall (in daydreams, my mean ideal height is 6 foot 7 with the heights increasing depending on the daydream, but I'm never shorter that 6'7) - in real life, I'm around 5'7/8 and probably won't grow to my imagined ideal height.

Some suffer from delusions of grandeur, but I keep such delusions in the confines of daydreaming and my friends would never even guess that me, a sane and logical maths student gets up to in his head. I believe such crazy daydreams actually help keep my sane in real waking life.

P.S. Notice, how I say 'real waking life' as the daydreams and whatnot are so intense, that sometimes I have mild difficulty separating the boundaries between reality and fantasy.

Anyway, I hope you understand my post if you're reading, as I've just typed it quickly on the spur of the moment with manic emotions swirling around.

P.P.S It must also be said that I don't daydream in meetings or lectures or anything like that. Daydreams are normally confined to times of personal space such as when in the shower or in my bedroom lying on my bed. They don't interfere when I'm having conversations or whatever.

It's almost like a great dissociation from life for a short time. Luckily, it may not be conventionally classed as a 'problem', in that my waking life isn't greatly affected - if I've got a project, I'll do the project and focus on that, keeping priorities straight. It's times like these (summer) where they may increase in frequency.

But yes, music turns it up about three notches - the scenes in my head sometimes go to match the music or vice versa. And I say it again - if only I could put such ideas into written words and whatnot, I'd be a prolific script-writer or author etc. In any case, it's fun whilst doing it.

Reply 4

Pindar

It's only a problem if it has a negative impact. Something cannot be a problem if it isn't negative.

Use it to fuel your creativity. Write down what happens in them. Might make a good novel or screenplay some day.

Reply 5

username870825

And I thought I was the only one..

Reply 6

.Scout.

I do this.
I've managed to create whole other worlds in my head with multiple characters with their own backstories.

I guess you could say that by daydreaming you (we) are using fantasy as a way of coping/dealing with our insecurities in reality. Do you feature in your daydreams? I know I don't in mine but instead, I always see myself as the principal character and I give these characters traits that I wish I had in real life. I guess it could be seen as a coping mechanism, is there anything in reality you are trying to avoid? Have you created your characters to be everything that you're not?

I've done this for as long as I can remember, and I've followed the same characters for years. I'm a social person, get good grades, have had lots of boyfriends and just generally have a well rounded life so it's not as if i'm using fantasy to compensate for anything. I just have a good imagination.

As long as it doesn't interfere with your perceptions of reality, then it isn't an issue. Just enjoy having such a vivid imagination! I've been told many a time that I should put my imagination to good use and become an author or scriptwriter as many have projected their long term fantasy worlds into novels and have become top selling authors.