Immersive Daydreaming - Tumblr Posts

scratchbook ($leep) | hideaway folk family

Old daydream.

Do you ever like have a really good daydream and then you start physically acting out what the characters are doing and your like kicking around on your bed all weird and then your parents open the door and look at you all weird as you scramble to pretend nothing happened like characters in a cartoon… or are you normal?

Regular VS. Immersive VS. Maladaptive Daydreaming

What is regular daydreaming?

Mind-wandering. What everyone does sometimes. Regular daydreaming typically does not take up a lot of time. Most people daydream while bored at work/school, in the shower, during a long drive, while lying in bed trying to fall asleep, etc. Examples of scenarios include; planning out/replaying conversations, imagining asking out your crush, preparing for a presentation, thinking of what to eat for dinner that night, and much more. Regular daydream scenarios are often simple and mundane, but can sometimes be more elaborate and eccentric.

What is immersive daydreaming?

A form of highly absorptive daydreaming, that includes intense visual, auditory, and/or affective properties. Immersive daydreamers may spend significant amounts of their time daydreaming, and may have very detailed daydream worlds and plots, and may experience an intense emotional connection to their daydream worlds and characters.

Immersive daydreaming can be a healthy or neutral coping mechanism for someone, or it could simply be a hobby for them.

What is maladaptive daydreaming?

It is classified by excessive fantasy activity that replaces human interaction and/or interferes with academic, interpersonal, or vocational functioning.

When immersive daydreaming becomes an addiction/compulsion. So much so that it starts to have a significant negative impact on the daydreamer, their functioning, and/or their mental health.

An unhealthy coping mechanism that often stems from trauma or is used to cope with some other mental illness/disorder.

What does “maladaptive” mean?

maladaptive: not providing adequate or appropriate adjustment to the environment or situation.

The prefix “MAL-” means “bad”

What is “maladaptive coping”? (i highly suggest doing your own extensive research on maladaptive coping before diagnosing yourself with madd)

“Maladaptive coping mechanisms are behaviors that make us feel better in the short term, but in the long-term, they are very harmful.” [more-love.org]

“Adaptive methods improve functioning, while maladaptive methods do not.” [mentalhelp.net]

“Maladaptive behavior is behavior that prevents you from making adjustments that are in your own best interest.” [healthline.com]

“Maladaptive coping strategies are those that attempt to manage stress, but end up decreasing function despite temporary respite from certain symptoms.” [study.com]

“Maladaptive behavior is defined as behavior that interferes with an individual’s activities of daily living or ability to adjust to and participate in particular settings.” [link.springer.com]

What do immersive daydreamers and maladaptive daydreamers have in common?

Immersive daydreaming. All maladaptive daydreamers are immersive daydreamers, but not all immersive daydreamers are maladaptive daydreamers. immersive daydreaming refers to the thing we do, whereas maladaptive daydreaming refers to the way we use it and how it affects us.

Detailed worlds/stories/plots.

Deep emotional connections to our daydream worlds/characters.

Daydreaming when we’re bored or distressed.

What are some examples* of ways that daydreaming can have a negative effect on someone? (*this is not and exhaustive list of examples)

A person may find it very difficult to control when they fall into a daydream and may struggle to pull themselves out of a daydream. This can cause people to lose focus and fall behind at school or work.

They may neglect their social life and relationships to focus on daydreaming.

They may get irritated/angry when a daydream session is interrupted. In more severe instances, this can lead to lashing out at people, or even result in anxiety/panic attacks.

They may feel embarrassed or stressed because of their daydreaming habits.

They may become anxious/agitated/irritated when forced to go long periods of time without daydreaming.

They may experience intrusive daydreams (unwanted/involuntary violent, sexual, or otherwise unpleasant daydreams).

They may neglect their basic needs (hygiene, eating, sleeping) to continue daydreaming.

They may end up finding life very dull/unsatisfying/unpleasant because it does not live up to their daydreams.

They may end up experiencing emotional distress because their daydream world/characters are not real.

Does that mean daydreaming and other forms of escapism are inherently bad?

No. It is very possible to engage in escapist behavior without it harming you. As with most habits, everything is okay in moderation. But sometimes, it can reach a point where it becomes excessive and unhealthy.

[more helpful links if you are questioning if you have maladaptive daydreaming disorder]

Do you ever daydream so much you get tired of daydreaming? 😶

I've been in this state way too long

pov you're waiting for your daydreams/paracosms to get interesting again

Am I the only one who is like “Hey Hwa, don’t stick your tongue out unless you gonna use it.” Or “ Hwa, I know what you can do with that tongue.” ?!? 🥵🥵🥵🥵🔥🔥🔥💜💜💜

240204 ateez 🍻 arriba!

sometimes you gotta give your paras/paracosm(s) the Hatsune Miku Treatment™️

Did you know that you can just go to the park and swing on swings and it's free? And no one even knows you're stimming!

I woke up..

I woke up feeling empty today. I was doing just fine, the last few weeks have been JUST FINE! I don't know if ill be okay. I tell myself, this feeling will pass- please please please don't cry! It feels so overwhelming. Like I'm drowning. But its ok, because.. I woke up today. 

I was recently reading about how when you read fiction, your brain processes the information the same way it processes a memory. So later, when you think of topics addressed in the book, you may feel like you relate to those topics, even though you've never actually experienced that. So if you read a book about a country you've never been to, and then that country is brought up in a conversation later, you may feel like you have information to add and additional insight, but really you just read a book about someone traveling through that country.

Something else I'd like to mention, i don't remember what this is called, but when consuming media, you automatically associate with the characters (which is why people frequently take on personality traits or mannerisms etc from their favorite characters, consciously or unconsciously.) Sometimes, near the end of a story, you learn a character is different from you. That may make you more sympathetic to people like them, because as the story goes, you grow more attached and feel as if they are an extension of you.

Maladaptive daydreaming combines both of these effects, which may help explain some of why we feel a connection to our characters or why we feel as if we have had experiences we haven't had.

is it normal to sometimes have trouble separating yourself from your paras? not even the you in it, but also the other people? like you have to intentionally notice that you aren't the same person as that bitch you made up

yeah i think this is pretty common amongst madders, and probably even immersive daydreamers.

i mean, our paras really are just an extension of ourselves. they come from us, from our minds and imaginations. even if someone’s paras aren’t OC’s, when they daydream they’re still putting parts of themselves into it. so it’s completely expected and understandable that many people will feel intrinsically tied to their paras. in a way, we really are inseparable from them.

which isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. i actually think that sometimes, it can be healthier to acknowledge and accept that you and your paras are - to an extent - one in the same, as opposed to trying too hard to separate their existence from yours.

Heyyyy i saw your post about writing your daydream to cope with maladaptive daydreaming. Do you have antimite tips that your therapist gave u ? ( cause therapy is kinda expensive for me right now)

Thanks <3

Hey, thank you for reaching out, I'm genuinely really glad you did. I'm afraid I'm not a great resource for this, honestly. Soon after that post I quit the job that provided therapy, so I don't have much more to offer. But I'll give you all of the things that I remember from therapy in case it can serve you!

(Assuming you're trying to stop disassociating,) look out for triggers. What makes you switch from being present to daydreaming?

When you initially notice you've switched to daydreaming, try to stop. This sounds obvious, but I've had to really keep it in mind, and there's usually a reason you switched to daydreaming (for me its usually anxiety or a lack of stimulation) and going back to reality isn't what your mind wants, so try to have something you are switching to. For instance, when I try to become present again, I usually start describing an object I see, and sometimes I shift to describe everything I'm experiencing, so all of the senses, things I'm seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling. And then once you're in the moment, then you can more easily switch to being actually in the moment as in conversations, etc, not just aware of reality but also a part of it. (Describing objects also helps with anxiety and spiraling, if you struggle with that)

Keeping a record of your daydreams can help if you are replaying a lot or if you have a story you are interested in building.

Setting aside time to daydream can help. It sounds counter intuitive, but if you stop yourself from daydreaming other times and say no I'm gonna daydream at 3 till 3:30, then when that time comes you daydream and then you stop yourself. This can build up self control and can break the urge to daydream whenever.

Trying to keep your mind occupied can help. If you daydream while you fold laundry, then maybe try playing music or a podcast or an audiobook and try to stay focused on it.

Doing yoga, or journaling, or something aimed at practicing awareness (physical, emotional, etc) can really help. Even stuff like spending 5 minutes describing everything I see and hear and feel can really help. A big part of getting away from MADD is just training your mind to be able to focus on the present.

Ultimately, what I've found is that maladaptive daydreaming is really just an addiction. And it's a coping mechanism. If you can find what you're coping with and can find a healthy way to deal with it, or find a way to cut it from your life, both are good options, but neither will necessarily stop the disassociation. If an addiction is narrowing activities you enjoy down to the one thing, then the way to break it is to find more outlets, more things you enjoy. If you have hobbies you don't do anymore, or things you used to be interested in, pursuing those can be good. Finding other things you enjoy doing can be super helpful.

On writing: (I didn't get this from therapy, just personal experience) it might help to write down everything from past daydreams that you remember (I personally would get really caught up in trying to remember all of the things. I had been daydreaming for about 5 years when I started writing, so I was trying to remember a lot. And I did forget a lot.) if you have a timeline, feel free to type it up. I write it down almost every time it comes up. I'll have clips of dialogue running in my head and I'll pull out my phone and type it up. Same goes for if I have a plot idea. I write it down to explore it later during the time I set aside for it. If I'm scared I'll forget it, then it runs over and over in my mind and it takes up time, and I don't want that. If I want to explore it, finish the scene, then I'm committing more time, and I don't want that. So it really helps me to cut it short by writing it down.

I'll add more to this list if I think of anything. Hopefully this helps in some way, feel free to reach out again! I tried to highlight my main ideas, sorry if it's distracting but I thought with so much text, it might be easier to skim.

<3

No one:

Forestwalk: *watching a 100 days in Minecraft lucky block video*

Forestwalk: Yo imagine a paracosm/world based on this

Daydream inspiration is so random. I can watch a fantastic show or read a fantastic book and nothing. I can watch one with a great premise and poor execution and nothing (despite the huge gap for daydreaming)

But then I watch the Grand Tour randomly and my brain goes Yes! Daydream being a presenter on this! For three days straight!

Do other people starts their paras to make happy adventures with fictional characters and OCs and end up giving all of the characters (including fake you) so much trauma and bad shit that you have to make a new plot line because whenever you open the old one you starts feeling awful for the rest of the day? Because I don’t.

Sometimes it feels like the things I make up in my head are more real than my life because I spend such little time and effort with it. I get up early in the morning every day so I can read for two hours before school, throughout preparing for school and arriving I’m daydreaming. Between classes and, when I can’t focus, sometimes during them too. I come home to read and do homework with frequent zoning out breaks and every single piece of studying done is done to justify another break for music and walking in circles.

i think daydreaming is a fundamental piece of me.

I think it’s been built in from the very start. As a young girl I recall dressing as hermione on primary school casual clothes day… or spending hours finding the right desktop background.

I remember dancing in a costume along with barbie… or drawing my favourite characters and naming my stuffed animals after them. And when I was young I was so in awe of the movie shark boy and lava girl (when this movie was new), that I’d go outside to my swing-set, and swing for hours with the late afternoon sun burning through my eyelids… and I’d daydream that on the other side of them it was the glow from lava girl’s world.

Forever I’ve inserted myself into the worlds of the fiction I love. And now as an adult, I still do this. Every day I’ve got a playlist on picturing myself in other worlds and times and as someone different.

And this makes me wonder.

I love daydreaming. It’s my happy place and I miss dreaming of things I’m not fixated on anymore. But why am I always trying to be somewhere else? Why am I always trying to be someone else? I’ve had years to be happy with who I am and what I’ve got, but does me still being a daydreamer undermine this?

I haven’t got an answer to any of these questions. But I think I’ll always in some way be a daydreamer…

✿❀✿

This chapter tackles subjects that can be sensitive to some readers, please do not interact if you are uncomfortable.

⚠️ Warning : depiction of depressive behavior and obsessive thoughts.

Read at your own risk. - Beaucoup d’amour, Poppy.

✿❀✿

❀ Pansy n°5 = Reality ? No, thanks…

When life feels too bland, one’s mind can do wonders to escape it.

It may seem unreal or fake to some people, but for some minds the easiest way to cope with a negative or stressful emotional state is to dive into one’s subconscious and imagination. The reason why is pretty simple. You are free to control everything and everyone in your own head. You are able to picture and make up every landscape, every environment with anyone you would want to be with.

You are free to give yourself a dream life while escaping the difficult truth of reality.

This “ability” can be considered a skill available to anyone willing to expand and develop their imagination. Personally, I have always considered myself to be quite creative and full of imagination, so being able to increase my capability of imagining things has been awfully thrilling through the years. My mind has always been triggered by music. Easily imagining or making up epic battles on action like songs, dance routines on classical music or simply fake scenarios on chill lofi beats. 

I have so many different fake lives, it’s concerning… :/

But it is such a cathartic experience to insert yourself in your favorite universes, with your favorite characters. What’s even better is when you are so into your mind that you can feel things. With time, it happens to me more and more.

Sometimes the smell of freshly baked bread, but mostly the feeling of a warm embrace or lips softly brushing against one another…

That might be why I often have lucid dreams or why I believe in shifting. But those are pansies for another time.

Nevertheless, this dream-like ability can become dangerous to a certain extent. In fact, when the fake scenarios become an obsession, when day-dreaming becomes a daily occurrence, all in all, when all of it becomes too important… Then it becomes a problem. Then it is unhealthy.

Why does this amazing experience have to be so toxic ?

It is a way to cope, to feel good, to relieve stress - for once without the use of anything illegal 👀- but sadly it also disinterests you from reality. Some people can end up resenting even more their real life.

Come to think of it, that’s how addictions work, no ?

I am no one to tell you what to do if you relate to what I’m writing, neither am I judging anyone. Too often do I feel detached from reality because of my will to live in fantasies. It is something I want to work on - most of my pansies are about myself, my thoughts and based on my will to evolve.

So once again, I am no one to judge.

I am someone so obsessed with daydreaming that, when I am feeling down, it literally plagues my days. I only think about when I’ll have alone time to listen to music and continue the scenario where I left off. Or when I’ll be able to read self-insert fanfictions to drown even more in this shameful obsession of the unreal.

All of it fueled by the fear of reality and the tiredness of living.

Too often do I think I would like to eternally dream.

And that’s because I am conscious it has become this unhealthy obsession that I want to work on. I know that on the one hand, I like to make up scenarios because I would like to experience other environments/universes with other people. But on the other hand, I realized it is also because I can be whoever I want to be.

So lately - being in a good mindset - I am on a quest to better myself, to let myself discover who I am, who I want to be and most importantly to let myself take time to heal.

I know this won't be easy, that I won’t drastically stop to escape reality. But now I also know that to make this creative ability healthy, I have to try and find or even make a dream out of reality.

✿❀✿

🔺Original work please do not steal or copy, Thanks.🔺

❀ Pansy n°6 = Oneiric inspiration.

oneiric |ə(ʊ)ˈnʌɪrɪk| adjective - formal → relating to dreams or dreaming. ORIGIN = mid 19th century: from Greek oneiros ‘dream’ + -ic.

I love this word. In my opinion it is a formal but beautiful way to put into words the subconscious universe that is a dream.

I love dreaming.

As I wrote in a former entry, getting too far in my head and imagination is something I do a lot, enjoy and try to make healthy. My fascination for the oneiric world started at a young age with my ability to remember my dreams. I remembered them so well that more often than not I was able to continue them on multiple nights. It was also really cool to be able to count them back to people - it created many laughs, thanks to the weird dream logic. 

Then I started working (it was not really a difficult or boring task, still it took time) on being able to remember more by forcing myself to think about what I saw straight when I woke up. Sometimes - when I was not too lazy - I wrote them down to get all the details. It is by working on those details that I started creating universes, worlds and stories of my own. I ended up with multiple characters, their backgrounds; future, relationships and development in a made up world. That is how started my first ever draft for my fantasy story. Based on dreams and worked on in my dreams. I could not stop thinking about it. In fact, that’s what happens when I get really inspired for a story, I just can’t stop picturing things in my mind, trying to make sense of it and developing my ideas. I get so focused yet I struggle to write - writer’s block am I right ? :/

However, there was one time when I had difficulties expanding my dream into a story. Why ? you may ask. Well, dear reader, it was because I was inspired by a nightmare and at first thinking about it again made it difficult for me to fall asleep - obviously… I won’t go into much detail about this nightmare because I plan on making a thriller out of it, but what intrigued me the most was that it was one of those dreams…

A lucid dream.

In fact, I knew I was dreaming and could control some of the things happening around me. I LOVE those types of dreams - except when they’re nightmares, and of course it happens to me quite a lot. Lucid dreaming was the next step to improve my “dream ability”. Those dreams are when you realize you are dreaming and can control what you can do (sometimes ^^).

Usually, to work on lucid dreaming, we are told to try and have the reflex of looking at your hands - because they’ll never be normal in your dreams. Or try and read something - yet again you’re not supposed to be able to see coherent words written. Even though I know these tricks - called “reality checks” - work, I personally just let them happen normally. 

Indeed, I have been blessed with the ability to lucid dream without much effort since I was a child - only realizing it was that as I grew up. So often do I have periods during which many lucid dreams come to plague my mind at night. It usually happens when I am in a semi-state of sleep, like half-awake. So it happens that sometimes I am too tired and the control slips out of my grasp. Still, I think it’s an amazing experience.

I guess my lucid dreams are triggered thanks to the fact that I tend to fall asleep making up scenarios and fully controlling my dreams - at that moment. And what gets me to recognize I am lucid dreaming is that I am almost always in first person p.o.v. Nevertheless, what I like the most about lucid dreams and inspires me the most - as I remember it more and it shocks me - are the sensations I get.

Yes, sensations.

Call me crazy if you want but I happen to feel so many things while dreaming - it’s mainly why I believe in shifting. Most of the time I can feel the warmth of things in my dreams, especially when I am close to someone or being embraced. Things definitely don’t feel real but they feel extremely similar. And I think it is extraordinary that you can feel in your head.

What’s even more unreal and that I particularly love, is the dream feeling of being kissed. It is just ethereal… I am someone very fond of physical affection - like, that’s literally one of my love languages - and it is just so awesome and astounding to be able to feel these types of things in your head.Once, I remember, I had a dream in which I kissed someone’s cheek and it had a little stubble, and the feeling I thought I had on my lips was just so weird and felt so real !

So it’s when I started having more and more of those feelings filled lucid dreams that I realized how fascinating and powerful the human brain really is. We can truly trick ourselves, with our own imagination ! And it is why I believe shifting to be possible/real. I, personally, am not an active shifter. I have tried, succeeded a bit and tried again sometimes but I prefer not to force it. I also think that I have succeeded a few times without realizing, so I let it come naturally.

The shifting community can be quite biased and not of the best advice on certain platforms - *cough cough* tiktok… - but also because there are “conflicts” within the community. I don’t associate with it mostly because I don’t really keep myself informed about it, so I don’t want/can’t to appear as a specialist on the matter. But… I have my opinion on how shifting might work.

I think that you are just diving so deep in your subconscious that you can explore all of its power. I like this explanation better than projecting your mind into another dimension. Moreover, I think that both the opinions I gave - among many others - still work to explain reality shifting because in the end we explore other realities regardless.

Anyway !

Shifting is harder for me as I ask myself too many questions and don’t really like to plan my dreams with scripts. Don’t get me wrong, I loved writing scripts for universes I knew I wanted to shift to, but I am always so scared of forgetting something. Plus because of my dream obsession I am scared that if I succeed, I will never want to come back. Still, I know I am never going to stop being inspired by what my mind creates.

→ Quote I like = “Everything that is or was, began with a dream” - Lavagirl.

✿❀✿

🔺Original work please do not steal or copy, Thanks.🔺