Discussion Did anyone else create their own imaginary world/reality?

[everrgreenn]

i like to think that i made this whole world up in my head. who knows, maybe i did.

 

[not_a_robot]

Nope. This whole society is already a false reality.

i like to think that i made this whole world up in my head. who knows, maybe i did.

No way. You'd have done a much better job than whatever sadist created this one.

 

[beepb00p]

I make music sometimes, where I feel like I'm in another world with different rules. It's like pretending your stuffed toys are alive, except with more vividness.

I don't know if this one counts as imagination, but I often live with my memories of people rather than interacting with them in real life. My memories of them are idealized versions of them, that I seem to like more than the actual interactions I have with them.

 

[JulienSorel]

I never had parents who would explain the world to me as it is but always in terms that pertain to their own interest, so I always had to create my own understanding of the world.

It's between the melding of the subjective worlds between two people that creatives a single objective world, and people in love experience that world in greater proportion relative to their subjective worlds.

So that's how it actually works, just a bunch of folks at a standoff with each other and nobody willing to invest the time to better understand the other person because time is so short.

But for me, I picture Dumbledore, leaning against the wall on my side and calmly listening to me talk. Not criticizing, not offering opinions, but a simple act of acceptance of my subjective world as the objective world that we both share. He's imaginary, so he does this well, and plus he was so great in the movies.

 

[Darkdreamer001]

I used to imagine that everyone had their own planet and they could choose who they'd want and what they'd want on their planet.
I pictured everyone being with some other human being, while I was the only human on my planet.

My planet had tons of animals. Mostly lions and elephants. Spiders, flies, and mosquitoes weren't allowed on my planet.
Whenever one animal would die, a new animal was born.
Each animal species had their own type of fruit from their own type of tree that contained all the nutrition needed for that animal to survive.

It was never too hot or too cold on my planet. Never too bright or too dark. And it was never too loud. At night you could see all the stars and the moon.

I lived inside a large tree and whenever I was hungry I could eat veggies or fruits. If I ever craved meat or fish, I could get it from a special type of tree. I could eat it raw (I loved raw meat) without getting sick.

When I first starting making this planet up, no animal ever hunted or killed another animal. After a few years, I changed that though, and an animal could kill another animal without the other animal feeling any pain.

Mine was similar...I had a planet and sometimes a galaxy. Everybody had their own kind of Heaven. It was like the movie with Robin Williams "What Dreams May Come" and the show "Supernatural". We get to create our life and afterlife how we want. My world was similar to this except people treated each other like one gigantic family and loved nature people wanted to live, but when it was time to die they felt little to no pain and people didn't have to mourn death a lot because in my world the living and the dead could communicate and sometimes see each other. Love rules the Universe and Dimension. Those that acted hateful were delt with according to their actions. People treated others the way they wanted to be treated and if they couldn't follow the Law of Love their was another place and the worse the crime the worse the punishment and the longer. In my imaginary world I was loved by my family and those I didn't know, I have many friends and animals to play with, and loved others and nature. Time seemed to not matter much and money had little to no value. Parties and celebrations were an all time thing. Hospitals, jails, mental facilities were not full because people were generally happy. The Laws of Physics were different...gravity wasn't as strong, we could do things with atoms we didn't know we could, and Quantum Physics was practiced. We learned from our mistakes and we were able to heal the past. Like literally able to time travel and help the victims to not suffer as much when in pain and/or save them. The Universe I built in my head helped me to escape the hatred that's always around me. I wished it was real. It would be nice if we could live in world filled with love, peace, and happiness.

I really hope we can live in our imaginary worlds after we die. I really hope so.

i like to think that i made this whole world up in my head. who knows, maybe i did.

If you made this world we probably wouldn't want to commit suicide...it would probably nonexistent.

Yes, i suceeded in that in childhood, i even had at least 5-6 imaginary friends who protected me and i actually felt it.. it became harder when i grew up and now i can't use this to distract from reality anymore ((

Wow, has the imaginary friends seem real? Like almost take a life of there own and have a personality and look rea? I'm sorry for all the questions. That could be a blessing and curse because if you want to escape you could automatically and not have to deal with the drama but when you need to focus on a job, drive, and emergency task it would be scary to not be able to take care of them.

I'm in my head aaallll the time, plus got really vivid dreams in which I actually feel more alive than when awake. Sometimes I feel like maybe I should change my surroundings a bit to fit my inner world and self realize a little but I really have no chance. And even if I had, I don't think it would make things better anyway. I feel like I don't deserve to be content and happy and had to block myself from these positive feelings long time ago. But if I could change the place I live in, you bet I'd enjoy it. However, I don't really have a core so I would probably keep changing it all constantly.

Why do you feel like you don't deserve to be happy?

 

[TearyEyedQueen]

Yes, ever since I became isolated I ran away to that world to protect myself from the abuse I was getting from everyone.
There I always went on adventures with my imaginary friends and the "final episode" would always end up with me marrying my imaginary boyfriend who was always based on whatever fictional character I had a crush on at the time. Even now I live more in my head than in the real world.

 

[Moonicide]

Yes, the internet was a different reality for me. I was able to express myself in many ways, as well as be many things. But now I don't even have the energy to tap into that and be anything else, but this.

 

[passepar2t]

I lost the ability to imagine shit with age.

 

[noctiva]

My response is kind of like reznikoff's. This sort of daydreaming started for me when I was young (elementary school) but it became much stronger in middle and high school - possibly because I discovered online roleplaying along with a couple of other friends, so we indulged each other. Towards the end of high school, a lot of my friends had moved on from roleplaying or had much less time for it. But I wasn't ready to move on at that point. I'd grown up in an abusive, poor household and did not have any hopeful future prospects. Like many high school friendships, some of mine ended in fights or conflict as people went bonkers with hormones or their personality changed. Despite having a couple of friends after graduating I still felt lonely, rejected, and hopeless. So I cut my ties with people and retreated into my own little world. And it ... brought me nothing in the long run. A couple of years ago I realized that I had done nothing with my life since graduating and that my fantasy world(s) were consuming me, making my real life much harder - I wasn't making friends, I wasn't accomplishing anything, I was poorer than ever, and I was still lonely and wanted to die.

So I made myself stop being so involved with it. I forced myself to abandon that inner world and reconnect with a friend I knew and liked, and that went well (we're still friends, and we both struggle with depression and high functioning autism so she understands). I applied to college (not going so well ...). And I started trying to actually lead a healthy life, even if it wouldn't ultimately cure my depression/suicidal ideation.

I hadn't known how bad maladaptive daydreaming could be until I met my last girlfriend (a relationship that ended a few months ago). We met through literate roleplaying online (I was starting to try and take writing up again but felt lonely with the hobby as well as rusty) and clicked. However almost immediately I noticed that she was as obsessed with her own little world as I had been with mine years ago. Every topic of conversation we had always somehow wound back up with her talking about her characters and her persona, even if it was completely irrelevant. Any time I or a mutual friend went through a hard time she didn't seem to care. A friend of ours had a close friend die and wanted to talk about it and her response was "Oh well, death happens, what are you going to do about it. Now, do you guys want to hear about _ that I created/thought of for Evermore (her imaginary world)?" She had no sympathy for anyone else but felt personally wounded whenever someone didn't pay obsessive attention to her story and characters, to the extent that she would spend literal hours whining about how hurtful it was to her when others criticized her work or even vaguely disliked it. It was like her only interest. And then she created a fake social media account to spy on myself and others and try to impose her fantasies on real life, got caught, and promptly blocked all of us.

It was around then that I began to feel and realize how absolutely pathetic we both were at different points in our lives. "Maladaptive" daydreaming is the perfect term for it because it's true. Focusing all your time and attention on a fantasy world to such a degree is escapism and it WILL eventually become your coping method if you let it. Spending your days dreaming of a fantasy world that will never, ever exist to the extent you abandon your actual life and hurt other ACTUAL people to maintain that for yourself ... well, it's sad. And frankly if you're going to live your life entirely in your own head to the extent that you don't give a shit about anyone else who actually EXISTS, then maybe do the rest of the world a favor and do it alone rather than dragging others down with you.

None of this is aimed at anyone specific of course, just figured I'd share the dangers of doing what OP mentioned. Another friend I had a few years back, an older mentor type, had a girlfriend who tried to literally become a character from a D&D campaign they had that became long-running because she also became obsessed with the fantasy. So as far as I'm concerned what I experienced is not an isolated incident either.

I couldn't agree with this more! I used to live in my own fantasy world as well, because my real life was unbearable. On my fantasy world I was loved and appreciated, downright special. In real life, I was unlovable, one random underachiever in 7+ billion. But though daydreaming made me feel better, it also made real life worse. I gave up on it almost completely by now and worked instead on getting myself incorporated into my surroundings. It worked for while, I was happy, I was loved and I belonged. My partner and my friend made my life rich, full and amazing.
I'm now at the point where I lost that life, and I cannot handle it. Until I saw this thread I hadn't even considered to go back into Midgar, and I know I won't. But it feels tempting right now. Works be pointless though, it would only remove myself further from reality and make me mentally worse in the long run.
I know, ctb isn't the best coping way either, but I try to struggle on in this world for a little bit more.

 

[WhyIsLife56]

I used to do this all the time as form of escapism.

 

[ithappens]

I couldn't agree with this more! I used to live in my own fantasy world as well, because my real life was unbearable. On my fantasy world I was loved and appreciated, downright special. In real life, I was unlovable, one random underachiever in 7+ billion. But though daydreaming made me feel better, it also made real life worse. I gave up on it almost completely by now and worked instead on getting myself incorporated into my surroundings. It worked for while, I was happy, I was loved and I belonged. My partner and my friend made my life rich, full and amazing.
I'm now at the point where I lost that life, and I cannot handle it. Until I saw this thread I hadn't even considered to go back into Midgar, and I know I won't. But it feels tempting right now. Works be pointless though, it would only remove myself further from reality and make me mentally worse in the long run.
I know, ctb isn't the best coping way either, but I try to struggle on in this world for a little bit more.

Sorry for the late response, I haven't been online as much recently because I've been trying to move from one state to another, but anyway ...
Thank you for sharing your experience with me. I knew there were probably many others who fell into the trap of maladaptive daydreaming like I did, but it's not something you hear a lot of people talk about IRL. It's kind of sad because I think it's a huge coping mechanism for kids and young adults. If life wasn't so stressful for so many people that probably wouldn't be the case. :(

 

[Shero]

Yes, i can't even control it, i just space out constantly. Maybe its the ADD part of my ADHD.