Negative daydreams- an emotional drug?

[greyartist]

Looking at why we daydream negative or tramtic events. I have noticed in lots of posts in the main forum that many of us seem to have little real emotions or feelings. Cold, empty, are some of the comments I've seen. I too have very little feelings or emotional response in real life. I think the drama we create in our daydreams is feeding the need for emotions we lack. A tramatic event in my dayrdeam will make me cry, for real. It is the only time I cry. Same thing with love and joy, no matter how bad my DD gets I always bring it to a happy ending. The feelings I get through the DD are a high, that I can't get in real life. Does anyone else feel this way?

[Pascale]

I have been in therapy for years and that is how long I come with the question:

As child I learned to be what other people wanted me to be. So I also learned not to take my feeling into account. Not show my feelings, not act on them. I fact I part myself in two. The nice girl part acting in the word was the one I believed other wanted me to be. The nice girl has no strong feelings, was acting very rationally. She was trying to be invisible. She was always wondering what other people wanted, never what she herself wanted. And she was almost incapable to act without having another saying what she had to do. So when nobody said anything she tried to be mind-reader, and if nobody was there she imagined what other people (family, friends) would think about her.

So the nice girl married a guy who believed he knew everything better than anybody. In the beginning she believed he could see the other part of her.  But he was just trying to control her and get more and more abusive as he understood in one way that there was a part of me he couldn’t control.

After divorce I get depression and had to find help. Then I discover the other part of me that I always knew about but did not recognise as me.

When I believed I had no feeling I was in fact living my feeling in my dreams. If I was angry again somebody, I DD about someone trying to kill me. So I could kill him and get free. If I was afraid about something I imagined something terrible happening, and no matter how bad, I always survived and manage to help other people. That’s why there is so much negative in my DD, they are the place to live my bad feeling. Another thing in my DD, there is always somebody here to tell me how good I am doing.

So now I try to take back my DD not to get rid of them. DD-me knows what she wants, who she is. That’s what the nice girl lack.

 

[Dev Thorne]

Hey there.

I totally understand what you're saying.  In my daydreams all my emotion is so much stronger and real. 

This is why I started self harming so I could feel something real that wasn't just in a daydream. Then I started obsessing over traumatic events and horrific things happening to me all in my head of course so I could justify the self harm. 

I didn't want to admit in real life the reason I self harm was cuz "I can't feel" I want ed it to be because of some terrible thing that happened to me. 

The negative daydreams have become like a drug. I usually do them when I feel depressed or upset by something in my real life. Most of them are short, 10 minutes and end with suicide. I get it over with and then I feel better. 

[greyartist]

Dev I hope you're not still self hurting. In my negative DDs I always get rescued, now the idea of suicide sometimes pops up but I refuse it right away. Can't let myself go down that road. I always make someone come and rescue me. It would be nice if I was strong enough to rescue myself.

[Nyx]

In my negative DDs it's my characters that go through the trauma and hardship, not me...though I should mention that I haven't included myself in my DDs until very  recently.  For me it felt like an addiction to the extreme sympathy pain, maybe even to the fear for the character's well being.  My problem was that eventually it would get out of hand and I'd feel overwhelming guilt for DDing everything that happened to the character.  So it has that very negative impact on me, but for some reason I can't stop doing it.

[Dev Thorne]

I do off an on. It's an addiction at this point. 

I only negative DD when things aren't as well as I want them too irl.

greyartist said:

Dev I hope you're not still self hurting. In my negative DDs I always get rescued, now the idea of suicide sometimes pops up but I refuse it right away. Can't let myself go down that road. I always make someone come and rescue me. It would be nice if I was strong enough to rescue myself.

[taffle]

I feel the same way. It is through my daydreams that I get to experience emotions that I don't get to feel in real life; high self-esteem, confidence, pride, strength, wisdom, romance  - what I don't get in real life I try to get in my daydreams. The main character in my daydream (3rd person point of view) is everything that I'm not. She is almost perfect and way more lucky and successful than the real life me. This main character is everything that I wanted to be, and through this main character, I feel emotions that I don't feel in real life (i.e. self-confident, proud, strong, loving, etc).

Throughout my life, I let myself get influenced by peer pressure and try to be what other people think I should be. But, in my daydream world, the main character is able to resist such pressures and is stronger-willed.

Sometimes, when I'm not able to cry in real life, I cry during my daydreams. I used to suppress my emotions so much, especially when I'm in class or anywhere else in public, because crying or being angry in front of others is not socially acceptable. Daydream is one of the only places where I can cry and truly let myself out.

[Poopsie Holbrook]

I feel the same way, I was picked on very badly growing up and I learned to cry would be to show a weakness they could use against me. I've been day dreaming my whole life but I'm sure it made it worse. I'd sit on my hands to hide the twitching. When my emotions did escape it felt like a psychotic break and I'd lash out pretty violently. after high school I did pretty well till I found out my husband of 6 yrs cheated on me and got some teenager pregnant. he shoved me into the door first but I did my best to hurt him in return. I found out later he had been with 3 other girls when that one turned up pregnant and cheated with about 12 at least while we were married from year one. he was a navy sailor and he had a girl in every port. 10 months later still haven't finalized the divorce and spent 3000 on a lawyer. I've got a new boyfriend and guess what I'm pregnant. turns out that girl couldn't get money out the ex so now the babys not his, funny but I'm still so angry inside. I just want to stop and move on. but the daydreams make me dwell. my daydreams aren't fun anymore and the heart rate and stuff seems to cause braxton hicks.

[Rebecca]

It's interesting that you bring up this point, because I do notice that some of my intense, negative DD tend to come up when I feel emotionally shut down. I usually feel things very deeply and can be a rather emotional person...however I don't always show it, and I can have a very hard time expressing my emotions. So, for me, I think the dramatic, intense DD must be my way of expressing sadness, anger, fear, etc., or letting out those feelings in a safe manner.

[Destiny Lund]

I too daydream to the point of crying most of the time, but I'm very emotionally intense in real life, definitely no empty.  I'm very intense, aggressive, hyper, passionate, etc. 

[Markus]

Introverts seems to be predisposed. The first post hit me really hard, and was especially interesting. I think you could even elaborate more, and say that instead of facing (and really thinking) about problems or "fights" in ones lifes, a person might instead dream up their own "fight" or conflict so to speak,  where the sollution can be induced at the will of the dreamer. A false feeling of control also comes to mind, atleast for me. So glad i found this forum, great discussion guys.