Apologies and Questions and Other Things

[Solaina]

Hello there. First of all, I would like to apologize for one of my dramatic blogs I posted a while ago. (Not sure why I'm apologizing since it's most likely forgotten. I suppose I'm ashamed of it.) Anyway. I have a few questions to ask about MD. #1: Do your daydreams ever connect to your dreams? Everytime I try to lucid dream, if I try to invite one of my DD characters I am either clicked into a dream, or the character tries to appear but ends up a black fuzzy figure...which is really freaking weird. Having a few times actually 'summoning' a character resulted in them almost avoiding me the entire time. My most recent dream with one of them resulted in me finding them in a sort of looking house. When I asked "Why weren't you with me?" they responded with "...but I can see you perfectly fine from here." This brings me to question #2: Have you ever figured out anything about yourself from daydreaming? I've noticed that sometimes daydreaming can be a part of your subconscious. Pay attention to some of your daydreams ...you may be trying to tell yourself something. (However ridiculous that may sound.) #3: When do you (have you) or find yourself daydreaming? (Sorry, that may have sounded unclear. I don't know how to explain things.) I mean, why do you mainly daydream? Or...when I mean. In fear? In depression? Maybe when you're angry you use daydreaming to calm you down. Maybe to give you courage? I know the answer may most likely be all...but what is the situation that you daydream most during? (If that question made any sense at all.) I'm sorry if I misspelled anything. I am using a cellphone and the typing is really awkward... #4: Is there a limit to your daydreams? Does anything go, or do you have to make it realistic? #5 How much are you like your main character? Whether it's you or somebody else, are you really similar or not? #6: What genre are your usual daydreams? Horror? Romance? Comedy? Etc... Hmm... I suppose that's it. I'm not trying to be nosey or anything...I just like to ask questions. Hehehe.

[Wish Upon A Wish]

1. Not really, I mean, getting older my DDs have had more sex and sex-based things in them, and I have had a couple of unusual sex-based dreams in the past year (No, I'm not getting into that) but I really doubt that they're related.

2. They have on occasion, and I think they're also a way of processing emotion for me (I find often I take a while before I really feel and understand things. One example back in year 6, a friend of mine told me (she sincerely tried to be nice about it) she didn't want to be friend with me anymore, and I was a bit shocked and I just said "okaay" and then when I got home and had time to actually think about it and realised what it means and stuff I ended up crying and yeah.)

3. I find often when I'm bored and I'm more likely to DD instead of concentrate when I'm tired, and my DDs will flit through them more, and won't be as in-depth and stuff when I'm tired. And when I want to avoid doing something, I'll DD.

4. Hell... Umm.... Well, Not anything goes, and mostly I try to make it realistic, but in some ways saying that is bs because I turn into a few different animals, four mythological and two similar but with unusual fur (One dark silver the other black with bright red facial markings) so yeah. Yet with that and an inhuman best friend, I still try to make things realistic somehow, even though it's not really....

5. My MC is me, but wittier and faster and better at everything (singing, fighting, shooting, she's fitter than I and she can turn into things as mentioned above... though we both can't dance, nor will we attempt to, and she's also more likely to blabber about things because really, she's just my thoughts along with a mental image. So sometimes she says what I'm thinking out loud. If that makes sense.)

6. There's a lot of negativity in my DDs, death and lonliness and hate and stuff, but then there are good things like in one DD, I'm suicidal but I meet my idol and she forbids me from ending my life so I don't just because it was she who told me I'm not allowed to, so that's sort of bittersweet, I guess. And there are good bits to like (in one of my most future DDs, a girl who I'd saved in an earlier DD when she was six came to find me so I was happy to see her again and stuff, so it's a mix.) The DDs that happen closer to 'now' in time are more negative and the ones further down the road are more positive.

-And don't worry about asking questions, if we're happy to answer them we will, and if we don't want to, we won't.

-Also, just an extra note, I made a post a while ago about painting and not DDing and I think DDing is just how my brain works, for me it's a way of thinking, so I believe that maybe, instead of trying to control my DDing as such, I should be controlling my thinking, and I guess how I think. Not sure how I'll go about doing so, but I find I need to daydream at least a bit, otherwise my brain will get this weird, tired sort of feeling, like I've been talking to people alllll day. But then, it could be because I can't daydream around people, so maybe it's not the people that make me 'tired' but the lack of DDing.

[Paracosm]

#1. I think I've only had a dream in my world once, just a few weeks ago. It happened after I saw a movie that really affected me. The dream was horrid—my closest friend died and I was grieving over the loss. I woke up crying, and for the next few days, I was unusually emotional, anxious, and I kept on waking up at night overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and frustration.

#2. Yes, my daydreams have really helped me to understand myself. There are certain themes that have always been there, even when my world has changed, new characters emerged, and old ones gone away. My daydreams seem to focus on relationships between me and family and friends. I seem to daydream about what I really want and need, but don't have in real life. Things like love, friendship, family, and individuality make up the main themes.

#3. I mainly daydream out of loneliness. I feel that my world is the only place where I can find companionship, comfort, and understanding. It's my escape and my refuge. I don't have many opportunities to explore and express myself in real life, and so my daydreams have become my only way of discovering myself and exploring ideas. I daydream a lot when I'm bored, or if I'm sad, sometimes I'll daydream as a way to cheer myself up. I don't believe that MD is a "daydreaming problem". It's my survival system, my coping mechanism, my way of creating the things that weren't there when I was young.

#4. My daydreams always have to be realistic. If I'm not sure that something could really happen, I'll often research it. I can spend hours on the internet researching various topics for my daydreams. Silly, isn't it?

#5. I am my main character. She's the person I am at heart, who I'm unable, due to circumstances, to be in real life. I often feel as though I'm forced into a mold by the people around me, and I detest it, but nobody understands, so I don't often speak out. I feel like I've been programmed to act in a certain way, even though it violates my every value and ideal. Someday I'll put my foot down and break the outer shell to reveal the woman of my daydreams: the REAL me.

#6. I don't think my daydreams could fall into one category. My daydream world is like real life. It's like another reality. There's happiness, sadness, romance, betrayal, humor, and horror. Like I said earlier, my daydreams usually symbolize what I want but don't have. They are often centered around relationships, either good or bad. They've often contained a large amount of romance, probably because I so often feel lonely and I long for companionship and a deep connection with someone special.

[Soul Dreamer]

1) Ever since I've had MD, I am my characters in my dreams, and the dream just plays out as normal dreams do. In these I usually realise I'm dreaming but et it keep playing on its own anyway because they are my more exciting and entertaining dreams.

2) Yes, well, sort of. I don't have a single main character, but lots that I switch between. I get a new one every 6 months to a year. Each character represents the way I was at the time they were created. For example, one of my characters is betrayed by his family, used, and very depressed but trying desperately to keep going. That describes me perfectly at the time he was created. I have stripped all of my characters' personalities and lives down and discovered that it is the same for all of them. So technically, I've only 'discovered' stuff that should have been obvious at the time if I were paying attention to real life.

3) I daydream when I am bored, afraid, and lonely. Also, I daydream whenever I walk (even if it is just to the classroom next door), when I draw, write, read or watch tv. I also use my daydreaming to memorise things. Like, if I need to remember a pattern for tae kwon do then I will imagine one of my more comedic characters teaching me. It is so much easier to learn :)

4) My daydreaming is heavily fantasy based, and the most unrealistic stuff happens so that my characters from different worlds can meet. So I guess its anything goes.

5) I sort of explained this one in number 2. Each character represents my personality at one point in my life, and I switch between them as my moods change, but they also have a lot of traits that don't come from me. So they are all like exaggerated versions of myself. And they're all male, despite me being a female *shrug*

6) My daydreams are very very fantasy with horror coming in at a close second, but to lighten things I try to add humour.

PS. how would you answer these questions Solaina? Just 'cause I'm curious too :)

[M Hunter]

Hey there.
#1- As a lucid dreamer I often live out my daydreams within my dreams. I find this is very helpful for me as if it's a successful lucid dream it satisfies my urges to daydream the next day and I find my head is clearer so I can get on with life. Daytime is for physical reality and nighttime is for my world. Whats interesting is the characters that I summon  in my lucid dreams often remember the last time I visited which is amazing.

#2 I've daydreamed all my life and have had a very strong connection with fantasy from a young age. I believe as young as 3 I was questioning what the world really was and concluded that this place in my head could provide me with more than the world around me. Plus I often hallucinated stuff from my mind which reinforced my relationship with my world. This definitely affected how I developed and although when I was young it didn't feel like having such an rich internal world was a bad thing when I hit puberty I found it very hard to leave that world behind and start to take on the responsibility of becoming a young adult in society. 
Therefore these days I suppose my daydreaming reflects a lot of things that I desire and want whether that's to do with what I want to be or what I wish others to be because I've never learned to really deal with the harsher parts of reality. Despite being in a 5 year relationship with my partner I still have romantic relationships in my daydreams. I think thats mainly because my real relationship started off quite abusive and although we are fine now I suppose I have a few trust issues. Therefore I have romantic partners in my daydreams because I guess I'm still very scared of the world and they are there to comfort me more than my real life partner can (which sounds harsh).

#3 In all honesty I'm constantly daydreaming no matter what I am feeling. If I am doing something that is keeping my mind occupied then the need to daydream decreases drastically.

#4 Depends on the scenario really. In try to make things as realistic as possible most of the time.

#5 For the most part my daydream character is very much like myself although they are probably more confident and are perhaps more talented in certain areas but for the most part my daydream self and my real self are very much one and the same. Again I suppose it depends on the scenario. I might tweak my daydream self slightly to fit into different storylines.

#6. I dont really think I have a genre. It's pretty much just about normal life so there's a bit of drama, a bit of romance, a bit of comedy but nothing is specifically tailored to one genre as such.