Daydreams into Reality

[Lucy McGillicuddy]

Hello, everyone! I'm new here, and I'm also new to the idea of maladaptive daydreaming, so if I commit any MD faux pas, please let me know. 

I'm a woman in my mid-twenties, and I've been an avid daydreamer ever since my early childhood. My first memories of having vivid, involved daydreams with characters that lasted for months was when I read Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach when I was in first grade. I loved it so much, the idea of a boy traveling by flying peach across the sea, accompanied by a ragtag team of human-sized insects.

I didn't want the adventure to end when the book did, so I started making up my own. I became friends with the characters in James and the Giant Peach, and we did everything together--but only in my head or in my parents' backyard. Almost two decades later, I still feel a tiny twinge of grief to know that those characters aren't real. 

I've been daydreaming like that ever since, and about all sorts of things, and I've never seen it as a particular hindrance in my life until recently. I'm out of college, out of grad school, and I'm trying to start a life. I'm looking for a job and looking for a romantic relationship, but I know in my heart that I'll never find anything that measures up to my daydreams. I find myself more and more delving into the depths of my mind, knowing full-well that only action can get me out of my rut.

But what if the daydreams are really just versions of attainable goals? Not the daydreams where I fly across the sea on a peach accompanied by my enormous insect friends, of course, but the daydreams where I have the love I want and the career I want. What if the way to stop the daydreams is to find or create a reality in which the essence of the daydreams can live?

Does anyone else feel this way? Has anyone out there been able to take her daydreams and make a version of them reality for herself, even if in a small way? 

[Johanna]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and one main theme in my dreams is changing the world. In my daydream I'm a successful actress who's main goal is making the world her version of 'Utopia' by trying to get rid of religion, eliminating borders and racism and trying to educate people. Of course I know I'll never be that actress but I think I can somehow change the world. Maybe the dreams are like an extreme vision of the future but whatever they mean, I know I'm dedicated to make them happen.