Do you want to defeat this?

[Corinne West]

Do you? If you could wake up tomorrow with this gone would you want to?
In all honesty, I don't want to live without it. I don't think life would be worth living without it.
I'll give up everything else, my social isolation, eating disorder a thousand times before I give this up. I thought I may have been ready to recently, but I never had to imagine living without it, so no I don't want to give it up. *Sigh*

[Tinkerbell]

Yes.  I want it to be gone permanently. My life is going well and it is the one aspect of my life that is ruining it.  Last night after a stressful day my MD was really bad and I ended up disturbing the neighbors.  It's one thing I don't want to be brought to attention by other people....Everyday I look for ways of getting rid of it permanently.   I know that without my vivd day dreams I very well may suffer from depression afterwards because I have no friends and no social life but I like to see it as taking baby steps.

[Drake]

Never.

Daydreaming is the only good thing in my life now. Things went downhill pretty quickly.

[goner]

I don't want to. It's my life. I love it.

And even if I wanted to, (in which I never will) I wouldn't be able to stop daydreaming. 

[Steve C]

50/50

Sometimes I wonder how I would have gone through childhood and my teenage years if I wasn't spending a majority of my time in fantasy land. As a teenager I would always daydream about being the popular one, having all of these good things happening to me.  The constant switching back and forth between reality and fantasy land, what happened vs what I wanted to happen, made it kind of difficult to learn life lessons. Whenever I was made fun of, felt inferior, made a mistake, I could always retreat and make myself feel better.

I always daydream about improving myself. Without actually improving myself. I can do what I daydream about, I just can't move. I'm content with it most of the time, but that's the problem. 

[The1andonlyAbber]

I don't want to stop. Not yet. In real life, I will be never be able to time travel, have superpowers, or explore distant galaxies. Lots of people say that instead of daydreaming about something you should try to make it happen, but for me it truly is impossible for my daydreams to become true.

[Mevve]

Hi Cordellia,  back in 2009 you wrote this message. About  ' a nice lady in NY who's been studying this',  i suppose you mean Cynthia Shupak?  Can you tell me why she recommended not quitting completely? I'm very interested to know. 

Cordellia Amethyste Rose said:

I don't want to either. It's all I know. I have no family or real friends outside of there........but for me it's horribly toxic. I'm communicating with a nice lady in NY who's been studying this. She doesn't recommend quitting completely. I'm not sure I could. I've tried more times than I can count, but it never works. I can daydream less for awhile if I'm busy & distracted, but it always comes back full force after awhile. I'm almost 30 & desperate to make something of my life, and I know I'll never be able to achieve what I want to as long I do this. Whatever % of my life that's spent in my fantasy world is a % less than I'll achieve in this one. I'm too competitive & desperate to be successful for this to be ok for me. I need to feel smart. I need to feel better than people. I need to be the best at everything I'm interested in. Having my fantasy world has made me think in more ways than I ever imagined. It's expanded my mind, but it's made me desperate for outside approval. That's what I get there after all. To not have that in my outside world is just unbearable. It makes me want to achieve more in general because I hate even more how people see me. I hate being seen as a quiet, lonely loser by people I'm sure are inferior. I wanna scream "How dare these morons see me that way?" I know it's crazy, but that's what this forum is for...... ....unashamedly admitting the crazy.
Anyway, it's hard to imagine quitting entirely..............but that's also because my outside life is so inferior to me. If I had enough to keep me interested in the outside world then maybe I'd quit naturally. The only time I daydream less is when I'm inspired by outside events. It's a vicious cycle, but if I can do enough & keep up that momentum enough to distract me for long enough...........one day I may realize that I'd never gone back. It's definitely not something I could do on purpose. The pressure of that knowledge would get to me & I'd cave very quickly. I'd definitely have to realize it in retrospect.

Either way, I don't recommend intentionally trying to quit for anyone. It sounds unrealistic. I would need to quit to have a full life, but lots of people daydream & lead full lives. If we can dial back the addiction to moderate use then perhaps there wouldn't be a need to.

[Cyan]

I really would like to stop. I would love if that scenario you just made up happened because the way I see it is that if the daydreaming goes away, the craving for your imaginary families will go away too and you'll treat them like abandoned imaginary friends. I don't see why anyone would want to keep this. Reasonably, I know that MD can only be managed, not "magically cured" but it would still be nice to have it out of my hair for good.

[Satchi R]

I want to defeat this thing bad.Like right now I finished my exam and it went ok but I spent so much time MDing that I didn't study as much as I could or wanted to.Like it's seriously a mind drug and I don't want to be on drugs.i want it gone

[Alex]

I think my psychologist's approach is the one I want for myself: merging my dream self with my real self. Yes, I could never live without it and I don't want to. I'd rather live fully in the clouds than fully on the ground, but a middle ground is ideal. But the only real downside I have to MD is social isolation and I've been dealing with that for pretty much my entire life.

[The1andonlyAbber]

I've tried to stop daydreaming a few times but had to start again because I just felt so...empty. It's hard to describe.

[Emma]

I really wish I could stop.  I know there are a lot of people who struggle with horrible and unfair issues in their lives, and MD probably helps them cope and function.  In my own case, my real life issues are more run-of-the-mill.  I use the MD as a way to ignore my problems.  I know this, and if I could stop it, I think I would be better at facing my problems.

On the other hand, there really is no easier way to be completely absorbed in something immediately fulfilling and exciting as just living in my daydream.  The problem is that it isn't real.  When I work hard and do things in the real world, it is much more complicated and difficult and messy.  When I'm in a heavy period of daydreaming (like right now), it's really hard to fully engage in the real world because reality just can't compete with that level of stimulation.  But I'm old enough and experienced enough to know that when I plant my feet firmly in the real world and work hard at that instead, then my real life becomes rewarding and meaningful.  Then I desire less time in my daydream.

In that way, it's really an addiction.  Right now in this moment, I want nothing more than to sit in my story.  But in the larger picture, yes I very much want to be rid of it forever.

[makeda no]

I feel life would be so boring and uneventful without it but I also want to be fully alive and aware in my life instead of being half there, and never being able to focus and keep going back to scenarios that I desperately want to happen but never will is really discouraging and just I don't know that's a good question. I just wish I was normal when it came to this. But I guess everyone has something "wrong" with them mentally.