The Content of my Extensive Daydreams (and how I got here)

[Richard Quest]

(one of the earliest drawings I did when I was 10)

So basically I've had the same daydream for the past ten years. The first thing I imagined was a magnificent flying warship in the skies. Ever since, I built around hat concept. By the time of 5th grade I had a nice plot going, with things being added left and right. I added a crew to that ship, named it and put a nice back story behind it. Everyone on board was a child, it was like the boy scouts. I took this idea from one of my favorite shows: Codename KND, So I tried to figure out how to remove the adults from the equation in my daydream: an alternate universe--nawh, they all left--nope, I finally settled on the fact that everyone over a certain age would die from some horrible disease. 

Later I realized that this disease should be intentional, so I formed a small terror sect in my mind (with their goal of world domination). That formed to be the main antagonists of the plot. They would be called the Hoffman Terror group named for their founder Walter Hoffman, some strange religious nut. He had a daughter named Heather, who is egotistical and a major sociopath. (though she doesn't share Walter's religious fervor, she desperately wants to rule the world) She goes with her dad to all terrorist meetings in upstate New York and even contributes to some. They create a disease by kidnapping several scientists and forced to do the dirty work. Jumping the gun, Walter decides to go through with the plan of releasing the disease in a major city centers around the world before it was tested completely. This disease was released, but it only seemed to kill people over the age of puberty, including Walter Hoffman. Leaving over 50% of 7 billion people dead in under 5 months, the disease quickly mutated again, but this time people didn't see the results. 

When I was in 6th grade I learned about senescence, or deterioration due to aging, and what the leading cause was. It was due to the shortening of the ends of alleles during mitosis. This disease then attached itself to the ends of alleles thus stopping the aging process when puberty ends, leaving everyone biologically immortal.

Which I thought was pretty cool back when I was younger. So these characters I made up don't die unless of an accident or being killed. I know there are some plot holes for other diseases and cancers, but I'm saying they're all immune now for the story's sake.

This universe actually starts in late 2015, it was a long way off when I started this daydream. The main characters for the first couple hundred years at least are: Colonel John Willows (a better version of me), Queen Victoria Corona (a version of my old middle school crush), the brute Adam Cooke (a real life asshole), Heather Hoffman (a figment of my mind based loosely on Hitler), Lieutenant Parker (another old crush), John and Michael Woodman, Amanda Prophet (physically the female version of me), and hundreds of other smaller characters that live their lives struggling to survive in this cruel new world.

I would arrive to the fact I made myself a completely new world on accident. And I loved it. When I was younger, I would walk in the woods behind my house, acting out battles between nations, talking out lout. (passerbyers were confused). Then I resorted to drawing them down so I wouldn't forget.

A big part of my original dream was the fact that there were huge ailing ships in the sky, all fighting each other in massive sky battles. I still acknowledge their part in my new world, but not stress their importance anymore (because I didn't think a wooden ship could be put in the air by helium alone--major plot hole.)

I would draw maps like the one at the beginning of the post, and redraw them, and redraw them. These boundaries were fluid and changed as my dream progressed in scope and time. I even made some sort of flag atlas for country facts and flags. 

Whenever I go on vacation somewhere, I bring my imagination, for example when my family visited the Everglades, I thought it would be dandy to have a massive Venice-like city there and be attacked by pirates. The possibilities are endless.

I have recorded history for this universe well past the year 10000 AD... if you guys want to know more, see the pictures section or some of my comments in discussions, I love to share this story, I might write and publish a book on it someday. I know I'm not done with my daydream, but more important it's not done with me.

Ask me questions! I can help you cope with your MD too... it's been a struggle.

[Roel]

@The1andonlyAbber, I can't remember how it exactly started either. It's weird actualy, the further I dig in the past, the less I see the difference between real memories and invented stories and thoughts. It's like whene you were a child, the difference realy didn't matter that much. You didn't know the world yet, and so you didn't knew how far off your imaginations were. For all you knew, what you invented could be real.
This makes it hard for me to remember certain parts from my life, I have multiple memories from certain events in the past and I don't quitte know which one is the real one and what actualy happend.
I dunno, I just noticed that after I read your comment...

Also there are times whene I am unhappy and I rather daydream to forget some things. So I guess sometimes I alternate between these two 'types' too. But whene I'm unhappy, I can just as wel play videogames, watch a movie or do anything else to make me forget the situation. It is not the reason why I daydream. I don't daydream to get away from my problems, in fact the only problem I have in my life is my lack of speed, which is a result of my MD. So yeah... I always daydream, whene I'm feeling miserable and whene I'm feeling happy, there is no connection.

[Richard Quest]

@Alexie Tetris, 

thanks for mentioning Henry Darger! He lived so close to where I am and I'm definitely going to go see his artwork soon! I think he had the same thing that we all have here, but my MD isn't even close to his level.

Well, first I would need to know what kind of story you're going for. I just let my imagination fly: last week I even invented a whole new sport in my world that people love to play, and invented another whole new language with new symbols and semantics. What I think you need to do, is make your characters as human as possible--have all their flaws, cracks in heir morals. Just stick with them and see where they take you. Mine has taken me through wars, genocide, religious unrest, and even bigotry. No world is perfect, and the more flawed it is, the more interesting it is. I take my inspiration from the news and video games, I ask myself, hmmmm how can this happen in my own world? Then I just go from there. What keeps me organized in my thoughts are the multitudes of drawings and notes I have at my disposal; so the complexity of my world goes through the roof. I even have a several paged timeline of major events in my world from now to the end of time. Just ask me for my details on my world, and I can help you!

[Alexie Tetris]

Richard,

I am very impressed by the scope and details of your world. Your world and your artwork remind me of the works of Henry Darger, who is one of my idols.

And yet, part of me is also envious, because my own daydreams seem so simplistic by comparison. I would love to add more depth and detail to my own fantasies. Can you give me any tips on how to develop my own world?

[The1andonlyAbber]

@Richard Quest, I don't think I should give away TOO much about my daydreams, as I'm turning part of them into a book. I described a lot of the storyline in one of my old blog posts, though. If you go to my page you should be able to find it.

@Roel Van Rossen, I think your comment about there being 2 types of maladaptive daydreamers was very interesting. I feel like I alternate between the first and second type. Since age 7 (possibly earlier), there has never been an extended period of my life where I haven't daydreamed. However, the reasons for my daydreaming have changed numerous times. I wish I could remember more of what was going on in my life when I started. (Sorry, I'm going to end up turning a lighthearted discussion of our storylines into a deep, depressing discussion about coping mechanisms, aren't I?)

[Roel]

I recognise my own dreams in this post, makes me feel happy for some reason :).

(WARNING: from this point I started aimlessly talking about my own invented world. (sorry, can happen sometimes; I write the same way as I think, so I wander off all the time) I wrote this all down and don't want to delete it all again, because it took me a long time to write. You can skip to the important bit, I marked it with a lot of useless smileys ;) )

I was eight, and there was this pokémoncardgame-hype at school. I didn't have cards, so I began to make my own cards with my own monsters. My imagination, wich had always been overflooding since the first moments of my live that I remember, went wild there. At the playground I played as the monsters that I had drawn. My friends played along with me, and added their own monsters. Even though they played allong, I was the main creator. I figured that all these monsters needed to live somewhere. The plantmonsters in jungles, the aircreatures in skies, moles under the ground, ghosts in mysterious portals and firebeasts in lands that were always on fire.
I started to draw maps, just like you did. And I invented names for lands and every land had one strong monster as his ruler.
I had created stories before, with invented characters and places, but that was the first time that I made a world.
It was a monsterworld, there were only monsters and no humans. But I made a monster equivalent for humans; the so called Mensmonsters. They had futuristic technologie and lived in a huge city that I randomly had called Kolonië. They were evil, naïve and they thought they were boss over the monsters. However despite their attempts to build more cities in monster terretories, the monsters always won.

A group of monsters traveled together through this world, they were my hero's. Now I think of it, this may explain a lot of my misanthropy.

I got older, and this paracosm never left me. The friends that used to play allong with me grew up, while I still feel like a child, and they completely forgot about this monsterworld.

(I dream for half of the time, it realy feels like I also only live  for half of the time and I feel like I'm an eight-year-old that has gotten the responsibilities of a grown up. :( )

I invented other sentient races that were less evil than the humans; the Kirmugen (they are a bit like trolls, but with a shell/or armorthingy, turtlebody/... (a bit hard to describe) but they are way cooler and nobler than trolls and they are six meters tall)
Than there are Tarkanen they speek Tarkaans, a language that I invented and is almost functional (I can almost speak it, but it's hard to do) They are so diffucult to describe that I won't even start.
Than there are the Lenters (salamander/fish like humanoids) they live in the see and try to gain territorie by making land collaps and fall into the sea.

And I adjusted the Ghosts so they are a sentient race too.

Because the city was called kolonië, and I had learned about colonists, I figured the Mensmonsters were actual humans that tried to colonise the planet in the past, but then were mutated in to monsters by the godly powers of the mysterious planet. despite that change, they still wanted to take the planet like the humans they are.

But I'm going to stop talking about everything that I did with it because it's becoming waaaaay to much tekst.

It was only many years later that I came up with a name for this world of mine. I started to call it "Burning Planet" Because a part of the planet was literally on fire and just then I realised how unusual that is. I thought it was something special and so I called it that.
Afterwards I called it Altra wich means 'fireworld' in my invented Tarkaans.

USELESS SMILEY'S: :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :D

I want to be a writer just so I can write about this world (but also about other worlds) and the many stories that happenned in it. I tried to write already, but...
-I'm too slow, never got further than 90 page's = not even a fraction of the stories that take place over years and centuries (the story often contineous in other generations)
-it's very difficult to explain everything to someone that doesn't know this world
-everythime I reread it, it looks awefull and doesn't capture at all the world in my mind.

I have found that there are 2 types of MD'ers:
The one's that use their daydreams to create a perfect life or fun story, to run from the hard reality were they feel like they are not accepted or were they suffer.
The other type are daydreamers that in the course of years developted epic creations that nowone else knew about, and saldy got addicted to it.

I haven't seen a lot of people who are part of that second group, wich I find unfortunate. I love it whene people share their stories like this. It is super interesting and it makes me feel less alone. I hope you succeed at writing about this. You're amazing just for creating and keeping these valuable treasures of worlds in your mind :D

Stay strong!

[Richard Quest]

What I do is skip around in my day dream time frame, maybe for 2 months I'd focus on one civilization several thousand years advance and go back to make subtle chances to past civilizations to make it all canon. I even would go through really old picture and check mark the back to show it's canon, or X it out to show that isn't.

Lol daydream-ception xD

I want to hear more about yours!

[The1andonlyAbber]

I think it's so cool how you've had the same daydream for so long. The longest I've ever had one daydream is about 2 or 3 years. Well, TECHNICALLY I have had the same daydream for a long time. I recently went back in time in my storyline and altered a few details of some of my old daydreams so that I could link them all into one storyline. It ended up being pretty crazy. Some of my old daydream storylines were daydreams-within-daydreams, and I ended up having to make them daydreams-within-daydreams-within-daydreams for it to work.