Have you noticed any weird changes in your daydreaming habits?

[Maddy Creamer]

Yeesh, it has been way too long since I posted on here. Sincere apologies to anyone I was consistently chatting with before I disappeared! Anyway, I feel like Ive reached this weird point with my daydreaming where it kind of runs on a schedule in my mind now. What I mean is, I always daydream in the morning and afternoon, with some smaller stories sprinkled throughout the day. Not only that but it seems like even though when I first noticed this years ago I only daydreamed with characters that weren't my own (already existing fictional characters) lately Ive been using my own characters more and moving into completely unfamiliar territory. Its like as my mind matures, I'm starting to do my own world building instead of my mind borrowing from others. Have any of you noticed that your daydreaming has taken an unfamiliar or strange turn? Would you say it was a good change, or it seemed like it was getting worse?

[Steve C]

For me it seems to come in waves, in the form of months.... There will be times when I'm just really antsy to DD for hours about something that seems really interesting to explore.....Other times, if I'm occupied, I go weeks without doing it and not noticing.

Sometimes I don't know what to DD about, and get tired of the ones I'm working on, in which case I just start with guaranteed interesting scenarios like winning the lottery, suddenly traveling back/forward in time, etc.

If something different happens in my regular world, it can ignite me for months. Usually there is a cycle for me... I feel depressed, low self confidence ..... DD about inventing something, or a slightly better version of me ... realize I need to act in the real world .... stumble slightly and give up ... get depressed ... repeat.

If I get really depressed, I can get dragged into a bad cycle of ruminating and DD'ing, so I've learned to avoid that.

However, I lost one of my parents this year, and lately I've been DD'ing about creating a perfect simulation of the past for me to go back to and relive..... 

[Maddy Creamer]

So sorry for your loss, I know the feeling. Real world events have been setting me off more often lately as well.

Steve C said:

For me it seems to come in waves, in the form of months.... There will be times when I'm just really antsy to DD for hours about something that seems really interesting to explore.....Other times, if I'm occupied, I go weeks without doing it and not noticing.

Sometimes I don't know what to DD about, and get tired of the ones I'm working on, in which case I just start with guaranteed interesting scenarios like winning the lottery, suddenly traveling back/forward in time, etc.

If something different happens in my regular world, it can ignite me for months. Usually there is a cycle for me... I feel depressed, low self confidence ..... DD about inventing something, or a slightly better version of me ... realize I need to act in the real world .... stumble slightly and give up ... get depressed ... repeat.

If I get really depressed, I can get dragged into a bad cycle of ruminating and DD'ing, so I've learned to avoid that.

However, I lost one of my parents this year, and lately I've been DD'ing about creating a perfect simulation of the past for me to go back to and relive..... 

[Roel]

I wouldn't say there have ever been changes in inspiration like you describe, but there have definetly been changes in theme and atmosphere. For example when I was a teen every daydream was a mindless actionmovie with special effects and everything. Directed by Micheal Bay :p

Now everything always has a serious meaningfull undertone. Like there is a moral and a lesson to be learned from the story I am dreaming off. The characters are thoughtfull, the action and the obstables tend to be more phylosophical and intelectual instead of "OH NO EVIL ALIENS EVERYWHERE!!! SHOOT THEM!!!"

I think this is because I've become better at understanding human relationships over time IRL despite of my autism. I've found that the relations between charactars are far more interesting and important than whatever amazing impossable crap is happening around them. I suddenly realised that a story is something that is played by characters, by people. Not just a random series of events that seems nice.

This is a good insight I needed to have haha for someone that wants to be a writer :p

[Tinkerbell]

My MDD is getting worse. When I was younger it solely was me in a fantasy world pretending to be a mythical creature. Now I still do that but every night when I am too relaxed. I catch myself daydreaming and imagining I'm talking to friends, impulsively I always use two voices. Male and female. That never used to happen before and I'm having to really exhaust myself to find sleep or drink large amounts of alcohol which isn't good for me either. At least when I was younger, had a little more control over it. The two voices thing scares me senseless, I don't want my MDD to turn into something else..

[Kay M]

There has been a change in theme and atmosphere lately, my character has always lived in the real world, but with minor changes, like her story split off from the main timeline and my real self at a specific point a few years back, everything that happens in real life, happens in her world unless the timeline changed enough to prevent it.

Right now, her world is ahead of ours, after some kind of apocalypse. It isn't entirely about that, it focuses on a small isolated village in the countryside where my character now lives as her town no longer exists....neither does pretty much everywhere that exists now. I mostly focus on her, the people who live in the town (some of which I have borrowed from my other daydreams that could exist in the real world, like there is my ten year old alter ego and her daydream family) and working out how the village works because I love organising. I have moved out a little bit to explore what is going on with everywhere else too, like that America isn't particularly united anymore, but rather a few states that exist as countries, a few larger countries that take up a few states, and a bunch of isolated settlements anywhere from being a smallish country, to just a network of little villages, to small communities like the one my character lives in. There are a few cult compounds, including one that my character's aunt is a member of, a hippie kind of commune out in a wood, a town made entirely of trash out in the desert and one community made by a former bored housewife named Erin who took a level in badass during the apocalypse.

I blame the election, with everyone talking about how if their candidate loses, life as we know it may well end. Well, in this timeline, it did.