Daydreams never about me

[Mell D'Clute]

As I am still relatively new to this community, I am reading occasional posts by others. I'm have noticed a lot of DDs are about their own selves.

Mine are never about me, although I can certainly see some characteristics or even who I wished I was in a lot of them. My MDD started when I was around 13. It started as I was a huge comic book fan and would simply imagine what would happen in the next issue. DC Comics heroes were the characters I responded to, particularly the Teen Titans. From there the DDs went above and beyond them being superheroes. I've imagined them growing up, dating, getting married, having kids, their kids growing up and finding their relationships and so on. The cycles can start all over again or go deep into the future. Themes seem to be either ideallic parents vs. the worst parents in the world, and romantic love.

My question is is this even normal in the MDD world to create an imaginary world that does not evolve around yourself?

[Alison]

Hey, Mell.

That's what I've been having as well. I do have DDs about myself once in a while too - but not for a long time and they dont trigger me much. My first ones were when I was a kid - about book or movie characters (for example when I didnt like the ending, or wanted to see what's next, or if smth about the characters seemed appealing). Now my major DDs are based on movies, games, and I also have my own imaginary world with its rules and characters. But the plot as such is usually pretty lame, as I mostly concentrate on the relations between certain characters (mostly love/hate relationship, etc.) and on the characters personalities. I dont really know what it all means - I've had a few theories, but I can't be really sure.

[Eretaia]

Self-negation. You are so far removed from yourself that you can't even daydream about anything involving you. Otherwise it breaks the illusion.

It's quite common.

[Mell D'Clute]

Thanks, Alison! Believe it or not it helps to hear that it is common. And thanks to Eritaia as well. I can definitely see I've lost myself completely. It's why I'm prone to depression bouts and wanting to find a life of my own. I've finally decided to try to get some therapy about my issues, as clearly I have no idea how to deal with them.

[Laura]

I am the same way! I started at age 7ish and it was never about me. The characters don't live my life and while they share some qualities, they aren't some kind of manifestation of myself. I don't have low self-esteem (maybe when I was younger but not anymore) and I'm very intuitive and introverted. I am very in touch with myself so I don't think it's about that.

I did always hate suburbia where I was grew up and found it so... boring. The easiest way was to create a new world and new characters, kind of like a movie, just I control it. I prefer it that way. I think if I daydreamed about myself I'd always let myself down.

[Emily]

The name of my main daydream's main character is Jen, and she is definitely not me. I started daydreaming when I was seven, and I would say that when I started I daydreamed as an idealized version of myself. But around when my current main daydream started to form, things changed. Before my current daydream, I daydreamed about similar but different scenarios, but around 13 I managed to stick with one. Jen developed along with the daydream. About when I was fourteen she really became herself. I have other minor daydreams, and all except one have main characters who aren't me.

[Luce]

I DD about fictional characters, it has rarely been about me.

I notice that we have similar daydreams also. and a similar story!

I started when I was younger than six years old, I can't remember exactly when, but I used to imagine adventures about my favourite cartoon characters.

It started like that, and then it got worse during the years. Family has always been an important theme in my DDs, happy families with cool loving parents and happy kids, romantic love stories, dinasties...

We share similar DDs themes: they're not about ourselves and they revolve around family and love.

[Nevv]

All my DD's are about fictional characters and never about me. Mine are usually with characters from movies, anime, books, and TV shows. 

I have similar DD's as you, as well as similar stories!

I think it has a lot to do with dissociation and coping. 

[Luce]

Why do you think it has something to do with dissociation?

Nevv said:

I think it has a lot to do with dissociation and coping. 

[Alison]

I think that daydreaming about the movies/books/games characters probably happens for the same reason people write fanfiction. Everyone understands that fanfiction is not only about continuing the original story with your own imagination - it's also (and imho mostly) about trying to feel things that the character feels through your own imagination - and usually to feel things you're very unlikely to feel in your real life. We mostly do the same, only not in writing, but simply in our mind.

As for self-negating, it might be but it might be not. And if it is, it's not necessarily bad. Recently my therapist told me about a girl who liked dd-ng about sad plots and crying, which was her way of letting out negative emotions. Imagine what would happen if she was making similar plots about herself - she'd probably drown in self-pity. Same goes about violent themes (my kind of thing, actually) - letting out aggression your mind has collected in the way that doesnt harm the real life.

As a former computer games addict, I'd compare DD-ng to a long absorbing computer game, where you can control the major story directions, be a person you want to be, and which makes you feel super-special (even though you know the protagonist could never be real and ofc could never be you). Computer games could be good in fact - so could dd-ng, when in small doses. But the thing is we are never satisfied with small doses and want more and more. Some people can stop - but unlike a computer game (which can be turned off physically), our mind is not that easy to handle, thus we keep playing our own 'game' over and over. But that's another topic already.

[Eretaia]

We're basically saying the exact same thing, Alison. I just need to clarify it a bit. Feeling emotions through somebody else is not a problem in itself. It is how artists and writers function. You're extending yourself through your artistic works or through your written characters and it would be pretty wrong to say that it's not normal to feel empathy with or through these phenomena. But that's not self-negation. That's the exact opposite of self-negation.

MD never creates self-negation. On the contrary, MD is born out of self-negation as a mechanism against it, a tool to temporarily come in touch with yourself through your characters. So, MD is in a way an attempt of something good and therapeutic that ultimately goes wrong because of too much self-inhibition.

Daydreaming is not a problem. Feeling through others is not a problem. Wasting countless hours is not a problem. Addiction is. And addiction is always created when one cannot express feelings directly and instead has to transform that feeling to something else. When you're angry at your boyfriend and want to hit him for cheating on you, hitting a wall instead helps you express that anger. Because by hitting a wall, you yourself are expressing an emotion. You're letting it out. But when you daydream about hitting him, there's no letting out anymore. You're containing it inside you to hurt you and you alone and that's self-inhibition. If on the other side, you use your characters to process and feel pain that you can't feel on your own skin for the time being, that's somewhat positive - but eventually, you'll have to face it yourself. Otherwise, it remains forever negative.

[Alison]

I also need to clarify my words a bit to avoid misunderstandings. I didn't say that feeling through others or daydreaming was a problem (and I didn't interpret any of the posts here in that way). I mostly turned to the self-negation and too far from yourself part. I just want to explain my thoughts then. Yes, DD-ng comes from self-negation. And choosing the particular type of DD-ng in the third person over the first person one is also a consequence of self-negation in most times, but not necessarily. Sometimes, you lose yourself so much that you never involve yourself to your plots - becoz you can't imagine yourself there. Sometimes, you can't even accept that it's you who wants to be a part of this imaginary movie. But in other cases (mostly when you are aware your reasons for dd-ng), it's just about separating the two worlds - the real and the imaginary one. For me it was the first type in the beginning, now it's the second one. It just feels completely different, I'd say less disturbing. I can imagine myself in that plot, but it'd mean too much attachment to the imaginary 'myself' - I don't want that.

Also when I was younger, I spent lots of time DD-ng about myself in some kind of alternative version of my life, but after I turned to the third person one, I at least started separating the two worlds and paying at least a bit of attention to real things. And yeah, probably, the fictional universe also has something to do with removing yourself from the plot. What I'm trying to say here turning to the 3rd person style may be a consequence of self-negation or it may be not. Whereas MDD itself certainly has to do with that.

And yeah, the addiction is the problem, hard to disagree and in fact lots to discuss but that's another subject already :)

[Eretaia]

Agreed. I know you didn't say daydreaming through others was a problem - I was actually expanding and referring to my own statement where I implied that self-negation is a problem - and I just added that daydreaming through others isn't since it doesn't necessarily involve self-negation. So, I was basically reaffirming what you said about that girl coming in touch with the pain through her characters. I just wouldn't call that type of daydreaming a form of self-negation since the fantasy is therapeutic here and, through her characters, she is slowly consolidating pain with the self. But this could also easily backfire.

Anyway, to sum up, while a guy having sexual fantasies about two girls says nothing about self negation (lol), I would argue, however, that level of self-negation/self-inhibition is proportional to the level of addiction. If you're addicted to that fantasy, then we know for sure (from psychodynamic psychology) that there's some sort of self-inhibition going on. If not, you're fine. :)