Showing daydreams to others?

[Placidia]

I am an extreme newbie; seriously, I just joined.  But I have a question that I've been wondering about literally for years that I'm hoping someone can help me with.  I have been daydreaming since I was five or six years old (I'm in my twenties now), and in all that time, I have never been able to tell another person about the contents of a daydream while I'm still dreaming it.  (I have very rarely told people about daydreams from the past that I don't care about anymore, but even that is quite unusual.)

 

For many years now, I have had a very strong belief that if I could bring myself to write down my current daydream in full, and then show it to another person (or preferably several other people), my need to daydream will cease.  Almost certainly, the belief that it would cease entirely is unrealistic.  On the other hand, I do wonder if it might help. 

 

Does anybody else have the same thing?  Did you end up writing it down and showing it to someone?  And if you did, what was the result? 

 

I desperately want to write them down, but I'm also afraid of it.  These are like my babies, and the thought of handing them to someone else is disconcerting.  I am afraid that whoever I show them to won't understand their importance.  If anyone has any experience or advice with this, I'd really appreciate it.

[Ashley N.]

Hi!

 

  Hm... For me, writing a daydream down wouldn't necessarily lessen the amount of daydreams I have. However, art for me-in general- is almost grounding. My mind's as close to quiet as it gets, whenever I write/draw/etc. That could partially be due to me being an art/art history major though. Lol! I think one benefit of writing it down, would at least be the fact that you're getting the ideas down on paper. Sometimes, I find getting the idea out physically can almost lift a weight off one's chest.

 

As for sharing your daydreams, since they are such a personal thing, make sure to only show them to people you are really comfortable with. I share a lot of my art, but there's some ideas that I keep very close to my chest or feel no need to share with others. It just depends. :)

[Kirsty Amhert]

I feel the same about it, and have thought about it a lot.

Honestly I don't think it would help me. Last time I tried that I wound up stressing too much over the writing, and every time I went back into my daydream it felt heavy, and left a bad taste in my mouth. Then I realized that the thought of anyone just reading it and not understanding it really, really bothered me. 

[Laila]

I love sharing my daydreams with my internet friends and have done so in my blog here. You know that feeling you get after watching an exciting movie, and you're dying to tell someone about it? That's how I feel when I get a new daydream started. I don't always rush to the occasion, but the moment someone is interested and wants to hear about it, I'm pretty eager to spill everything. Well, I keep some ideas private, but most of them can be shared. I wouldn't even mind role-playing my characters or letting someone else use them. Don't get me wrong, I feel like they're my precious babies too. But they're totally unique in my mind. No one else can imagine them the same way, so I wouldn't exactly feel like anyone is "taking" them.

 

Like Ashley, writing down my daydreams doesn't affect my daydreaming either. I usually continue DDing about it until I become naturally bored. And I agree with her advice to share your DDs with people whom you are comfortable with. For me, that would be everyone on this site haha.

 

And welcome! :3

[Placidia]

I'm glad to hear that somebody has the same thing with this. 

 

And yeah, I've also tried writing them down several times in the past and not had much luck with it.  It's stressful for me also, because there are some parts that are so emotionally intense for me, and putting them down in writing makes them feel uncomfortably real.  I'm trying again now and having some better luck, but it's very slow going.  I'm trying to figure out who I even could show it to who would be liable to treat the situation respectfully.

Kirsty Amhert said:

I feel the same about it, and have thought about it a lot.

Honestly I don't think it would help me. Last time I tried that I wound up stressing too much over the writing, and every time I went back into my daydream it felt heavy, and left a bad taste in my mouth. Then I realized that the thought of anyone just reading it and not understanding it really, really bothered me. 

[Palejade]

I've tried to write them down but i quit quickly because i just can get it down as fast as my mind is going, it takes too long to write the scenes. 

I honestly don't think thats going to change much in terms of stopping them. 

 

Drawing is the way i can really make my mind go quite. It's just a hobby, but when i do, my hands are moving to draw the picture and my mind is like... empty. It's really soothing actually. You might want to try it, even if you aren't a good artist, it all comes with practice. Unlike writing, there's no pressure to think about what's coming next or what word to use, it just flows out.

I've also found that is i go on a treadmill or an elipitic trainer or a bicycle in a gym for like an hour with music, i get all dreamed out and run short of ideas. (hard to imagine right? i can go for hours in my room). It satisfies the urges, like running a long way to get rid of a burst of energy, and then im fine to go on with the day. You have to time it though, and keep going when you start to get bored, if you just get off when you lose interest in the dream, it won't have the same effect. I do this once a day whenever i travel or can't get time in my room alone to dream. It leaves me pretty normal for most of the rest of the day. This might help you if you want to try it, and you can get into shape while you do it. 

 

[michael clarke]

ive written several down as short stories. the reaction is usually a plus and a minus. my writting is intence and the subject matter never typical. so it depends who you show i guess. my mother had a terrible reaction to one i wrote in which the main character ends up killing himself with the last line. she was afraid for me and didnt see that i had just done a twist on romeo and juliette.

 

what you describe to me i liken to my painting. if im working on a painting i hate to show it. it bothers me intensely whether the viewer has a possitive or negative reaction. this is because their oppinion gets added to my own. even if they say nothing i still find myself viewing it through their eyes and this gives me a new perspective on my painting. which changes it. changes where i was going with it. sometimes after some nosey person has helped themselves to a peek i can no longer work on it again.

 

so my advice to you is to share with people the dreams you are stuck on. only let in a new perspective when you need one to revitalize your dream. if its humming along without any looky lous don't share.

[1nmiirc70dne4]

i would write my daydreams down except the jump around from one to the other to often. if i did right it down i would probably end up tearing it to shreds...(you'll understand more if you read my disscussion 'love but hate') and i do understand the importance thing. like when my mom askes "whats so important about daydreaming?" i litterally want to scream "Dont you understand!? This is my life! i need them! what will they do without me to give life to them!?"

now that you mention the baby thing it totally makes since to me...its like you cant leave them because you love them and you need to breath life into them...your charcters...it would be like if you left them they would die because they have no one to make them move, talk, fall in love, ect. then you would also be hart broken becaues it like "what would you do without your babies?" to me showing them to someone is a big no no. to me there my charcters and no one needs to get into my buisness with them.

[Truthful Alibi]

I'm like you - I have only ever told 1 person about my DDs when I was very young. She goes to the same secondary school as me but I hardly ever see her, and she's probably forgotten, so I don't think it really matters. In Year5, I told my ex boyfriend (he was just a friend at the time) why I walked round the playground. Well, I just told him (I'm gonna regret posting this) that it was my NRW (no reason walk). Not the most creative name ever, but it made him shut up.

My dad recently asked me if I walked round the playground by myself anymore and I told him no, I stopped ages ago in Year 5. *rolleyes*

When I was very young, I based my DDs off a computer game I used to play (which is also available on the DS) which I think was called Horsez. I wrote down some of my DD on paper, although my writing was (and is) so messy no one would be able to read it anyway, lol. When I was that age, I didn't actually realise that playing games by myself/in my head was strange... and for a 5 year old, it probably wasn't.  If anyone knows the game and is interested in hearing my story, message me. I can remember parts of it... including a very lame joke, which I thought was funny at the time.

I wouldn't write my DDs down and show them to anyone now, though. It would be worse than filming myself doing stuff I probably shouldn't write about here, secretly letting my headteacher watch it, then going to see him, asking if he liked it because he could see the rest on YouTube if he was interested...

And keep in mind that I am someone who is scared if a teacher takes a note away from me that only has a picture of a guy wearing a hat and my friend's name on it...

So, telling someone about my DDs would be worse than that. I think I'll wait until MD is as well known as Asperger's Syndrome and ADHD and then reveal it to people... or let someone tell me they think I have it.

I know how you feel when you say they are like your babies and people won't understand their importance. To everyone else, daydreaming is something you do when you want to go out with someone you fancy or in a boring class  at school. If they couldn't daydream, it wouldn't be a great loss to them. It would only be like saying that they had to lose 21 seconds of sleep a night or something. Yeah, they'll lose a bit of time doing something, but they don't really care about it. For us, it would be like saying we could only eat a little bit of food once every week.

I picked '21 seconds' because 21 is a better number than 20.

 

Sorry, but I have no experience with this whatsoever, I am too much of a coward to have experience. The only advice I have is don't tell people unless you want to/need to/have to, tell a person you can trust. Sorry for not much advice but if I tried to gve you more I couldn't and if I could it would probably be bad advice. Sorry.

[Placidia]

Don't be sorry!  I think everything you said is just fine.  And it is helpful to me to know that other people have the same ways of relating to their daydreams as I do. 

 

And as a side note, I agree with you that 21 is a much better number than 20.  21 is one of my all-time favorite numbers.  :)

Truthful Alibi said:

I'm like you - I have only ever told 1 person about my DDs when I was very young. She goes to the same secondary school as me but I hardly ever see her, and she's probably forgotten, so I don't think it really matters. In Year5, I told my ex boyfriend (he was just a friend at the time) why I walked round the playground. Well, I just told him (I'm gonna regret posting this) that it was my NRW (no reason walk). Not the most creative name ever, but it made him shut up.

My dad recently asked me if I walked round the playground by myself anymore and I told him no, I stopped ages ago in Year 5. *rolleyes*

When I was very young, I based my DDs off a computer game I used to play (which is also available on the DS) which I think was called Horsez. I wrote down some of my DD on paper, although my writing was (and is) so messy no one would be able to read it anyway, lol. When I was that age, I didn't actually realise that playing games by myself/in my head was strange... and for a 5 year old, it probably wasn't.  If anyone knows the game and is interested in hearing my story, message me. I can remember parts of it... including a very lame joke, which I thought was funny at the time.

I wouldn't write my DDs down and show them to anyone now, though. It would be worse than filming myself doing stuff I probably shouldn't write about here, secretly letting my headteacher watch it, then going to see him, asking if he liked it because he could see the rest on YouTube if he was interested...

And keep in mind that I am someone who is scared if a teacher takes a note away from me that only has a picture of a guy wearing a hat and my friend's name on it...

So, telling someone about my DDs would be worse than that. I think I'll wait until MD is as well known as Asperger's Syndrome and ADHD and then reveal it to people... or let someone tell me they think I have it.

I know how you feel when you say they are like your babies and people won't understand their importance. To everyone else, daydreaming is something you do when you want to go out with someone you fancy or in a boring class  at school. If they couldn't daydream, it wouldn't be a great loss to them. It would only be like saying that they had to lose 21 seconds of sleep a night or something. Yeah, they'll lose a bit of time doing something, but they don't really care about it. For us, it would be like saying we could only eat a little bit of food once every week.

I picked '21 seconds' because 21 is a better number than 20.

 

Sorry, but I have no experience with this whatsoever, I am too much of a coward to have experience. The only advice I have is don't tell people unless you want to/need to/have to, tell a person you can trust. Sorry for not much advice but if I tried to gve you more I couldn't and if I could it would probably be bad advice. Sorry.