Pretty frequently my imagination will wander and then I’ll start thinking of a game or show that I like and I’ll imagine new story plot points and stuff. It’s very visual and vivid to the point where I complete forget I exist in real life. While I’m doing this, without thinking, I start jumping, flapping my hands, and repeated flopping myself onto furniture. I only get brought back into reality because I eventually exhaust myself by jumping around too much.
I’ve always hid this behavior, but I’ve been caught a few times and whoever catches me is always like “What are you even doing? Are you okay?” So I feel like what I do is probably really weird to most people. I am Autistic, but idk if it’s because of that or if I’m just weird cause I haven’t heard of anyone else doing it. I’m curious if anyone else does this or something similar.
I have aphantasia. I clinically have no imagination. so yeah, that sucks.
I haven’t always had it. I USED to be a picture thinker, but not anymore.
I didn’t know you could develop aphantasia.
Mine is a result of a abi. I lost a lot of brain function. Which includes imagination. Though I don’t know if it’s called aphantasia if you lose imagination because of of an abi. But either way, I lost it :(
Sounds to me like you have maladaptive daydreaming disorder, welcome to the club.
I have stories lines spanning decades of my life. When I used to watch TV, I would leave in the middle of movie or show to do what my family lovely called “vovo”, names after the sound I used to make as kid, of explosions and stuff
God, there is so much could tell you. Like the fact that for the longest time I didn’t identity with my own face, how my ADHD plays into this. How my imagination isn’t just stories lines but Ted talks and game play and therapy and so much more. That while my sister has it, I didn’t know until recently, that she doesn’t do the pacing and jumping you and I do. That I can’t watch, most of time, live action stuff with real people and mostly watch animation and cartoons.
I once caught myself in the mirror while daydreaming and my brain couldn’t process it. I was a spectators in this world, my daydream where the real thing.
Its not as intense as this for everyone, some people are immersive daydreaming, where the daydreaming is just a hobby and not an addiction for them.
There is writers blocks, avoiding mirrors, plenty of mdds suffered child abuse. There are studies on mdd you can find. People use music. You steal ideas from shows you watched. You play scenes for days to get it just right. You feet hurt but push through cuz you are so energised and inspired.
There is a subreddit r/maladaptive daydreaming and discord server and Facebook group.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
I can get very deep into stories and other stuff in my head. I really enjoy it. It can get obsessive, and I used to have less control over it when I was younger and it frequently turned very dark and I made myself sad. Now I’m a happy daydreamer.
Disclaimer of things doctors tell me: adhd, depression/anxiety, BPD(i sorta disagree now) suspected autism, waiting on an eval.
I can relate to some extent. I tend to daydream a lot and get really sucked into the world or the lore or even imagining a specific scene from a story. So much so that I’d zone into it and just pace around the apartment. That and just doing stimmy stuff while pacing.
I also sort of run through dialogue in my head, and sometimes that “leaks” as me verbally saying a line a character would say, or repeating it with an altered tone, or doing a couple parts of a conversation.
When I worked at a gas station I got jumpscared a few times by coworkers or customers who came in when the door beeper was broken or I was doing dishes, and they seemed fairly creeped out, but I also might’ve just been panicking at being seen or heard so… I dunno.
I’ve heard the term maladaptive daydreaming used before, but I don’t think it’s an officially recognized term or anything. I feel like there was a more neutral term that meant “intense daydreaming” but I forget what it was >.<
Your experience seems pretty similar to mine. There’s been times where I’m so into it it’s hard to tell if I just spoke something I was thinking out loud, but I don’t think I actually have. Probs is some sort of daydreaming, but I don’t want to call it maladaptive cause I enjoy it so much.
You are thing of immersive daydreaming. When daydreaming doesn’t disturbe your life. There is a subreddit for it if you wanna find people
There is also a subreddit(and discord server) for Maladaptive daydreaming if you wanna check out that too.
In my head my name’s up there with Spielberg. I always wanted to write stories, but I never had the energy or the focus to get them written, let alone made into feature films.
It’s kinda crazy to imagine everyone has at least one or two good stories in them that you would enjoy watching as a film. I have several, and I have paid for writing software, but I refuse to use AI at any point — I feel like that would make it easier, have it generate an outline and I build upon that or something, but I hate the idea of it and that people are doing it, and I feel like it would forever taint my work, even if I replaced every word — and on my own, I just don’t have the energy to write more than a few pages. Not “at a time,” but I mean like, I get that far into a story and I run out of steam. Even if there are better parts ahead.
I think about things like the ending of Six Feet Under (HBO series about a family running a funeral home) and how it made me feel, both the first time, and then the second time watching with my wife, and how it made her feel (she’s way more emotional than I am) (and for context, this show is widely considered to have the best ending of any TV show, ever, and for damn good reason), and how I probably have a couple story beats that could make others feel that way. If you know, you know.
But no, I don’t jump around and stuff, I just do it to amuse myself when I’m bored.
I made entire story like and games in my head. None of it’s good of course. I accept that those things are for my enjoyment. I used to right mostly original stories but since have jumped to exclusive fanfiction with OCs.
