Can you control your daydreams?
April 4, 2024 7:03 AM Subscribe
It's recently occurred to me that I can't control my daydreams/fantasies, probably because of anxiety brain, and it might not be typical. How about you?
As I was trying to fall asleep the other night, I was trying to imagine something utterly relaxing, like being on a warm beach with a gentle breeze. But, inevitably, when I try to imagine such scenarios, some obstacle gets in the way that I can't control - I start getting sunburned, or someone on the beach interrupts me, etc. etc.
Or, if I'm preparing for public speaking, and I try to place myself in the scene in advance, my mind goes to all the terrible scenarios that could happen and how I would handle them. I literally can't force my mind to imagine everything going smoothly.
And, although I am good at self-care and take care of myself well and have no interest in hurting myself, I have a history of intrusive thoughts where I imagine harming myself, usually after an anxiety spike, which I also have a hard time controlling - like, I can't redirect it into a different kind of activity.
I've had anxiety all my life, and although I've had good success with therapy/medication and have solid coping skills, I'm befuddled by this inability to control my own fantasies, even when I'm trying to use them to relax or feel good. I can't remember a time when I've been able to do this. It's like my brain doesn't feel safe even in the privacy of its own confines.
I'm going to be taking a meditation class soon, and I practice mindfulness on a regular basis, but I'm wondering if anyone else experiences this and whether you've found useful strategies for combating it.
As I was trying to fall asleep the other night, I was trying to imagine something utterly relaxing, like being on a warm beach with a gentle breeze. But, inevitably, when I try to imagine such scenarios, some obstacle gets in the way that I can't control - I start getting sunburned, or someone on the beach interrupts me, etc. etc.
Or, if I'm preparing for public speaking, and I try to place myself in the scene in advance, my mind goes to all the terrible scenarios that could happen and how I would handle them. I literally can't force my mind to imagine everything going smoothly.
And, although I am good at self-care and take care of myself well and have no interest in hurting myself, I have a history of intrusive thoughts where I imagine harming myself, usually after an anxiety spike, which I also have a hard time controlling - like, I can't redirect it into a different kind of activity.
I've had anxiety all my life, and although I've had good success with therapy/medication and have solid coping skills, I'm befuddled by this inability to control my own fantasies, even when I'm trying to use them to relax or feel good. I can't remember a time when I've been able to do this. It's like my brain doesn't feel safe even in the privacy of its own confines.
I'm going to be taking a meditation class soon, and I practice mindfulness on a regular basis, but I'm wondering if anyone else experiences this and whether you've found useful strategies for combating it.
I do think these are all examples of intrusive thoughts.
Are you able to visualize mundane tasks or navigation, without intrusion? Like, can you visualize the route and actions to go take a shower starting from your kitchen sink, or go get your mail or go to the grocery store?
Have you ever tried a guided visualization? Is it different with eyes closed versus watching the visual on that video?
I don't know if it helps you, but I have a little rule-setting saying before I do my falling-asleep visualizations: "Budget is infinite, safety is assured, physics are just a suggestion." This is my statement of control, and also pre-denying any nagging worries that, for example, sleeping in zero-G without a full medical exam first might be unwise.
I think it's worth collecting more data on how and when this happens, so you can discuss it with somebody. People certainly experience all kinds of Monkey Mind when first learning to meditate, and learning to redirect is a big part of that, but if you can't do any redirection at all you may need to pursue some additional answers and support as you're getting into some gray areas of obsessive/compulsive patterns and/or neurological issues you may want to investigate.
90% of the time, yes, I am entirely in control of my visualization. That 10% is pretty distinctly different in quality to me, and is often when I can't get a phrase or name out of my mind, or things just zoom off into grim territory, and these are quite often tied (sometimes after the fact) to incoming migraine, being unusually dysregulated for unknown or known reasons, or getting sick. It doesn't feel like normal brain-wandering to me.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:37 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]
Are you able to visualize mundane tasks or navigation, without intrusion? Like, can you visualize the route and actions to go take a shower starting from your kitchen sink, or go get your mail or go to the grocery store?
Have you ever tried a guided visualization? Is it different with eyes closed versus watching the visual on that video?
I don't know if it helps you, but I have a little rule-setting saying before I do my falling-asleep visualizations: "Budget is infinite, safety is assured, physics are just a suggestion." This is my statement of control, and also pre-denying any nagging worries that, for example, sleeping in zero-G without a full medical exam first might be unwise.
I think it's worth collecting more data on how and when this happens, so you can discuss it with somebody. People certainly experience all kinds of Monkey Mind when first learning to meditate, and learning to redirect is a big part of that, but if you can't do any redirection at all you may need to pursue some additional answers and support as you're getting into some gray areas of obsessive/compulsive patterns and/or neurological issues you may want to investigate.
90% of the time, yes, I am entirely in control of my visualization. That 10% is pretty distinctly different in quality to me, and is often when I can't get a phrase or name out of my mind, or things just zoom off into grim territory, and these are quite often tied (sometimes after the fact) to incoming migraine, being unusually dysregulated for unknown or known reasons, or getting sick. It doesn't feel like normal brain-wandering to me.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:37 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]
I'm a lucid dreamer, which means I can often (not always) control my dreams -- although there is some part of me that resists that control, so in many dreams I'm having to fight for that control (if I want to fly, maybe I keep getting my feet caught in power lines that try to stop me from flying freely).
One thing I found that helps me in the dreaming state is to have a way to reflexively check if I'm dreaming or not. If I know that I'm dreaming, I can be ... ummm ... more rambunctious in fighting off the part of me that doesn't want to have fun, because I know it's not real and I'm not going to face any consequences for it. For me, it's checking text -- in a dreamstate text will never say the same thing twice, so if I read something, look away, and now it's different, then I'm dreaming.
For waking/semi-waking visualization, I've found it oddly relaxing to work on recursively hard problems. For example, how would I go about trying to terraform a lifeless world with a CO2 atmosphere -- it's the kind of problem where there's always another issue to think about fixing, but I'm sufficiently unskilled at the core technologies that I won't get all side-tracked about which specific types of lichen would be best, I only go "hmm, definitely need to distribute lichens. Maybe airborne dispersal? Wait, what about grasses? Some grasses don't need much dirt and would be OK with just rocks.... but then I'm going to need something to break down cellulose or all the dead grass will just pile up..." I have used this approach to fall asleep as well.
Being in a problem-solving mode, for me, redirects the tendency for distracting thoughts as I'm too busy wrangling intricate problems to care about what "non-fun Me" wants to think about.
posted by aramaic at 7:39 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]
One thing I found that helps me in the dreaming state is to have a way to reflexively check if I'm dreaming or not. If I know that I'm dreaming, I can be ... ummm ... more rambunctious in fighting off the part of me that doesn't want to have fun, because I know it's not real and I'm not going to face any consequences for it. For me, it's checking text -- in a dreamstate text will never say the same thing twice, so if I read something, look away, and now it's different, then I'm dreaming.
For waking/semi-waking visualization, I've found it oddly relaxing to work on recursively hard problems. For example, how would I go about trying to terraform a lifeless world with a CO2 atmosphere -- it's the kind of problem where there's always another issue to think about fixing, but I'm sufficiently unskilled at the core technologies that I won't get all side-tracked about which specific types of lichen would be best, I only go "hmm, definitely need to distribute lichens. Maybe airborne dispersal? Wait, what about grasses? Some grasses don't need much dirt and would be OK with just rocks.... but then I'm going to need something to break down cellulose or all the dead grass will just pile up..." I have used this approach to fall asleep as well.
Being in a problem-solving mode, for me, redirects the tendency for distracting thoughts as I'm too busy wrangling intricate problems to care about what "non-fun Me" wants to think about.
posted by aramaic at 7:39 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]
I have a longstanding problem with intrusive thoughts & memories. My therapist recommended that I keep a rubber band on my wrist and snap it whenever I have one of these intrusive thoughts. I also came up with another method: I have an app on my phone that's a tally counter. I keep count of these intrusive thoughts, under the theory that simply keeping count can help reduce the frequency. Finally, I have a mantra that I recite to myself when I have one of these "intrusion events": "It's only a thought" (or, "It's only a memory").
I've been doing this for a few weeks, and I think it's working, though it's hardly been a miracle cure.
Note that on a previous AskMeFi question that I posted, people were dubious about the tally counter and the rubber band. Your mileage may vary, etc.
posted by akk2014 at 8:23 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]
I've been doing this for a few weeks, and I think it's working, though it's hardly been a miracle cure.
Note that on a previous AskMeFi question that I posted, people were dubious about the tally counter and the rubber band. Your mileage may vary, etc.
posted by akk2014 at 8:23 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]
No, I mostly can't. I chalk this up to a combination of the anxiety and also my general poor visualization skills - like, I'm never truly visualizing anything, so since my imagination is pretty fuzzy to begin with maybe it's easier for it to go off track.
I mostly just take this in stride and use it as a chance to practice the part of mindfulness that's about nonjudgmentally noticing that my brain has gone off on an anxiety tangent again and kindly but firmly going, nope, let's try that again, and returning to whatever I was trying to focus on in the first place. But it does mean that I tend to prefer the kinds of meditation and relaxation that are focused on specific bodily sensations vs. telling myself a story or picturing something. I will say that when I am keeping a consistent practice I can go longer before the brain does its darting-off-in-a-bad-direction thing, and it's easier to bring it back in.
posted by Stacey at 8:30 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]
I mostly just take this in stride and use it as a chance to practice the part of mindfulness that's about nonjudgmentally noticing that my brain has gone off on an anxiety tangent again and kindly but firmly going, nope, let's try that again, and returning to whatever I was trying to focus on in the first place. But it does mean that I tend to prefer the kinds of meditation and relaxation that are focused on specific bodily sensations vs. telling myself a story or picturing something. I will say that when I am keeping a consistent practice I can go longer before the brain does its darting-off-in-a-bad-direction thing, and it's easier to bring it back in.
posted by Stacey at 8:30 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]
I don't feel like I have a lot of control of my daydreams/mind-wanderings. Most of the time they're just free-floating and pleasant or at least not particularly troublesome. However, when my anxious brain starts churning out unpleasant scenarios I do have some success with thought-stopping... literally saying firmly "STOP", then redirecting my thoughts to a different topic.
I have a harder time at night when I can't shut my brain off to sleep, as it likes to jump around from one unpleasant topic to another. Lately I've been selecting a 30 minute video (usually stand-up comedy on YouTube) and letting that play quietly while I fall asleep. It's been working very well. You can also find guided meditations and "sleep stories" to use for a similar purpose.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 9:16 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]
I have a harder time at night when I can't shut my brain off to sleep, as it likes to jump around from one unpleasant topic to another. Lately I've been selecting a 30 minute video (usually stand-up comedy on YouTube) and letting that play quietly while I fall asleep. It's been working very well. You can also find guided meditations and "sleep stories" to use for a similar purpose.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 9:16 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]
I can do “focus on the breath” or body scan meditations just fine, even unguided, but I can’t do unguided visualization without going off into the bad things that could happen, if the world were patterned on my anxiety, but they totally wouldn’t in the world as it actually exists.
However, I can tell myself fictional stories in my head, including visuals, without going off the rails.
posted by expialidocious at 9:19 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]
However, I can tell myself fictional stories in my head, including visuals, without going off the rails.
posted by expialidocious at 9:19 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]
Do you know the James Thurber story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty about a man who makes himself a mini-protagonist in various daydreams? Maybe it's a crush on someone. Or standing up to an annoying boss or neighbor. I regularly do this when anxious thoughts enter my mind and I want to think about something else. I might make up a scenario about a stranger I see and somehow involve myself with. It's harmless and works better for me than meditation. I keep the daydreams "almost" achievable--no billion dollar lottery winnings, mansions, or famous heartthrobs, just the best version of myself in a daydream scenario + musical and art talents I don't have that surprise my daydream people and add to my self-imagined mystique. After I saw The Queen's Gambit I imagined playing chess incredibly well with a local chess champ and surprising onlookers. (I barely play chess at all.)
When I was an anxious child, I imagined living in a very modest house a few streets away, nothing fancy but much nicer than our crowded, worn apartment. I regularly furnished the whole house in my head like a dollhouse. As a no longer very anxious person, I sometimes still "decorate" places in my head where I might like to live. Going out walking regularly is a way to get myself in Walter Mitty mode. I rarely look at my phone in public places or on my walks. I much prefer my Walter Mitty alter ego to my phone. I study people in restaurants, airports, everywhere as much as I can without being creepy about it. Then I put them in my imaginary plays. I have vanquished much anxious rumination while in Walter Mitty mode. Do others on Mefi do this regularly? I'm feeling relaxed just typing this!
As I answer your question, I wonder if children now have as many hours of imaginative play I had as a child. I think my Walter Mitty daydreams started there and have been a comfort to me for decades. Every now and then, my daydream success and real life success line up!
posted by Elsie at 10:25 AM on April 4 [4 favorites]
When I was an anxious child, I imagined living in a very modest house a few streets away, nothing fancy but much nicer than our crowded, worn apartment. I regularly furnished the whole house in my head like a dollhouse. As a no longer very anxious person, I sometimes still "decorate" places in my head where I might like to live. Going out walking regularly is a way to get myself in Walter Mitty mode. I rarely look at my phone in public places or on my walks. I much prefer my Walter Mitty alter ego to my phone. I study people in restaurants, airports, everywhere as much as I can without being creepy about it. Then I put them in my imaginary plays. I have vanquished much anxious rumination while in Walter Mitty mode. Do others on Mefi do this regularly? I'm feeling relaxed just typing this!
As I answer your question, I wonder if children now have as many hours of imaginative play I had as a child. I think my Walter Mitty daydreams started there and have been a comfort to me for decades. Every now and then, my daydream success and real life success line up!
posted by Elsie at 10:25 AM on April 4 [4 favorites]
Elsie, I do the same thing as you, as a way of coping with stress. We both have great imaginations! Ms. Toad, yes I have total control of my day dreams and can rewind and change it whenever I want.
posted by SyraCarol at 11:35 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]
posted by SyraCarol at 11:35 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]
You may find that structuring your fantasies work better than free form daydreams. For example, if you want to daydream that you are lying on a beach, start listing all the good things on the beach systematically. 1. Bottle of good smelling sun tan lotion. 2. Nice soft towel, actually big enough to lie on. 3. Soft, fine sand cushioning me, under the towel. 4. Mild sun, from a blue sky with pretty fleecy clouds. 5. Picnic basket with good things to eat.... etc. The process of making a list can be structured enough that the counting may stop the anxiety thoughts from having a chance to fully form.
A second thing you can try is to respond to each intrusive thought with a redirect that isn't a a direct contradiction.
You: "I am lying on a nice beach in the sun and..."
Anxiety hijack: *horrible sun burn will occur, red with blisters!!
You: "... which is why I have this wonderful big beach umbrella, and a bottle of nice smelling suntan lotio...."
Anxiety hijack: *It spills! It's greasy! Horrible!
You: "Which is why I have a hot wet towel to wipe it off if I don't like it..."
*Anxiety brain *terrorists come ashore from a jet ski!!!
You: "Which is why I have this Kalashnikov in my picnic basket...
This is much more effective than:
You: "I am lying on a nice beach in the sun and..."
Anxiety hijack: *horrible sun burn will occur, red with blisters!!
You: No, it doesn't.
Anxiety hijack. * sunburn that really, hurts!
You: "No sunburn!
Anxiety hijack: *Yes sunburn!!
The trick to the second technique is never to contradict the anxiety thought but to provide a mollifying one. You just keep going on progressing from each distressing though to another thought that makes just as much sense and mitigates it. Flat out contradictions can lead to your thoughts sounding like an argument with a two year old.
A third thing you can try when your brain insists on throwing up bad images is to have sadistic fantasies. If your darn brain insists on giving you a sunburn, imagine that the person interrupting you gets one too, and make them be the person who least deserves your compassion. If you can't help having nasty thoughts, redirect them towards suitable victims. There is nothing wrong with idly dreaming such entertaining things as all the bullies from your junior high school being on a beach getting sunburns, while imagining you are safely at home nowhere in the vicinity.
When you are trying to change mental states, you usually need to do it by degrees. Listening to upbeat music when you are feeling weepy will probably make the music feel annoying and jarring and delusional. When you are trying to change your mood you start with music you can attune to - sad and slow, but not actually weepy, and try to attune to that, and then progress to more and more cheerful music with your play list gradually getting towards optimistic songs.
It's the same with your fantasies. If you are frantic and miserable, you can try to start with a fantasy of being frantic and miserable and slowly adding solace and good things. If you can't suspend disbelief enough to create a fantasy of someone loving you, and the first attempt only makes you scoff, try a fantasy of someone loving a group of people you are included in. If you can't imagine a fantasy of being competent and respected, try a fantasy of imaginary people being absurdly incompetent.
These techniques work for me and usually I don't have much problem with intrusive thoughts.
posted by Jane the Brown at 3:33 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]
A second thing you can try is to respond to each intrusive thought with a redirect that isn't a a direct contradiction.
You: "I am lying on a nice beach in the sun and..."
Anxiety hijack: *horrible sun burn will occur, red with blisters!!
You: "... which is why I have this wonderful big beach umbrella, and a bottle of nice smelling suntan lotio...."
Anxiety hijack: *It spills! It's greasy! Horrible!
You: "Which is why I have a hot wet towel to wipe it off if I don't like it..."
*Anxiety brain *terrorists come ashore from a jet ski!!!
You: "Which is why I have this Kalashnikov in my picnic basket...
This is much more effective than:
You: "I am lying on a nice beach in the sun and..."
Anxiety hijack: *horrible sun burn will occur, red with blisters!!
You: No, it doesn't.
Anxiety hijack. * sunburn that really, hurts!
You: "No sunburn!
Anxiety hijack: *Yes sunburn!!
The trick to the second technique is never to contradict the anxiety thought but to provide a mollifying one. You just keep going on progressing from each distressing though to another thought that makes just as much sense and mitigates it. Flat out contradictions can lead to your thoughts sounding like an argument with a two year old.
A third thing you can try when your brain insists on throwing up bad images is to have sadistic fantasies. If your darn brain insists on giving you a sunburn, imagine that the person interrupting you gets one too, and make them be the person who least deserves your compassion. If you can't help having nasty thoughts, redirect them towards suitable victims. There is nothing wrong with idly dreaming such entertaining things as all the bullies from your junior high school being on a beach getting sunburns, while imagining you are safely at home nowhere in the vicinity.
When you are trying to change mental states, you usually need to do it by degrees. Listening to upbeat music when you are feeling weepy will probably make the music feel annoying and jarring and delusional. When you are trying to change your mood you start with music you can attune to - sad and slow, but not actually weepy, and try to attune to that, and then progress to more and more cheerful music with your play list gradually getting towards optimistic songs.
It's the same with your fantasies. If you are frantic and miserable, you can try to start with a fantasy of being frantic and miserable and slowly adding solace and good things. If you can't suspend disbelief enough to create a fantasy of someone loving you, and the first attempt only makes you scoff, try a fantasy of someone loving a group of people you are included in. If you can't imagine a fantasy of being competent and respected, try a fantasy of imaginary people being absurdly incompetent.
These techniques work for me and usually I don't have much problem with intrusive thoughts.
posted by Jane the Brown at 3:33 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]
I used to have this issue but mindfulness meditation has given me an enormous amount of practice in redirecting my mind back from whatever weeds it’s wandered off into. It’s reflexive now.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:34 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:34 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]
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As for what you are experiencing, the British TV show Red Dwarf has an episode where the characters enter a video game where you can have anything you can imagine, and the character Arnold Rimmer starts strong but later only imagines terrible things (his dream girl gives birth to 10 screaming kids, has to sell his fancy car, etc) and it keeps getting worse until they all have to leave the game.
So also common.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:13 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]