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Default Oct 30, 2019 at 03:17 AM
  #1
I am very introverted and I know that daydreaming is important to us as it's our way (or one of our ways) of working things out, digesting things and coming up with solutions to problems. It does work most of the time because the daydreams are relevant and useful (or if they aren't then they are at least enjoyable). But the rest of them are just plain useless. I have a lot of fake conversations with people, both that I know and some made up, both offline and online. Most of these conversations are useful because they working on the problem or whatever, but some are talking about meaningless things that happened in the past.

Yes I find myself talking to people about random things from the past, things that have no meaning, things I wouldn't bother telling them about physically because they wouldn't care. I just remember stupid things and start having a conversation in my head. Obviously this is a waste of time and I find myself doing it while I'm doing other things This means I usually do it wrong and make a mess of things.

I need to find a way of stopping those types of daydreams, and the only way to do that seems to be with mindfulness. I need to notice when a daydream starts and decide whether it's useful or useless. If it's useless then stop it, if it's useful then decide if I can be doing it right now or if I should pause until I'm finished doing something. If I'm likely to forget then write it down. During the evenings I'm tired and don't have the energy to do things so that would be the perfect time to daydream. I had this thought yesterday afternoon and for the following hour I was mindful but then slipped back to old ways. So the problem is noticing before it's too late. This morning while I was getting ready I made a huge mess of something because I was having a useless daydream. This made the task take longer.

I'm hoping by writing this out it will act as a prompt, maybe get it into my brain better. I really must start being mindful and organised. Save the useful/fun daydreams for a more appropriate time and completely "delete" the useless ones. This is something I'll be working on now, probably a main priority since it will make other things easier.

I need to make it a habit. I will come back to this thread tomorrow or Friday to keep track of how it's going. And then I'll have to work on the other thoughts that aren't really daydreams, and the songs that get stuck in my head. I just need to get my mind organised, that way it works better, I know this because I feel much better and less stressed when I can just concentrate on a task and postpone any daydreams until later.
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Default Oct 30, 2019 at 11:08 AM
  #2
Daydreaming and fantasy and imagination sometimes act as coping skills.At least for me they kept me sane and I survived horrific abuse.I Do not know which ones are useful and which ones are stupid.But it worked.I used to lay on the bed and imagine and daydream the opposite of what was happening in the reality. After sometime I felt ok and knew it was time to stop and come back to reality.I never consider it as a waste of time because it was much needed for me.
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Smile Oct 30, 2019 at 03:05 PM
  #3
I tend to have a lot of this sort of thing going on in my head as well. One thing that has helped me is, as soon as I realize I'm in the midst of a conversation or story in my head, I smile & chuckle to myself & perhaps shake my head (gently) from side-to-side in kind-of a show of irony, I guess you might say. Sometimes I'll also say to myself something such as: "What is the point of that?" Then I'll simply let it go. Making light of the situation, in a humorous sort of way, is much more helpful, to me at least, than getting mad at myself & trying to make my poor brain do what I want it to do.

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Default Nov 01, 2019 at 01:12 PM
  #4
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mendingmysoul View Post
Daydreaming and fantasy and imagination sometimes act as coping skills.At least for me they kept me sane and I survived horrific abuse.I Do not know which ones are useful and which ones are stupid.But it worked.I used to lay on the bed and imagine and daydream the opposite of what was happening in the reality. After sometime I felt ok and knew it was time to stop and come back to reality.I never consider it as a waste of time because it was much needed for me.
I don't feel like it's a waste of time either, unless they are really pointless conversations about rubbish and there's something I need to be doing and concentrating on. People seem to think daydreaming is lazy, but it doesn't have to be.

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Originally Posted by Skeezyks View Post
I tend to have a lot of this sort of thing going on in my head as well. One thing that has helped me is, as soon as I realize I'm in the midst of a conversation or story in my head, I smile & chuckle to myself & perhaps shake my head (gently) from side-to-side in kind-of a show of irony, I guess you might say. Sometimes I'll also say to myself something such as: "What is the point of that?" Then I'll simply let it go. Making light of the situation, in a humorous sort of way, is much more helpful, to me at least, than getting mad at myself & trying to make my poor brain do what I want it to do.
Years ago I tried saying "stop" when I was having a "waste of time" daydream, but I was worried I might start saying that when I was out or with other people, and that would be embarrassing. I've been trying to let them go more gently now. Pushing them away has never worked.

- - -

I haven't got complete control over the daydreaming yet, but I have stopped a lot of the useless ones. I've noticing around half of the time and asking myself "Is this useful or not?" and it usually isn't so I stop. It's a start at least.
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Default Nov 03, 2019 at 03:57 AM
  #5
I'm trying to keep reminding myself that these fake conversations with people I know are really stupid.

Firstly, these subjects are really boring and pointless. They are things that happened years ago and should have been forgotten. For some reason I (or more likely my ego) wants to keep remembering them, to keep them alive or something? Why? Just forget them already.

Secondly, if I tried to actually tell people these things, they wouldn't listen. People don't care and never listen to me anyway. And these subjects are so boring and pointless I wouldn't expect anyone to care. Also they have no relevance to anything else in the present.

In fact sometimes I have tried to tell people these pointless things. They always ignore me. Always. And I'm not surprised. Why would they have any interest? The other day I did try to tell my mum something that happened years ago and she wasn't even listening from the start. So I stopped and got angry at myself. WHY? Why did I bring that up? Why would anyone care about that?

I think that's the main thing I need to work on. Stop imagining myself having boring conversations with people and never ever try to have them with people. If I don't have anything useful to say, keep my mouth shut! I'm only embarrassing myself. Other people don't tell pointless old stories that other people don't care about, just stop.

Every time I daydream about this, STOP! And remember, NOBODY CARES!

It might be easier to work on one part on a time like this, instead of trying to control all daydreams at once.

Plan:
Stop having fake conversations with people I know
Stop trying to actually have these conversations
Stop the useless online conversation daydreams
Get control of the useful daydreams
Have more interesting/fun/useful daydreams instead of boring pointless ones
Stop the constant music stuck in my head
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Default Nov 08, 2019 at 01:27 PM
  #6
I've realised that all of the fake conversation daydreams are useless, they are nothing but the ego talking to itself, bragging and being a know it all. I don't need that, it's useless. I've been improving at stopping them. Now I stop most before they go to far. I'm wondering if they will eventually just not start at all. I still have a way to go with this though. Sometimes I see if there's some reason I brought the subject up, but most of the time it's just nonsense.

I will still have the fun daydreams because at least they have a purpose. At least they are enjoyable and not egoic. But I usually have to postpone them until I've finished whatever I'm doing. Usually at night I'm too tired to do anything else so that's the best time to have the daydreams. Don't really need much energy for that. If it's too noisy to sleep I can daydream then, as there's nothing else I can do.
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Default May 30, 2020 at 02:40 PM
  #7
I'm wondering if the fake conversations are a way of coping with the isolation of the pandemic. I certainly talk to myself more now, and my conversations are not all gems. As long as the fake conversations aren't hurtful, are they all that bad? Of course, if there's something useful you could be doing instead that's a better thing.
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