To note, this post contains adult themes in places
For as long as I can remember I’ve daydreamed. Making up stories, often based on books or TV series, that played out in my head with me as a central character (in retrospect, particularly with these early daydreams, I am very much a Mary Sue). As I got older I even tried to write some of these stories down. I do not visualise in pictures, only in words, so turning these thoughts to paper was quite a natural progression.
I never considered that this was unusual when I was younger. I’d often hear my brother talking to himself and it was clear that he too was making up stories, but his were out loud. But as I grew older I realised that while others might daydream they don’t do it to excess like I do. I also daydreamed more and more as time went by, spurred on by the different situations in my life. And about a year ago or so I discovered that there is actually a name for this. Maladaptive Daydreaming.
Extending fantasies
My first memory of fantasies were ones about Watership Down, and later V (the original TV series from the 80s). Both of these were things I really loved and I think my initial daydreams were about reliving and extending these. V was the first one where I was very much me in the story. The V stories continued in my head for many many years. They began while I was at school but I know I was very much still having them at university. I’d slowly developed my own world within the story where myself and my school friends were all fighting the Visitors. I think there was also an element of revenge in these – people who hadn’t treated me well at school wouldn’t end up very well in my fantasies, or at the very least I’d prove I was better than them. Which in retrospect is really sad but was my way to fight back against the bullies.
Later I got into Highlander the Series, Kindred: The Embraced, and the Dragonlance books. And these have continued to feature in my daydreams every since, and I’ve slowly developed the fantasies in my head, created new characters and the stories have also merged and intertwined. In many ways they don’t really resemble the original source material anymore. But they allow me to continue to enjoy these series again and again.
Interestingly though there are plenty of TV series like Stargate SG1 or Star Trek, or books, that I have loved but that haven’t featured in my daydreams. I’m not quite sure what it is about these ones that have captured me so. But when I need some simple escapism it is these I turn to.
Relationship troubles
For 13 years of my adult life I was in a broken relationship, although it took growing up and hindsight to realise that. When we first got together we were both virgins and had barely even kissed members of the opposite sex let alone anything else. Neither of us knew what we were doing or what we wanted, sexually or in life in general.
While I do remember some fun times when we were first exploring each other in the first year or two, the relationship was dominated by sexual dysfunction. Like many women I couldn’t orgasm through sex (or so I thought at the time) and needed clitoral stimulation. But even clitoral stimulation didn’t do it for me without sexual fantasies. That said, I found sexual intimacy fun even without climaxing; but my partner felt, I think, incompetent and I remember what felt like endless nights of giving each other hand jobs where I had to orgasm before he would or before we could have sex.
My daydreams were both my saving grace and my epic failure. The daydreams became more and more sexual; sometimes using characters from the TV shows and books I’ve outlined earlier, sometimes using real life people (I remember fantasies about threesomes with two guys I only knew through Internet Relay Chat), and slowly using a set of people I made up entirely. Sometimes the fantasies would end up being quite extreme (it took me another 5 years outside this relationship for me to realise that I was, actually, kinky – if I’d had that realisation 20 years earlier it might have changed my life entirely). But it was only by taking these daydreams to their climax that I myself would climax, and often even that wouldn’t work.
I think it’s a shame that I’m not a visual person. Maybe if I was we could have just watched some porn and saved us both a lot of trouble.
The problem with using my daydreams in this way was that I couldn’t just jump into that sexual climax. The stories had to build up. Sometimes it might take me days to get a story to the point where I could use them to sexually satisfy myself. Sometimes the stories would fizzle out and I’d have to start again. It might take hours for me to orgasm where he thought it was because he was being useless (which admittedly it was, but that’s because we’d never discovered what I needed). But I would blame myself because my daydreams were wrong or because I needed the daydreams in the first place. And the nature of the daydreams bothered me too. Often the daydreams weren’t the enjoyable stories that gave me escapism. I felt that I was broken.
An emotional crux
I wasn’t broken. My brain works differently, yes, but neither my sexual organs nor my brain are broken. Sexually I just needed to work out what I needed, and realise that the relationship I had been in (and the one that followed), were not right for me. And I had to learn that my brain was just what it was and to understand what these daydreams really were.
I started writing these posts months ago now and never completed it. I’m not 100% sure where I was going but I think I stopped because this was where it gets hard. Because this is where we get to now.
Ever since becoming single and living alone for the first time in my life, the daydreams have become more prevalent. Sometimes they are a way to escape my kids – I’ll hide away in the bath or my bed and daydream because I need a break. I’ll daydream while driving or doing chores and sometimes even working – because these daydreams stop me thinking about the things that worry me in the real world. I’ll go to bed early and daydream because quite honestly my life is boring and the dreams have the same escapism as reading a book – but with the added benefit of sometimes being sexually satisfied through them too. Yes, I still use them to help me orgasm – which is easier nowadays but not always a given – and I’ve learnt better how to force them in the right direction. Sometimes daydreams will leave me sobbing, and while I may not plan them that way I think these ones are my unconscious mind trying to deal with built up emotions.
I’m fairly certain that Covid and lockdown has made the daydreams more frequent. Being alone more, and being around the kids more, and not being in the office, has given me more time and more reasons to daydream. It was also during lockdown that I learnt that I was experiencing something with a name that other people experience. This has helped me to some extent. I read about people who have been able to control or prevent their daydreaming. And I’ve realised that it’s probably something I need to do myself. But at the moment I don’t want to. These daydreams are an emotional crux that at the moment I’m not convinced I want to live without. But they are also a source of entertainment that I’m struggling to get from TV or books recently.
During a brief kinky relationship before lockdown I did find I daydreamed less and I didn’t feel the need to daydream and masturbate. Part of me wonders/hopes that if I get into a satisfying relationship then I can reduce the daydreams that way, because I won’t have so much need for them. The logical side of me knows that this is a silly thing to hope for and that I should just deal with them anyway, but I need to be in a place where I actually want to. I had a few sessions with a counsellor a while back where I talked about the daydreams with the hope that she might help me deal with them, but all she managed to do was make me feel bad because they are giving me an unrealistic view of the perfect man.
The perfect man
Over the years I have created a group of people who are central to the majority of my daydreams. I think one of them came from daydreams based on a set of books and somehow the others grew up around the one. I don’t know how long these people have been in my brain, it feels like years and years. Over time they’ve developed, gained names (and in some cases, surnames). The history changes a little from dream to dream. The present day changes a little from dream to dream. But these core people are there. They are part of a made up history of myself, based in part on my real background. The me in these dreams is me, but with some tweaks and a much more exciting school life than I really had, and true friends. My real-life BFF is part of these daydreams and part of this core group of people, I think because my mind needs to anchor them in reality.
I’m not going to write about these people here. I think I’d thought about it before but that might be the subject of a future post. Or a short story maybe. But I’m not really sure I want to share.
But yes they do centre around a man. Someone I fell in love with at a young age but was older than me. A secret relationship (and sometimes a secret marriage), but something happens to separate us in my late teens/early twenties. And then in the present day we are somehow reunited. Often tragically. Or traumatically. With much conflict. But of course in the end we are together in a (probably D/s kinky) relationship. This guy is a bad boy, a definite criminal background, although usually turned good (or at least less bad). So probably not the type of guy I really want to me. He’s got a definite personality and is modelled around my idea of the perfect Dom. Although that said the relationship doesn’t always go as well as it might.
Yes, old counsellor, he is unrealistic. He doesn’t exist and I’ll never meet anyone like him. Let’s face it, anyone like him wouldn’t be interested in someone like me. But should I stop imagining him? Should he not be a benchmark to help me find someone who can fulfil my needs and desires, as long as I hold onto the reality that my benchmark will never be completely met. Better that surely than settling for someone who isn’t right for me – as I did for twenty years.
And so, that is where I am now. I’m not completely happy with the fact that I want these daydreams, I need them, but at least I can now acknowledge their benefits and their disadvantages. And I’ve told real life people about them and that helps massively. Friends know about them but do not judge me for them. For that I am very grateful. For now the daydreams will continue. Maybe writing them down will help. But maybe I’ll just keep them locked inside. I don’t want to kill off these daydreams because that means killing off a group of people who in my mind are very real, even if they’ve never actually existed.
