I've been wondering how frequent daydreaming is in other people, and whether it's actually a beneficial thing or a useless thing because I daydream a lot myself. I think of certain things in my head even though I'm almost sure that those things would never happen. A good percentage of the daydreams include myself being involved in those imagined scenarios in one way or another - and always in a very "positive" way. The daydreams tend to take place in the future most of the time (sometimes even after death).
One of the strange things about it is that the daydreams seem to be generated very spontaneously. In other words, the thoughts just creep up into my mind every now and then without requiring a conscious effort. Sometimes they go on and off for a while, which is when my brain likes to alternate between "daydreaming mode" and "attention mode" (this happens especially when I'm watching something on TV, and also when I'm when I'm in the bathroom or taking a shower). And, after I come back out of the daydreaming state, I tend to feel more mentally energized, focused, and calmer. I think it also has an impact on my ability of creative thinking and making connections between different things, in certain ways.
Moreover, I noticed that the daydreams are stronger and harder to suppress on days when I'm feeling sad or upset over something that happened to me. They somehow counteract the humiliating/oppressive kind of feelings that I get wrapped up in sometimes, due to certain things that other people say to me. So it seems that the daydreams also act as an automatic mood-booster for me in that sense. That is just one of the functions, though.
Recently, however, I've been wondering about (and worrying) whether or not some of these spontaneous daydreams that I frequently experience is suggestive of having some kind of, shall we say, a 'passive hypocrisy' that maybe I need to get rid of? The reason I was thinking that is because the self-image in my daydreams are usually the opposite of the way that I behave in real life, i.e. like the contrast between night and day. There's a different me in my mind, which doesn't match with how I am in the real world. Rather it's the total opposite.
For example, on one hand, the people who know me perceive me as being reticent, quite, meek, weak, anti-social, unable to speak up, weird, lonely, undetermined about my future even, and ... well, you get the point. On the other hand, when I'm alone, oftentimes I'm inwardly "bigging myself up" - in a covert, subconscious manner through the daydreams - sometimes in terms of knowledge, looks, certain skills/talents, my speech, confidence, persuasiveness, the power of my emotions, physical abilities, or something else.
So the point is, I possess one type of character that is apparent to everyone around me, and a significantly different type of character that exist in my own imaginings. But, is that a bad thing for some reason? Would you identify it as some kind of an internal hypocrisy that should be corrected if someone has this quality? Or do you think it doesn't matter?
At any rate, I wrote all this stuff in case if this is something that some of you here can relate yourselves with (hopefully to some extent, at least). Maybe this is something that is more common in people than I think it is, too, but still I'm not sure.
One of the strange things about it is that the daydreams seem to be generated very spontaneously. In other words, the thoughts just creep up into my mind every now and then without requiring a conscious effort. Sometimes they go on and off for a while, which is when my brain likes to alternate between "daydreaming mode" and "attention mode" (this happens especially when I'm watching something on TV, and also when I'm when I'm in the bathroom or taking a shower). And, after I come back out of the daydreaming state, I tend to feel more mentally energized, focused, and calmer. I think it also has an impact on my ability of creative thinking and making connections between different things, in certain ways.
Moreover, I noticed that the daydreams are stronger and harder to suppress on days when I'm feeling sad or upset over something that happened to me. They somehow counteract the humiliating/oppressive kind of feelings that I get wrapped up in sometimes, due to certain things that other people say to me. So it seems that the daydreams also act as an automatic mood-booster for me in that sense. That is just one of the functions, though.
Recently, however, I've been wondering about (and worrying) whether or not some of these spontaneous daydreams that I frequently experience is suggestive of having some kind of, shall we say, a 'passive hypocrisy' that maybe I need to get rid of? The reason I was thinking that is because the self-image in my daydreams are usually the opposite of the way that I behave in real life, i.e. like the contrast between night and day. There's a different me in my mind, which doesn't match with how I am in the real world. Rather it's the total opposite.
For example, on one hand, the people who know me perceive me as being reticent, quite, meek, weak, anti-social, unable to speak up, weird, lonely, undetermined about my future even, and ... well, you get the point. On the other hand, when I'm alone, oftentimes I'm inwardly "bigging myself up" - in a covert, subconscious manner through the daydreams - sometimes in terms of knowledge, looks, certain skills/talents, my speech, confidence, persuasiveness, the power of my emotions, physical abilities, or something else.
So the point is, I possess one type of character that is apparent to everyone around me, and a significantly different type of character that exist in my own imaginings. But, is that a bad thing for some reason? Would you identify it as some kind of an internal hypocrisy that should be corrected if someone has this quality? Or do you think it doesn't matter?
At any rate, I wrote all this stuff in case if this is something that some of you here can relate yourselves with (hopefully to some extent, at least). Maybe this is something that is more common in people than I think it is, too, but still I'm not sure.