# IoP article "Role of fantasy proneness.... "



## Tom Servo (Sep 19, 2005)

There's an article published by IoP last year entitled "Role of fantasy proneness, imaginative involvement, and psychological absorption in depersonalization disorder". Unfortunately there's no abstract available, but I think I get the gist of what they were researching. Are/were any of y'all prone to daydreaming a lot? I sure was. Always have been. I was pretty much like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes when I was a kid; I still remember the comment on my first grade report card: "Daydreams constantly!" (the word 'constantly' was underlined like 3 times). Other than my difficulty visualizing my thoughts nowadays, I really haven't changed all that much.


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## Luka (Aug 30, 2005)

Hi Tom!

I also daydream and fantasize alot! I used to write my own fantasy story and it went so far that my parents began to worry. I locked myself up in my room with nothing but my inner world. I could visualize it all. Nowadays, I still daydream alot. Because I have DID, I also have a real innerworld with a landscape, people (alters) and some animals. I like it there.

I read Calvin & Hobbes alot. I like the way he fantasize and think it is all real. Really love that comic!


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2005)

Totally true for me. I still probably live in my head more than is healthy.

As a child and teenager though, I lived MOSTLY in fantasy...my inner world mattered more than the external one.

I think it is very common for dp-prone personality types to have a lifelong experience of living "on two tracks" - one external and one that observes or moderates silently the events of action.

We are used to watching and discerning "outside" versus "inside" and Real Me verus some role I'm playing. I think the key in fantasy proneness is not necessarily Fantasy versus Reality, but the role that the inner Observer plays...that we have "two" expereinces of being a self. One as participator and one as "watcher"

We "split" the screen long ago, and the dp is an easy "leap" to make under duress


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

I remember it like it was yesterday the first time I ever got fussed at in school, it was in the 1st grade for daydreaming.


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## g-funk (Aug 20, 2004)

One foot in reality, the other in fantasy...

?It was the 1% that kept me ill? I read this in a book somehwere.....those who have read it/ wrote it (Janine!!!) will know what I'm talking about.

Well it always made sense to me before?but I NEVER FELT IT. OH MY GOD.

DP is control through the fantasy world. It?s utterly useless too.

As a kid I would stand at the window and HONESTLY believe that I could make the weather change. It never happened, but it would, one day. I just knew.... but why the weather?

If you feel impotent and hopeless, and unable to change your reality, why not screw around with reality in your head? Maybe I was *really* powerful, one day I could change all these things just by thinking them. That would be cool. So start with the weather.

Fast forward 20 years and I?m still doing it. Ok, so I?ve still got one foot in reality (sometimes just a toe, sometimes more than half my body) so I?ve gained a bit of knowledge, common sense, namely that I can?t change the weather?.but I?ve also gained a lot of ammunition for my fantasy world too. Thoughts of death, love, babies, marriage, all realistic concepts, for me to play with in my head. The content is different, but the PROCESS is the same.

On some level, I still believe that my thoughts can ?kill me?, ?kill a loved one? or drive me insane or WHATEVER, it doesn?t matter, it can be different from one day to the next, it?s all the same stuff. Taking myself to the edge and back because I fear what I am capable of in my own head. From innocence of believing I can change the weather, growing up brings with it some scarier options.

Why didn?t I ever twig that NOTHING ever happens, I just get more scared?!?! It's constant BELIEF that I was mastering something big and scary, when all I?m doing is trying to prove to myself that I can control this. Well, guess what, you're as impotent in this world as the day you are born. Sure, you can walk and talk and make choices that affect your life, but you CAN?T CHANGE REALITY.

That is what DP is, I NEVER GOT THAT. IT'S THE 1% no-scrap that, it?s about 20%, of me believing my omnipotence in the world that takes me to a scarier level everyday


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## widescreened (Jun 22, 2005)

Defo had a vivid imagination and was prone to daydreaming,imaginary friends and reading sci-fi roleplaying games.Would be so far away sometimes that someone would be talking to me alone in a room and i wouldnt hear them.Daydreaming is pure escapism in my mind,stemming fro,m a dissatisfaction from reality or an inabillity to fuction ie shyness.it is the easy way out if used compulsively to dissociate.


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## David Kozin (Jan 11, 2005)

I hate this, I have to run to work, but please elaborate is anyone else can. I have had good conversations on this topics and want to write more about it.

It is very interesting that this topic has come up.

- David


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## g-funk (Aug 20, 2004)

Daydreaming and fantasising are ok, the problem arises when deep down you need it and believe that that is the real you that no-one has 'seen' yet.

In my head, I am a brilliant dancer.

Only recently discovered I can't dance for sh*t.

So do you retreat, never going on the dancefloor and throwing some less than pretty shapes? Refusing to believe that you can be anything other than the brilliant dancer you 'should' be? No, you get back on the damn dance floor and dance like an idiot all nightlong until you feel good, because you've realised you can have fun anyway.

Life is that dancefloor

Cringing from my own metaphor


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