I hope Leslie writes that book! Heather I have found your writings about fantasy/daydreaming/crushes so helpful in understanding and having acceptance of my daydreaming tendencies, and knowing what to do when it’s becoming unhelpful/self-destructive. You columns really helped me have a breakthrough. I started writing fiction, nurturing my oldest friendships, and slowly engaging more with my local community. I have accepted that making new connections requires time and patience. These have given me some of the things that I was daydreaming about. But now I have new daydreams about all the things I want to do and have not enough time for! On the plus side, I’m no longer (for the moment) crushing on unavailable men.
Loved the essay and absolutely savoured this conversation!
If I may offer another angle at the daydreams and their role in improving our lives. It makes perfect sense that one has to explore the ideas broadly before finding the one that is optimal. I mean they teach it (and charge for it) at Stanford: https://designingyour.life/the-book/
So why not use the canvas of our amazing imagination instead of paper, right?
Can’t wait for Leslie’s book about Bermuda triangle.
This was so lovely. Daydreaming helped me survive a childhood that was less than optimal, but I’ve always felt conflicted about it in adulthood, as if it’s presence somehow was only needed in times of stress and pain.
First a note of personal reverence. I absolutely love the image of Heather reading botanical notes in a loud angry voice to amuse herself, and despite the horror of her family. Totally resonates. My kids well know making myself laugh, can be my only goal. The fact others don't get it, sometimes makes it even more delicious. Like eating some last piece of coveted candy in front others--only their quizzical looks marking the discordance of my expression to theirs.
Heather's point about admiring art and owing the experience of it without some weird shame that we are unworthy of producing similar, stuck me very recently in a similar way. I'm sometimes flabbergasted at the sheer talent, virtuosity, and perfection of certain works of art, musical performances, writing, etc. Yet my experience was sometimes tainted by a strange bit of shame trying to take hold of me, and whisper how small and unimportant or unproductive my own life has been in comparison. But I realized very recently, the artist needs the viewer as much as the viewer needs the artist. They are not painting or performing for the admiration of themselves, but to share some beautiful creation with us. Sure they would do so, no doubt, without our recognition--see above. But we are both inhabiting the same space, same vision. It is as much a blessing to see and understand and share, as it is to produce.
I feel like I've suddenly been rescued from drowning, but I had no idea I needed rescuing. Like the water had been rising so imperceptibly slowly that I hadn't realised I was about to go under until the rescue boat showed up and hauled me aboard.
I've been a daydreamer for as long as I can remember. My whole life has been spent living other lives. Yet it has only been the second part of my life as an adult where my daydreams shifted from being something I really enjoyed and that fueled a creativity and love for play, into being something I hid away 'like a form of chronic masturbation'. The rare occasions where I have tried to understand whether other people in my life also daydream has generally hardened the resolve to keep my shameful secret under wraps.
I've spent a long time feeling so much shame that I live these fantasy worlds. I've invested heavily in the idea that I must be broken and that I need to find the fix if I am to ever have a 'normal' life.
I feel like I've been shut in the war room trying to (unsuccessfully) strategise how to remove these daydreams from life, driven by the unconscious belief that they shouldn't be there and that removal is the necessary objective. That if I don't find the strategic solution to rid myself of them then I'm ultimately doomed to miss out on my real life.
I've never really been able to just accept them as normal and to cherish them as part of me, but I think I finally might have found the door that let's me escape the war room (which is great because it's not been cleaned in years and really needs to be condemned).
The phrase that keeps coming to my mind is that 'you can't be what you can't see', and I can't quite find the words to say how much I needed to see this at this exact time in my life.
Why ever be a poor copy of someone else? Is often said, when someone believes in becoming someone else is better than who they are. If daydreaming is part of you, why not be more of who you are and lean into it, as they say. Some people mold themselves to the world, others mold the world to themselves. They figure out how to make what they are, part of the world. Will you ever be truly happy as someone else, after putting away what is truly you? Some say that you MUST be yourself to truly be happy. And that being fully yourself will attract others and situations that resonate with who you are. Sorry if this is too pop psych for you. Just trying to cheer you on a little. Be more of who you are! Not less.
Perhaps we are sending the little drones of our mind over the treacherous mountains of life, to reconnoiter. Let them search for the paths we want to take. For the soft fields in which we want to lie in our future.
thank you for this!! I could read these conversations all day! You're both articulating things I think about constantly.
Now I'm off to the library website to order any Leslie Jamison books I can get~
I hope Leslie writes that book! Heather I have found your writings about fantasy/daydreaming/crushes so helpful in understanding and having acceptance of my daydreaming tendencies, and knowing what to do when it’s becoming unhelpful/self-destructive. You columns really helped me have a breakthrough. I started writing fiction, nurturing my oldest friendships, and slowly engaging more with my local community. I have accepted that making new connections requires time and patience. These have given me some of the things that I was daydreaming about. But now I have new daydreams about all the things I want to do and have not enough time for! On the plus side, I’m no longer (for the moment) crushing on unavailable men.
Yes, please write that book. I'd love to read it--as much as I loved reading the essay and this conversation!
Loved the essay and absolutely savoured this conversation!
If I may offer another angle at the daydreams and their role in improving our lives. It makes perfect sense that one has to explore the ideas broadly before finding the one that is optimal. I mean they teach it (and charge for it) at Stanford: https://designingyour.life/the-book/
So why not use the canvas of our amazing imagination instead of paper, right?
Can’t wait for Leslie’s book about Bermuda triangle.
This was so lovely. Daydreaming helped me survive a childhood that was less than optimal, but I’ve always felt conflicted about it in adulthood, as if it’s presence somehow was only needed in times of stress and pain.
First a note of personal reverence. I absolutely love the image of Heather reading botanical notes in a loud angry voice to amuse herself, and despite the horror of her family. Totally resonates. My kids well know making myself laugh, can be my only goal. The fact others don't get it, sometimes makes it even more delicious. Like eating some last piece of coveted candy in front others--only their quizzical looks marking the discordance of my expression to theirs.
Heather's point about admiring art and owing the experience of it without some weird shame that we are unworthy of producing similar, stuck me very recently in a similar way. I'm sometimes flabbergasted at the sheer talent, virtuosity, and perfection of certain works of art, musical performances, writing, etc. Yet my experience was sometimes tainted by a strange bit of shame trying to take hold of me, and whisper how small and unimportant or unproductive my own life has been in comparison. But I realized very recently, the artist needs the viewer as much as the viewer needs the artist. They are not painting or performing for the admiration of themselves, but to share some beautiful creation with us. Sure they would do so, no doubt, without our recognition--see above. But we are both inhabiting the same space, same vision. It is as much a blessing to see and understand and share, as it is to produce.
I feel like I've suddenly been rescued from drowning, but I had no idea I needed rescuing. Like the water had been rising so imperceptibly slowly that I hadn't realised I was about to go under until the rescue boat showed up and hauled me aboard.
I've been a daydreamer for as long as I can remember. My whole life has been spent living other lives. Yet it has only been the second part of my life as an adult where my daydreams shifted from being something I really enjoyed and that fueled a creativity and love for play, into being something I hid away 'like a form of chronic masturbation'. The rare occasions where I have tried to understand whether other people in my life also daydream has generally hardened the resolve to keep my shameful secret under wraps.
I've spent a long time feeling so much shame that I live these fantasy worlds. I've invested heavily in the idea that I must be broken and that I need to find the fix if I am to ever have a 'normal' life.
I feel like I've been shut in the war room trying to (unsuccessfully) strategise how to remove these daydreams from life, driven by the unconscious belief that they shouldn't be there and that removal is the necessary objective. That if I don't find the strategic solution to rid myself of them then I'm ultimately doomed to miss out on my real life.
I've never really been able to just accept them as normal and to cherish them as part of me, but I think I finally might have found the door that let's me escape the war room (which is great because it's not been cleaned in years and really needs to be condemned).
The phrase that keeps coming to my mind is that 'you can't be what you can't see', and I can't quite find the words to say how much I needed to see this at this exact time in my life.
Thank you so much.
Why ever be a poor copy of someone else? Is often said, when someone believes in becoming someone else is better than who they are. If daydreaming is part of you, why not be more of who you are and lean into it, as they say. Some people mold themselves to the world, others mold the world to themselves. They figure out how to make what they are, part of the world. Will you ever be truly happy as someone else, after putting away what is truly you? Some say that you MUST be yourself to truly be happy. And that being fully yourself will attract others and situations that resonate with who you are. Sorry if this is too pop psych for you. Just trying to cheer you on a little. Be more of who you are! Not less.
Perhaps we are sending the little drones of our mind over the treacherous mountains of life, to reconnoiter. Let them search for the paths we want to take. For the soft fields in which we want to lie in our future.