Are Daydreaming And Fantasizing A Way To Self-Regulate?

Do Daydreaming And Fantasizing Play A Role in Nervous System Regulation?

I remember staring out the window at school in springtime while the teacher droned on and I wanted to be outside. Children often daydream because we don't have options to physically leave. Escaping into our mind sometimes can be soothing and emotionally regulating. It is the Flight of flight/fight/freeze/fawn. We also know the power of thoughts when we experience an inner critic attack. Flight can a have a negative effect when we disconnect from the present moment too much or when we can't afford to see the reality of our relationships and situation. There is no right or wrong answer here. Join us to explore. When do you escape the present moment through thought, and why?

Transcript

The flight response.

We're pretty familiar with fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

And fawn.

There's a lot of different ways that that works.

There's a sense of,

Well,

I could be here with myself.

I could be present here.

I could regulate my nervous system.

I could notice what's going on.

I could notice when that happens and why that happens.

So one of the things that I was thinking about is the role that daydreaming and fantasizing play when we're children.

It's not to say they don't have when we're adults.

Of course they still do.

But one of the reasons that we escape into fantasy or daydreaming as a child is because we often don't have a lot of control over the environments that we're in.

So I remember in the late spring,

Early summer,

But school was still in session.

I was so bored and just sitting there and the sunshine was outside and it was an old school.

They didn't have air conditioning,

So we had the windows open and you could hear the lawnmower and smell the grass.

I wanted to be outside so badly and I couldn't leave where I was,

Of course.

Then what do we do?

Bring to mind,

Did you daydream a lot when you were a child?

What was that experience like?

Was it kind of fun and satisfying for the most part?

Did you have someone critical of you for doing that?

Maybe a parent or someone like,

Get your head out of the clouds,

Come back to reality.

Oftentimes we're met with impatience when we're not right on top of it.

And notice what that feels like just in your body and in your breath.

Let yourself come into this present moment.

So sometimes when we go into the past,

There's a sweetness to that.

Like I really was able to protect myself in that way.

But often there's a reason why we do that.

So if we're doing a daydreaming or fantasizing as a flight response,

Then that would automatically mean that there's some kind of danger or threat there.

Sometimes it's that we wish things were different.

Like as a teenager,

I spent a lot of time pretending I was singing along with the Beatles.

I had a music stand that I turned into a microphone and probably all of us have some experience with this.

And like anything that we do,

It's not right or wrong.

Perhaps it's not very helpful now as an adult,

If we're too much in flight response,

But it's also something that we could savor and enjoy as well.

We don't have to shame ourselves for anything that we're doing to protect ourselves in particular.

So notice your whole body.

Notice that you're here in this moment.

So we'll do some grounding,

Which is kind of the opposite of flight.

Notice that you're on the earth.

Gravity is very reliable,

Keeping us here on the earth.

And notice what's happening with your breath.

The two kind of ways that we could work with breath,

One is to notice sensations in the nostrils and to notice sensations in the stomach area.

As you're breathing out,

If you're breathing diaphragmatically,

Your stomach is softening back towards the spine.

And as you're breathing in,

There's an expansion in the stomach area,

Like a wave.

We expand,

We release,

We rise,

We retreat.

And we can have some comfort when we're letting ourselves ride the wave of the breath.

And if you're holding your breath,

Or if it's uncomfortable to pay attention in your stomach area,

If you're breathing out more in your chest,

Then that's something that we could work with over time.

It's very regulating for our nervous system.

It's comforting and reassuring.

We don't hold our breath when we feel completely comfortable and safe.

We hold our breath when we feel like there's some kind of danger.

And it might be from a lifetime of having fear and anxiety.

And we develop a habit of holding our breath.

That's very,

Very common.

We have a habit of holding our body tightly.

So our stomach doesn't really give us enough room to breathe diaphragmatically.

Maybe we're really hunkered down through the back of the neck and shoulders,

Upper back.

We can't let the rib cage expand.

So if you were to let yourself drift off into a daydream,

So we're regulating and grounding.

And then it might be a familiar daydream,

Or it might be let your mind kind of unhook from this moment.

Where does it go?

Make it a nice daydream,

Something pleasant,

Not catastrophic thinking or something like that.

Do you have a memory of any of the daydreams that you have when you were a child or younger in your adult life?

Let yourself have a few minutes of letting that be whatever that is.

We can also notice that we might be harsh around this with ourselves.

We might have internalized that admonition to get your head out of the clouds and back to reality.

That's okay.

That might be what's here.

We could let that be.

The nervous system regulation can take a lot of different forms and most of them are not conscious mind directed.

So in a way,

We're kind of doing something odd with this right now.

I'm saying,

Let's go into a daydream or a fantasy maybe.

Maybe it's the furnishings in the house you'd like to live in,

Or maybe it's the kind of relationship you'd like to have or the job or something.

And then you let yourself kind of go into a stream of thoughts about that.

There's a lot of fluidity here between actual memory and daydreaming.

Like night dreaming,

We often combine a lot of components.

When I was a child wanting to be outside at the end of the school year,

Part of my daydream was based on reality of being out in the prairies,

Feeling the sun,

The smell of the grass,

The wind.

So I kind of had an idea what I was missing out on being stuck in a desk.

And all the way through as we're doing this,

We're just looking.

It's a somatic inquiry.

We're noticing our body,

Our breath,

Thoughts in the mind.

We could also look at what is our experience with regulating ourselves through daydreaming.

So sometimes escaping into our mind is kind of a dissociated,

Disconnected trauma response.

It's a survival response when there's something going on that we really don't want to be here for.

There's a lot of different flavors of daydreaming and fantasizing as well.

And if we look at all of the different ways we operate with the flight response,

As an adult especially,

But sometimes as a child too,

We're able to leave physically.

As an adult now,

If somebody's tone of voice is jarring to us,

Or if we feel judged or condemned,

Depending on the relationship,

We're often able to set a boundary around that.

Don't pay much attention or don't spend as much time with them.

We might have an outside person that might be inside our inner critic.

Our inner critic can be pretty harsh.

And it's a way to kind of escape,

But it's a really negative result of escaping that way.

Okay,

So I've become aware now there's something going on.

I have this urge to get out of here.

What does that feel like in your physical body?

So a few minutes ago,

We were noticing that we're grounded.

We're here on the earth.

And maybe you're supported by a comfortable chair,

Or you're lying on a bed,

Or maybe you're not very comfortable right now,

But we're still held by gravity.

What does it feel like in your body?

How do you know when you're starting to go into a flight response?

So if it's a physical flight response,

We're probably going to feel some activation or energy in our physical body.

It might be a jumpiness,

Agitation,

Shaky,

Kind of a,

I need out of here.

Notice if that's something that comes in when you're thinking about the beginning of a flight response.

And if you want,

You could move around,

You could walk away,

You can walk around the room.

Right in this moment,

There's nothing holding us back from moving our body.

You could certainly do that.

And we also have longer term flight responses.

When I was younger,

I couldn't wait to move from the small town that I lived in.

And from there to a bigger city,

And from the city out to the country.

So we have these,

Sometimes they might look like plans.

We have these energies of flight.

What's coming up for you right now as you're thinking about that,

Working with that,

Letting that be here?

What does it feel like in your body?

Or is it maybe thoughts?

Wouldn't it be interesting to,

Whatever that might be for you,

Travel somewhere,

Or take a course,

Or get involved with some new people,

Develop new friendships?

What would that be like for you?

So sometimes our flight response is very healthy.

Actually,

We're looking at a situation where I'm going,

You know,

I'm feeling kind of stale with my friendships right now.

I'd like to have richer friendships,

Or maybe expose myself to some different people who I can go really deeply with.

So the urgency to flight can be a really great sign that,

Well,

Maybe I could make my life richer.

Maybe I could,

So it's not always a running away.

So there's this movement energy in our mind,

In our body.

Continue to notice what that is for you.

We can be realistic about this as well.

The urge to get out of here can lead to a panic,

Or a really activated state.

And if that's the case,

We might want to hold our hands.

Notice that we're here,

We're safe.

We could use our eyes to look around.

There's no right or wrong answers here.

There's no A plus if I never go into a flight response or something.

That's not how this works.

We're just looking.

And if we're feeling kind of dysregulated,

We have a lot of tools now.

We know how to come back.

We could do some breathing,

Cyclic sighing,

Or we could stand up and shake.

That'll kind of shake some of that edgy energy out of the body.

There's a lot of ways that we can work with this.

One of the differences between a healthy daydream or fantasizing is that it feels good in our body.

We might be enjoying it.

Sometimes we're pulling in memories of times that we really enjoyed,

Kind of embellishing that a little.

But if we're in a flight response trying to get away from something that's dangerous that's around us,

That doesn't feel quite as grounded.

It doesn't feel quite as good in our body.

We're more likely to be holding our breath.

If any one of the fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Fawn responses are generated by the nervous system,

That's an unconscious mind process.

We can't stop that.

And for some people,

Flight was a really major part of our strategy for survival.

And I don't mean strategy in the sense of planning,

But just that was kind of one of the things that came up a lot is we had a flight response.

Might it be more of an anger or a fight response or a freeze or a fawn?

So we kind of cycle through these.

Right now,

We're just working with the flight,

The urge to flee.

And what are some of the ways that that works for you in your life right now?

So some of the really healthy ways might be that you get engaged in an activity that you really enjoy,

Like art or music,

Or maybe you hang out with a friend or you go out into nature.

So we're not,

In that case,

Fleeing so much.

It's not a flight response,

Which is quite unconscious.

It's more of a soothing.

I'm going to set aside these disturbing things or these things that I'm anxious about.

I'm just going to give myself some respite and I'm going to focus on something that's nourishing for a while.

Notice that not all redirection is a flight response.

It's not all unhealthy either.

We can be very soothed by redirecting our mind into something that's not completely real right now,

But that we would like to nourish in our mind,

In our heart.

Oftentimes,

We'll notice that we go into a flight response or we escape through some kind of an addictive behavioral process,

Watching endless episodes on Netflix or playing video games.

There's a lot of ways that our culture really is set up to help us flee.

And one of the downsides of a flight response is sometimes it really prevents us from seeing what we need to see.

That could be in our relationships.

It could be a sense of,

I need to not walk down that dark street,

That I'm kind of dissociated or off somewhere.

I don't really notice the sounds,

The sights around me.

Flight and freeze are a little bit more connected here too.

Oftentimes,

We don't see something clearly because we're kind of shut down.

And other times it can be,

Well,

I don't really know if I could do anything about that situation.

If I really saw clearly what was going on in that relationship,

I wouldn't be comfortable staying in the relationship and I can't afford to let it go for whatever reason.

So sometimes it's a protective fog that comes in and then it gets us through the moment and that's legitimate.

It's helpful.

And at some point we might be able to shift a little bit into more of a,

Okay,

I can see that there's something here that makes me uncomfortable.

I can see that for a while I need to nourish myself and stabilize and get grounded through however I'm doing that,

Whether it's breathing or some kind of grounding response.

And then sometimes I need to just really get in touch with my strength.

Notice,

I can actually do this.

I don't need to escape maybe quite as much as I have been.

And how could I support myself in coming back in with really clear present moment sight?

There can be a lot to this.

Like everything,

It's kind of complicated.

It's always made worse if we shame ourselves.

So even though a parent might have been quite impatient with you when you were younger and you might have been shamed for it,

That doesn't mean that it's wrong.

It doesn't mean that you deserve to be shamed for it.

It just means that was what was going on.

Could we bring ourselves into here with kindness,

Compassion,

Knowing that life is difficult and sometimes it's really hard.

And sometimes the best thing we can do is to do something to let ourselves get a break from what's going on.

It doesn't have to be a 20-year break.

It could be a day or two.

But just to keep coming back into this awareness of,

I'm actually a little bit aware of what I'm doing right now and that's okay.

I'm going to let myself be supported and regulated and nourished through some daydreaming,

Through some positive thing that I'm going to work with in my mind.

And if I have a flight response a lot,

Then I could notice that.

I could be kind.

I could acknowledge that when we have those kinds of responses,

It's because there's something going on that is really difficult to stay with.

Daydreaming,

Fantasizing could be part of our toolbox,

Along with holding your own hand and looking around the room for safety and cyclic sighing and all of those things.

And telling our truth,

If that's what's needed in the moment,

Seeing clearly,

All of that can be here too.

We don't have to be a monotone.

We can have a rich variety of ways that we support ourselves.

Let's come back into the body.

Take a few deep breaths again.

And sense into what your body might like right now.

Do you feel like it would be a good idea to stretch or move?

Maybe take a few breaths.

Put your hand on your heart.

Give yourself permission to be human and to need comforting and safety and nurturing and that we can provide that for ourselves and each other in a lot of different ways.

Thank you for being here,

Doing this practice,

This exploration.

And I hope that it reduced some of the shame.

If you feel shame around daydreaming or fantasizing,

It's all fine.

You know,

We do what we do and then we come into awareness.

Okay,

That's what I was doing.

And then hopefully we can be kind and patient with ourselves.