A Coping Method Or Fanatsy Land?

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I was exactly the same growing up, but I didn't "snap out of it" (so to say) until I was about 17 or 18 (so you're ahead of me). I'm going through the stage now where I'm feeling too in touch with reality, and longing to go back to "lalaland" but being unable to descend again like I used to, and trying to learn how to live and accept it.

I do the same thing with music you do, but my "lalaland" was a combination of book fantasy and music (all I did was read book after book after book and watch the vivid imagination movie that went with the book flowing through my head, and at other times I invent cool music videos in my head to go with the songs I hear like you do).

I first started reading when I was about 5, like most people, but I went straight from "not reading" to speed reading heavy 1940's first second and third edition tomes of the Famous Five series (which to the uninitiated, is about three times the length and a lot more wordy - bigger words too - than the pathetic modern highly edited and cut down versions of those books). (my mum brought a big box full of them at a garage sale and gave them to me). I don't know how I did this - logically it's impossible. But somehow I did it.

So I would be sitting in the reading room in Prep (the teacher just let me read what I wanted because I was so advanced), while other students read slowly aloud from brightly coloured picture books with one or two sentences in them following the words with a finger, I would be speed reading old version Famous Five (no pictures) and wondering why they struggled so much to read a single basic sentence when I was skimming through the pages. When I wasn't reading that, I was reading childrens and teenage fantasy books in the library. I had read pretty much two primary school libraries worth of fiction (mostly fantasy, some adult fiction, many books brought from garage sales, whatever I could get my hands on pretty much) by the time I was in Grade 6 (I switched schools in year 4).

I guess you could say I was almost like a real life matilda (except I think she started when she was 4, so she had a year or so on me ).

I used to do this myself and honestly don't see it as harmful. It's pretend and you are perfectly aware it's pretend, you don't actually believe in these fantasies. People have much more harmful ways of coping like eating disorders, drug or alcohol abuse or violent outbursts.
I make films in my head now. I'll take different characters from different films and make a brand new one. Sometimes I'm even part of the cast and will rewrite parts of the film to what I would have done in the original actress's place. Sometimes I'll change the ending of a film or change an actor I thought was unsuitable for the part. I can see the whole thing in my head, hear the dialogue, the score, everything!

Very interesting

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9INIKltDfs[/youtube]


ahh..mexico

[quote="Vimse"]
Those who tend to internalize thoughts and feelings may develop signs of self-blame and depression, or alternatively use imagination and a fantasy life to create another world in which they are more successful.

Thanks for the information. Now I know why I am always in my own world and am always blaming myself and depressed. So because I tend to internalize my thoughts and feelings, is probably one of the reasons why I live inside my own world. In my own world I am successful in everything, get everything I want and need, and get to be the person I want and do the things that make me happy. That is because in the "real" world, I do not get to do those things because of the people in my life who want to control who I am and want me to be some "robot" person who is what they want me to be, not the person I really am. That is a person with Asperger's, who enjoys being a little kid, happy, and does things and lives for herself, not live for other people.

I have a fantasy land that one of the primary purposes of was for me to develop characters to play in situations to get what I wanted. Sadly my earliest "successful" character was the tyrant of the elementary school, and that lasted until my subconscious took control of the fantasy land and used it to place me in the starring role of Spartacus to teach me not to be the tyrant. The inner world is a form of meditation and meditation is an extremely powerful way to self analyze and direct growth.