Do you have an imaginary world?

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I do. I feel like I'm putting myself out there now, because I haven't told anyone about this before. However I'm right in the middle of trying to figure out if I'm on the spectrum or not, and this one trait in me seems to be a huge indicator that I am. So I really want to hear if other people here on WP have, and use, an imaginary world?

I've often thought of this world as "play", like children play with toys and imagine a whole world around them in which they are some imaginary character. But since I'm a grownup I've often felt ashamed of my imaginary world, because grownups aren't supposed to play like that. But in the last year I've really embraced it, as it has helped me a lot through a period of depression and confusion, it's been a refuge in which I can feel better for a while.

It's basically an imagined, alternative universe that I can call up at will. I might incorporate whichever place I'm in at the time, and "populate" it with my imaginary friends. I also become a different person myself, usually male (in real life I'm female), highly intelligent and with either some superpower or extreme skill. It changes slightly over time, right now in my imaginary world I'm a professor of quantum physics who also happens to have Asperger's. I created this persona before I discovered I might actually be on the spectrum myself. It's quite detailed, I have his whole life story, name and age of course, I know what his office and lecture hall look like, partly his apartment but mostly his inherited family estate where he goes on weekends ... yeah.

The world is carefully designed, as are the characters. Within this, there are storylines. I might play over the same story line dozens, if not hundreds, of times to "fine tune" them, or try out a different version. It's like I'm making a movie. When I've reached the end of the storyline, I might start over from the beginning, or occasionally create a whole new setting. It's all in my head, I don't do drawings or anything like that. I am, however, planning to use parts of some of my imaginary settings to write a book some time.

Usually there's a love story somewhere in my imaginary "story arcs", where my love interest usually is female, but sometimes male. In real life I consider myself a straight person, and am married to a man (who knows NOTHING about my imaginary world!! The horror!!), but then I'm also of the opinion that sexuality is a spectrum and that there's probably a little gay streak in most people When my imaginary self is in love with my imaginary love interest, I really DO feel in love. It's wonderful and a little addictive, but it's a "safe" love feeling, compared to for example when I first fell in love with my real life husband, which was an overwhelming, obsessive, big scary thing and I didn't function properly for weeks.

I can flit in and out of my imaginary world very quickly. Which means that whenever I get a moment alone, I can jump right in whichever storyline I'm doing, and equally quickly jump out of it if anyone enters the room etc. It's usually very subtle though, like if I'm in my living room I might "place" my imaginary friends in the couch with me and we might have a conversation (I don't talk out loud). I might also just play the whole thing out in my head.

The problem with this world is that sometimes, when I'm in the middle of a particularly obsessive storyline, I might prefer the imaginary world to the real one. So I'm learning to balance the two, bringing my imaginary world with me in my daily work (I work alone, so it's perfect). Again, it's usually very subtle, mostly because I'm afraid that someone will see me if I'm "talking" to one of my imaginary friends.

Well, this is the first time I've told anybody about my imaginary world. Does anybody have something similar to this?

I love making up stories in my head, and at times it veers into dysfunctional territory...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maladaptive_daydreaming

My feeling is that if it makes you happy, and it doesn't interfere with your 'real' life, it's nothing to worry about

I often like to pretend I am in the Matrix, especially in school. Just so I can pretend none of it is real and it is all just a virtual game. It's fun and relieves stress.

However, I must say that I wouldn't call what I do "daydreaming". That word to me means something that the mind goes off and does on its own. My fantasies, in my imaginary world, are highly "on purpose" and willfully created.

I was a maladaptive daydreamer.

I didn't even know what it was until I just read all that.

I have one, I've been altering it my whole life to fit whatever my interest is at the time. Like you said, it isn't daydreaming because I do it on purpose, usually i only imagine it when I'm alone

I have been experimenting with this as an insomnia/sleep disorder aid. I needed something to rest the mind on neutrally when trying to fall asleep, which is where I have trouble. Something that was not obsessing about myself and my petty issues in a pointless circular fashion. A few years ago, I ceased to have any inner imagery whatsoever, so I'm trying to resurrect that to help with mind activity getting to sleep. It's starting off simple, like imagining flying a kite or swimming, walking in a wood, riding a horse. I plan to expand on the imagery more creatively as I go. It's not some fantasy land where I am someone else with a different life how the OP described though, just a visual tapestry from my own point of view the same way as I see the external world, that is inoffensive and not stressful. It's rather telling that there are never any other people in my visuals, let alone imaginary friends. As I said, it needs to be non-stressful and people in it would defeat the purpose. I aim for detail and beauty in the surroundings, allowing the mind to rest there.

YES! I started them when I was in elementary school, actually writing out the stories, with me being a secret superhero.

Later in life, I would create story arcs of my own from tv shows I liked, inserting myself into them. Or I would think of people I would like to be important to and created stories from those. I realize that I was trying to be able to find ways of expressing the feelings and needs I couldn't express elsewhere through these fantasies and worlds.

I have, however, stopped doing this. It unleashes some other things in me that cause problems, like losing my appreciation for the good things I do have in life as opposed to getting down about the things and relationships I don't have, so I have had to put a tight rein on my imagination for the past almost 6 years.

But yes, I could easily switch to an alternative reality at any moment and stay there. I have thought at times about alternate reality machines, and how I would probably spend everything I have to get one if I could have an imaginary world where I felt truly loved, and had friends.

When I was younger, I also had one interconnected world where I played 'God'. It was a combination of new fantasies (for some reason: the central hub was one gigantic field of sunflowers where everyone could fly), and an eclectic array of influences from television, film and video games. Like most people from my generation, I was obsessed with Dragon Ball Z. So everyone could turn into a Super Saiyan and show their powers for fun

I still have an imaginary world which I visit at will. Every day, there are at least one or two hours where I walk around the table and drift away. It is indeed a very addictive thing, and withholding that ritual for multiple days makes me feel very bad and even a bit unbalanced. But starting from age 18, it became more like playing out social situations in a controlled way. It is still imaginary of course, but in a way it is less fantastical than flying people and super Saiyans. Situations I play out are mostly:

-Interviews between myself and an unspecified 'presenter', about various topics. I especially like this because I can clearly articulate thoughts, feelings, and apply a coherent structure to information, as long as I don't have to tell it out loud, or, to a lesser extent, write it down.

-Ideal predictions. Probably more harmful. I am a freak when it comes to my agenda. I have every future event planned right to the minute (something I only started doing about a year ago), so I have a clear view of upcoming 'socially required activities.' Like going to a meeting with colleagues. I would play out every possible outcome in my head. Sometimes I would also invent my 'ideal outcome', but I learned over the years that these are accompanied by extremely high and unrealistic expectations and are only good for the fun of inventing them.

-Long streams of consciousness/trains of thought about various subjects. Mostly considering art or philosophy. Let's say I recently discovered a new idea that conflicts with my older views. If that happens, I'm in dire need of 'processing'. Something to pick apart the idea; test it a priori; and ideally, it becomes part of my older world view without further contradicting it. I once had an existential crisis where I had to change some fundamental ideas, which had me walking around the table for almost a week :p

Sometimes there are exceptions and I think about different things. But at the time of writing, I'm pretty sure that these three cover the major part of it.

That Maladaptive Daydreaming looks quite scary. As I often daydream during classes or while in public. Sometimes even while people are talking to me, which makes conversation even harder than it already is. There is a clear line between entering my imaginary world of experimentation and the daydreaming part because I don't have any control over the latter. I'm not sure if this is common with people who have Asperger's? I also recognize the symptoms about bad sleeping habits (the daydreaming is especially severe at night), and the part about emotional compensation also seems right. On Wikipedia, they talk about neglect, but involuntary isolation, as is common with disorders on the autism spectrum, pretty much amounts to the same in my view.

When entering the imaginary world voluntarily, are there any people who, like, jump while doing it? I can't sit still for a second while moving around imaginary. I walk in fast circles, do small jumps, talk to myself, etc... It would be a great help if someone could confirm this. As these repetitive movements are also an important symptom of Maladaptive Daydreaming. I also find the 'recurrent themes'-section very confronting. As some of my 'plots' staged include idolization of the self, power-control, and various far-fetched escape plots and roads to power exaggerated from movie-material.

I had imaginary friends way beyond the "appropriate" age lol. As a kid, I used an alternate reality to help me get through some stuff. I don't do this much anymore. I still have "characters" and enjoy bringing them out, but it's not on a regular basis. I am in the "real world" much of the time.

There is a name for this?

Yes, I recognise this in myself. My main theme is escape, but there is active planning for one of my main daydreams. It's been something I've done since childhood.

One of them involves my plans for a forest garden smallholding. Here, the boundary between daydreaming and mental planning is a bit blurred, because it's something I want to be doing.

The other one is a little more personal, and is an entire alternate universe, with substantial research having gone into it to see what it would actually look like. I know this isn't real.

According to Tony Atwood:

I wish I could revive my imaginary country, Havenia. I didn't have a storyline, but I did have a government.

By the way, people with autism aren't supposed to be imaginative (I don't agree with this!). I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS instead of HFA because I apparently have too much of an imagination to have fully clinical autism. Interesting, I otherwise passed the test as autistic with flying colors.