Episode 63: Can Daydreaming be Harmful?
Episode 63: Transcript
Intro
Jennifer Gunson 0:04
Can daydreaming be harmful? Let’s find out in another episode of Medium Well with Psychic Sharyn Rose. As a chronic daydreamer, Sharyn was criticized most of her life for lack of focus. Listen and learn how she formed her understanding of daydreaming. Let’s get started!
A photo of a girl daydreaming.
What are the dangers of daydreaming?
Sharyn 0:34
Hey, everybody! Hi, and welcome back to Medium Well with Psychic Sharyn Rose. Are you a daydreamer? And have you been told it’s a good or bad thing to be a daydreamer? You know, there are quotes everywhere – you check anywhere – as I was researching this particular episode, I ran across a quote from Gayle King, one from Walt Disney, which is my favourite. All our dreams can come true if we dare to pursue them. All our dreams. What is the goal? What is a daydream? What is the difference? And what is a nightdream? I mean, how do we differentiate between that all of those terms around dreaming and imagination? Edgar Allan Poe said, “They who dream by day, daydreamers are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only at night.” But did you know that daydreaming is considered? It’s being diagnosed as maladaptive in some cases because there are tools and information on the internet that guide you on how to stop daydreaming. After all, it interferes with your life. Is it a bad thing? And you know, when I was a little girl, I had a crazy, good, strong imagination. I was always a daydreamer. I was the one that was always gazing out the window at school when the teachers were talking. And I was often in lala land. To be honest with you, I was off in a fantasy world; I don’t know where I was. I know I was happy. I was happy. Now, think about the basics of life. Step back, step back, step back. We want to be satisfied. That’s the whole purpose of our life. Right? So does daydreaming, if it makes you happy? Is it a bad thing? And do you have to stop daydreaming? And what is it that would replace it? Is it now considered somewhat of a mental illness, which I think is crazy? I was always in trouble for daydreaming in school. And yet I did well in school; I did well, I just was bored most often. And when I found out now, this translated to one of my children; when my son was, I got a note from the school saying that he wasn’t paying attention. He wasn’t physically finishing his assignments, and he was often lala land in his head and wasn’t interested in, you know… so I went to the teacher because intuitively, I just had this feeling that he was bored, too. So I went to the teacher and said, Look, offer him the opportunity to do an extra exercise after he’s got his regular homework or regular exercise done in class. Offer him a chance to do one that nobody else will get. Give him something to stimulate his imagination and help him reach for something that won’t bore him. So she looked at me like I was crazy, but she did it. And my son went from being the kid that was distracted and wasn’t able to focus and was in the gifted program. It made a big difference when he could; he was off daydreaming because he was bored. So there’s also that issue, isn’t there?
Is it healthy for a person to daydream?
Why do we daydream? What is daydreaming about? Is it creative? Is it constructive? Or is it because we’re bored and just looking for something else to do? There’s been talk that daydreaming has been linked to OCD or ADHD. It’s been linked to all kinds of things. Now as we know, I’m a developed psychic. And I was a developed psychic medium when I was a little girl; I didn’t know the terms. I didn’t realize that it was a job. I didn’t know that I was doing something. I just thought I was. Well, I was always told that I was sluggish. But I wasn’t. I could think most things into becoming my reality. I could imagine things, and they would happen. I could create from my mind, from my heart, from my loves, my passions and my dreams. And I’ve never really changed. So I want to ask you whether you have changed. Did you give up on your dreams? Have you told yourself that dreaming? Daydreaming? Creating imagination is all playtime. Please don’t do that because it gets in the way of your job in the form of your work. I think daydreaming becomes a part of who we are in our whole selves. So I want to talk to you about the difference between being a daydreamer and being creative with a good imagination. How do artists come up with their projects? How do painters know what’s going to be on the canvas? After? How can they recognize what’s on the canvas while working with it? It’s got to come to them in some imagination process. And is imagination and dreaming entirely connected? Aren’t they related? I think they are. We have to imagine. We have to be able to imagine and believe that dreaming is a good thing. If we didn’t have a dream, and you know, it’s comical; I was looking at an article that said there were seven ways or seven steps you can take to stop daydreaming. And when I looked at the steps, I was like, wow, these are interesting because step three said, Keep your mind busy. And step number four said to meditate. Well, which is it?? Keep your mind alive or meditate to help you stop daydreaming. And also suggest turning your daydreams into visualization. This means if you have a dream, I have, I still have plans, I have a bucket list, I, the older I get, the bigger my bucket list gets, and I’m achieving stuff on my bucket list all the time. So I’m adding new dreams into my world. And some of them I sit. And when I go into meditation, or I get quiet, and I’m gazing out the window, sometimes it’s what would be called a daydream. But it’s a daydream that is me, visualizing myself achieving what I want to do, earning what I want to have, or achieving what I want to be. And I don’t think there’s any harm in that.
What happens if you daydream too much?
Now, I think people misdiagnosed with a daydream issue but considered maladaptive are just people who aren’t given any space to create from their place of dreaming. And I believe that if you’re not allowing yourself to use your imagination, creative flair, or daydream, let yourself daydream and come up with how you want your life to look. How do you want to feel? What do you want your life to be like? What do you want? How do you want to feel? Where do your emotions take you? Maybe you’re in the wrong country, perhaps you’re living in a poor household, or maybe you’ve got the wrong spouse. Or perhaps you’ve got a lousy job. Maybe it’s quilting, your creative aspect, and your dreaming side isn’t as creative because let me tell you what daydreaming is. It’s imagination. Going crazy. It’s fun. We do it because it feels good. It’s imagination going wild. I can remember being a psychic has me sitting on the edge of reality. In most people’s worlds, some people, even in my family, think what I do is wack. They believe what I do for work is crazy. And maybe that’s got to do with the fact that I have always been known by the more practical people I grew up around as being impractical, as being creative and being no stick to activeness was one of the things I heard because I’d get excited about something. And I’d pursue it until I achieved it. And then I’d be like, Okay, now I’m bored. And I want to try something new. Is there something wrong with that? Do you have to take on a role at 18, 19, or 20? And stay in that role for the rest of your life? Is there a possibility of achieving what you want in a short time in that role and taking on a new part? And isn’t that what daydreaming is about? Isn’t daydreaming about working in the accounting office when you’re dreaming about baking cookies for a living? Isn’t it about… isn’t it about loving your trips that you get to take two weeks every year because that’s the only holiday time you get from the job you have, and dreaming about becoming a travel blogger or becoming a travel journalist where you’re reporting back on all these different countries, and they pay you to go? Isn’t that would be… that’d be a dream. Would that be a daydream?
How long does the average person day dream?
Here’s what Wikipedia says about daydreaming – directly from Wikipedia. So this phenomenon is common in people’s daily life in a large-scale study in which participants spend 47% of their waking time, on average, daydreaming. So I guess we all daydream by the sounds of it, according to Wikipedia, but what it’s saying is that you’re external tasks that you’re supposed to be doing. So maybe you’re supposed to be sorting socks at work, or perhaps you’re supposed to be doing some tasks, maybe changing somebody’s oil in their car, or whatever it might be. It goes to your thoughts go to a more internal and personal place. Where you’re achieving something you love, you really love and want to do. And the reason daydreaming is so important to me is that years ago; I had a client come to me who had been; she went from the psych ward, and she was diagnosed with some disabilities, and we got talking. We became friends; she was terrific. And she engaged ultimately from her job, which was an efficient, logical job, into a very creative style job that used her skills from the realistic world. And she could go on and work with children and continue doing what she loves to do: work with children and tell stories. And I asked her one day I said, What would happen if I went to your psychiatrist and told him about my life and what I was doing? How would I be diagnosed? She immediately said you’d be diagnosed as schizophrenic because they don’t understand that you can reach into a place that isn’t accurate or practical. And isn’t that what people see as daydreaming is that you’re not being helpful? I think daydreaming is fabulous. I believe dreaming is fabulous. I remember, again, back to the animals when I was young, imagining the animals around the earth. And then the movie Dr. Doolittle came out, which I thought was interesting because he could talk to the animals. I didn’t realize I was talking to the animals at the time. But I was talking to the animals I just didn’t, wasn’t quite like him; the animals were talking back, and it was much more evident in Dr. Doolittle. But I thought it would be much better if animals ran the planet. That’s a dream. And that’s a daydream. And I would daydream about that. I remember when I was a little girl who imagined living in a different place and dreaming about it. And this would happen in school. So clearly, I was similar to my son; I was bored. And I was looking for something more to do. And I was trying to behave myself. And the best place to go is internal, right? Unless they catch you at it, you’re not bothering anybody if you’re daydreaming. And then they’re offended because you’re not doing what they think you’re supposed to be doing. You’re not keeping your mind active; you’re off in la la land, etc.
What triggers maladaptive daydreaming?
So here, if you find that you’re a daydreamer, and you find that there’s, you’re just not having a lot of good feedback or good luck with your daydreaming, it just seems to be getting in the way, then what you might want to do is you might want to, you might want to take your daydreams and map them out, is there somewhere to go with it? If there isn’t just that daydream, and you know, another one will come up; another one will show up as you daydream. But turn your dreams into visualizations. Use your imagination and see how far you can go with it. And go as far as you can. Because let me tell you what, there is no limit. There’s no end to dreaming and daydreaming, and you know what? This rolls nightdreaming into it as well. I know the topic is daydreaming right now. But night dreaming, too, you can come out of that with a lot of new ideas, a lot of new goals and a lot of unknown reasons to get up in the morning. So those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night, Edgar Allan Poe. I would suggest a couple of things if you have an idea. And if you’re a creative person, and you find yourself wanting to be able to take those dreams that you have, those daydreams that come up during the day when you’re at work, sitting at your office, sitting in your office, and just wanting to be outside in the world. Get pen and paper, sit down, and write out what you’re thinking of. What is it you’re dreaming of? What is it that you? What’s your passion? Where’s your love? And keep doing that. You might not the very first two or three or five times you do this, but you’re not going to meet again, that kind of an answer. But keep doing it every day. Have a little journal that is just a dream journal, daydreaming, and write down the things that are in your mind. Something will show up because it’ll repeat and repeat and repeat. And you’ll be like that woman who worked in a clothing factory and ended up just saying no, I’m good at making cookies, and she ends up starting to make cookies for the neighbours that are out of her house. And then she ends up there so famous people order them. And then she ends up going to wholesalers and retailers and saying I would like to sell you my cookies and they buy a bunch of her cookies. And all of a sudden, she owns a cookie company. And she’s not working in a clothing factory anymore. Now she’s doing something she loves. You can do that. You can do that! And daydreaming is what gets you there! Daydreaming is a joyful place. You don’t check and don’t try to fall into other people’s rules. And don’t try to stop daydreaming about preventing daydreaming because somebody told you it was wrong. I was told my whole life that it was wrong. And I never believed them. I always felt like dreaming and daydreaming because it was a place I could go where I was safe. And it was fun. And I could be, do, and have anything I wanted as an adult. Now it’s time for me to put many things down on paper, which I became very adept at doing; you wouldn’t believe the notes I have all the time. Everywhere. In my office, I have journals; I have all kinds of written, written data. And there are a lot of things that I’ve done because my dream, my dream, my daydream, even when I daydream, when I night dream when I dream in any form, is, how can I make a difference in the world today? How can I make a difference in the world today? Now, that doesn’t mean I could do it by baking cookies. If I’m good at baking cookies, I could do it. But it has to matter to me. It has to be personal. It has to matter to me. So if it matters to you, then pursue it. And if it does fizzle out after two weeks, that’s okay. Don’t let people tell you it was wrong for you to try. You tried, got a new idea from that idea, and you work with that. Don’t let anybody tell you you are dreaming is wrong. Don’t let anybody squelch your daydreams. Not ever.
What does it mean when you daydream?
So let’s not pull a card today. Let’s instead maybe use Walt Disney’s quote to guide us. “All our dreams can come true if we dare to pursue them. But they start with Daydream.” Daydreaming has been misunderstood – it’s not a maladaptive issue. It’s not wrong with you. It’s something you have the skill to take on; we can all daydream. And as Wikipedia said, 47% of society daydreams daily. 47%! That’s a lot of people. But we are all creative. We are all creatives; we all can create; it’s just that when we become adults, we tend to forget, so step back and, when you’re daydreaming starts to come up, open up your journal and let your mind go. Just let your mind go crazy. And at the end of it all, maybe a minute, two minutes, three minutes, write down what you came up for. Keep doing that; you’ll find a way to turn your dreams into your reality. I know so many people who have done that. And it’s just so worth it. Because you deserve to be happy, dream, have a plan and use daydreams as a catalyst to get you to your goal. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with that! I want to thank all of you who have sent him notes with ideas for the new names for the podcast; a few have come in. And I enjoy that those of you that listen to episode 61 or that get my newsletter, I want to contribute ideas for the names – thank you so much! We still haven’t made a decision. But remember, if your name is chosen that you’ve picked, we will be giving you a free reading. And I’ve got something to look forward to. Also, Kitchen Witchen is kicking off on February 1st! Again, you can go over to KitchenWitchen.ca. And take a look at the website and see what new information is there. And aside from that, the fireside chats will be coming back up. Now, remember, I’m doing this in November of 2022. Fireside chats are going to come back up again. They’ll be showing up on Facebook. And we’ll probably post them also on YouTube. Remember, our podcast is up on YouTube. So please go over and like and subscribe and get notifications so that you know when something new goes out. All right. Until next time, thank you for popping in and visiting with us. And I appreciate you, and you have a great week. Bye-bye for now.
Outro
Jennifer Gunson 18:55
Thank you for listening to another episode of Medium Well with Psychic Sharyn Rose. If you love listening to this podcast, we have one little favour to ask you; please follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google podcasts. If you love learning from Sharyn, well, she has a few excellent ongoing courses. Why don’t you register for Kitchen Witchen? It’s on now! All you have to do for more information is going to KitchenWitchen.ca. Or if you’d like to book an appointment with Sharyn for a reading, or if you’d like to know more about Sharyn, her psychic service,s coaching sessions and more workshops, go to SharynRose.com. That’s Sharyn with a “Y.” We’ll talk to you next time!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai