This notion has been troubling me for the last couple of days. For years and years, I’ve had problems waking up in the morning, both mental and physical, to the point where I not only feel tired, but often also ill. It’s bad enough that I’ve actually been to see several doctors about it, but none of them have had any ideas about what could be causing my difficulties. We’ve ruled out things like chronic fatigue syndrome, because as the day goes on I feel progressively better. I also regularly get lots of sleep. One way of putting it is that I have literal ‘morning sickness’.
If anyone on this forum remembers my dream journal from way back, they might recall that I tend to have insanely intricate and detailed dreams, with a very good recall ability. Again, it’s been like this for years and years. The other notable thing about my dreams is that they are overwhelmingly positive - I can count the number of nightmares I’ve ever had on the fingers of one hand. I often wake up feeling stunned to the core about the things I saw in that day’s dream. To tell the truth, I hate waking up from them. I’m aware it’s a significant contributor as to why I feel so bad when I wake up, although it doesn’t account for the physical symptoms.
The idea occurred to me just a couple of days ago (I don’t know why I didn’t notice it sooner) that I might be addicted to my dreams. It sounds crazy, but I wonder if my morning exhaustion and sickness could be withdrawal symptoms? It’s certainly true that I constantly find myself wishing that I never had to wake up. I don’t hate life or anything - in fact, I love life! - but next to the things I dream, it just doesn’t compare. It’s like I’m forced back into mediocrity each day from the most amazing wonders and visions the imagination can produce. I honestly have no idea how my subconscious comes up with this stuff, but it does it on a daily basis. I am convinced that my subconscious is a genius. If I could come up with even half this stuff while I was awake, I would probably be the world’s greatest artist, writer, architect, inventor and composer by now. It’s just that amazing.
It looks like my ‘morning sickness’ began at about the same time as I started keeping a dream journal, which was when I was 11 or 12 and my dreams started becoming interesting enough to write down, which doesn’t help reassure me. I haven’t typed up any dreams for the last two years, but it hasn’t stopped me having or remembering them, and it hasn’t stopped them being intricate. I’ve tried to talk to several people about what I’m going through - but invariably they have no idea what I’m talking about, because they’ve never experienced the kinds of dreams I have.
Even when I’m awake, I feel like I’m drowning in (lesser) ideas. I’m a creative person and so I appreciate not having to worry about writer’s block, but the opposite is just as bad! I can’t focus on any single pursuit for very long, because it requires me to focus on a small group of ideas while I’m working on it, when meanwhile I have all these other ideas hammering away at me, demanding to be heard. I’m currently pursuing a multidisciplinary creative degree at university, which is great, but I’m constantly being distracted from it by other ideas that demand I also give them some time, NOW.
I’m surrounded by a million unfinished projects in a dozen different mediums that I know could each be great if I could just devote the time to getting them finished. It’s driving me nuts that I can’t stop the ideas coming, since I just want to be able to focus on my current projects. Every moment of my spare time is spent working on something creative, in an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of my dreams, or spent escaping into imaginary places through novels or TV shows, just to get away from reality. I can never get enough of it, and it seems like I’m never happy except when I’m asleep.
Isn’t this the behaviour of an addict? It seems like it to me. It affects my daily life. It affects my relationships with friends and family. It affects all my creative pursuits, and I’m never satisfied with any of the work I create because it doesn’t match up to my dreams. I do my best to distract myself during the day by keeping busy with work and study, and this works to some extent. But the longing never really goes away.
I have the best dreams in the world and I know it, but I wish they would just go away so that I would be able to enjoy real life. I wish I didn’t know exactly what I was missing. I wish I didn’t want to dream all the time. I wish I could just clear my head for a few days so that I could commit myself to a single project and not be thinking about a dozen others simultaneously. Yet how am I supposed to stop dreaming? Can it even be done? How can I stop wanting to dream? How can I learn to find happiness in real life after I’ve experienced everything in my dreams? It goes through phases every few months or so, but right now I seem to be in the middle of an unbearable one.
It’s driving me crazy that there’s nothing I can do about it. Geez, there’s nobody I can even talk with about it. After all, whoever heard of a dream addiction? sigh
Well, my rant is over. I’d appreciate any thoughts and suggestions anyone has on the matter, because frankly, I am at a loss for what to do.
As for whether it’s possible, I’m certain there are plenty of people out there with similar experiences. I have heard of some who have gotten addicted to certain activities in their dreams. For you, it merely sounds as if you’re addicted to the whole experience.
It even almosts reads like that you are ADHD - but the behaviour manifests itself through creativity rather than anti-social behaviour.