Does anybody have a place to go in their head when things get bad?

[Spiral]

I don't know if I'm weird or not for doing this but for most of my life I have been hiding from the real world and instead spending my time in my imagination.

Does anybody else do this?

If so, what is your imaginary safe place like?

I always go to the same imaginary place, it's a forest. I concentrate really hard until I can feel the damp earth beneath my bare feet and smell ferns and moss and the musty smell of decaying leaves, it has rained recently but the sun has come out and I watch the dappled light dancing around on the forest floor, I look up at the canopy above, the trees are huge and it's so high, there is a stream nearby and I can hear the tinkling water and the scampering of squirrels. It is so peaceful there.
I have always been able to go there until recently my intrusive thoughts have got so bad that I can't sustain it for more than a few minutes and my safe imaginary world disintegrates.
I would love to hear about everyone's safe places or even coping rituals that you have when you just need to shut the world out

 

[WornOutLife]

Yes, I do that too!
I imagine another reality, much better!
I've even imagined being super famous and having lots of money. It can help but then you remember YOUR OWN reality and it sucks haha

 

[the_final_countdown]

I do intense visualizations as well, to help with pain.

I can hold it for a few seconds, as I lay on top of the surface of water for instance.

 

[Spiral]

Oh yes, floating on water is a good one, I might try that :)

 

[WornOutLife]

I do intense visualizations as well, to help with pain.

I can hold it for a few seconds, as I lay on top of the surface of water for instance.

Water is so cool! Reminds me of when I was a fetus and was in my mom's belly. (Well, I don't actually remember that haha or maybe I kinda do?)

 

[these_days9]

You're place sounds really nice :)

mine tbh is imagining death, nothingness. It's really the only thing that calms me. I'll also imagine all the ways it can happen and taking the steps to get there. Eventually will be a reality.

 

[Lostandlooking]

I've always done this as well. I create really elaborate fantasies in my mind, also places that I go to. Every couple of years I create a different place. I don't want to describe my place because I know it won't feel safe anymore. Kinda weird maybe, but it has to be a secret place.

 

[Spiral]

You're place sounds really nice :)

mine tbh is imagining death, nothingness. It's really the only thing that calms me. I'll also imagine all the ways it can happen and taking the steps to get there. Eventually will be a reality.

I do this often too, especially when my anxiety is bad and my heart is racing, imagining death always slows down the panic. Into the void we go

I've always done this as well. I create really elaborate fantasies in my mind, also places that I go to. Every couple of years I create a different place. I don't want to describe my place because I know it won't feel safe anymore. Kinda weird maybe, but it has to be a secret place.

I totally get it, I kept mine secret forever until today, maybe because I can't get back there it's ok to share it xD

 

[kitch]

Not shutting the world out ... but reframing it ? .... via a sedimenting of different models of the human condition over the last few years ... ( Emotionally Distraught 24/7 here ... (CPTSD BPD ... I guess ... though state provided counselling , and even private doesn't detect it ... I'm too polite ! ? :/ )

I think I'm working on it ... ( ha ha ... I'm so 'self help resistant' , motivation trough slouching it's part of the problem spectrum .
I enjoyed checking out Yoga Nidra ... some kind of body awareness laying down feeling in the body stuff.
Relevance ?
I'm a believer in the body trauma stored stuff.
So : Thoughts seem to possibley avalanche down from the Amygdilia (some mispelt brain component) that runs pre-verbal hormone producing fight/flight/freeze "animal / organismic" responses.

I remember several occasions ( my whole fucking life) where I'm running on "not in a safe place " thoughts and fucking my life up with knee jerk decisions while in the thrall of these cortisol (?) drenched panic responses .

Deep breathes ... "I'm feeling my body rsponses .. Thanks Body A1 response ! Saved ME ! BUT ... I'm sitting in an office being bullied by some wanna be Baboon Alpha that doesn't realize it's a victim more than I can even imagine being , so relax !"

I'm coming in for a bumpy landing on the "gotta get out there in the work world again" nightmare ... so am processing this stuff a bit .

Our worlds are created in our imaginations though ... it's a very empowering ( and infuriating !) concept.

 

[Ihadagoodlife]

I can't do that anymore i have tinnitus, i cant even function properly now cause of this combined with tmj

 

[NodusTollens]

My place isn't a place per say... in the past people were my safe space. I would exist in their "aura," without the need to speak to them directly in some cases- simply needing their presence.

Now, realizing I can't place the burden of my safe space on a person, it's become a void- floating formless among the planets & starts, or watching over those I care for.

 

[Disco Biscuit]

Oh wow, I'd forgotten about this but I did this for many years. When I was a kid, I used to fantasise about my "real" parents coming to get me because it turned out my actual parents weren't mine after all. Then when I was older, I would create entire new lives in my head. I mostly used it as a method to fall asleep but it was a great way to escape current reality.

 

[GarageKarate07]

This is the only place I have chosen to live most of my life. The pain in this world is too much to bear. Watching people treat each other with so much hatred has been nothing but a burden for me. I know I'm not alone and I know there are good things in this world but I am one of those people who doesn't seem to be able to enjoy it. I feel that being happy is to be asleep and hide from reality. I'd rather just hide in my fantasy world and see the horrible things we do for what they really are, hypocracy and ignorance blanketed by pride.

 

[Green Destiny]

Maladaptive daydreamer here, if I didn't go inside my head more often than not then I'd have done something very bad by now. Don't know what, but something bad.

 

[Antigonish]

La La land. I created it in 2and grade. Been building on it every since. At first it was an amusement park. Now it's a terrifying desolate waste la d filled with monster. But hey, it's my safe place. Even if I have to hide in the place I go to hide. A dream, within a dream, with in a nightmare. Either way I wake to find a shitty reality.

 

[Pookie]

Yeah, I sleep. Brain switched off.

 

[Cherry Crumpet]

Mine isn't a place.. it was a time. I used to recall my childhood and the fond memories of it. I've had some trauma since then that's tainted a lot of those memories.. but I'm starting to be able to use them as a safe spot again.

Kind of related, but if possible, I'll put on an ASMR track that's for panic/anixety attacks or severe depression. The BF/GF roleplay ones creep me out (not knocking if that's your thing just not mine).. but ones where they talk soothingly about calming your breathing, being grounded. Etc.

 

[booray]

The only place where I can escape my terrible reality is in my dreams. Every single awakening for me is rude.

 

[Makko]

I choose to stay in my head even when things are good. Haven't found anything in reality that can come anywhere close to the positive feelings I get from my fantasy.

 

[Q-Dust]

I don't have to be myself when i imagine a place

 

[Mentalmick]

I used to before going to sleep but the place got repossessed.

 

[Lmd]

My imaginary safe place it's...defeat things. I'm always in a battle royale where the rules changes. Sometimes we have powers, sometimes I just have a branch. The fights are always under a context and in scenarios with more people so I don't really know who is my opponent and I have to do some dailies until I find out. Sometimes I just have to beat monsters or beasts from other planes. The thing is that It only happens when I'm sleeping and the fights take days to finish them so when I'm awake I'm constantly thinking in what to do next or how to resolve it or thinking in scenarios for myself so I can force my brain a bit to create it without having to change anything when I'm under a lucid dream.

 

[Natty]

A lot of these sound really pleasant.

Makes me wish I had something similar, but for as long as I remember my head has been extremely crowded with thoughts that are never great.

The best analogy is that my mind feels like it runs on multiple tracks and trains of thought, and unfortunately the negative ones pervades anything else going on. There is always some heavy melancholy leaking into everything.

 

[NeverGoodEnuff]

Just the opposite. The more I am in my head, the worse it is. That is where the bad stuff lives. There is no limit to where the awful thoughts can lead. For me, getting out of my head works. Stop listening to those negative lies which expand exponentially and go in very strange directions. I have tried imagining Shangri-La. Those are lies, too, and I just end up disappointed and going in the opposite direction.

So I work at staying out of my head.

 

[Fehler]

I would love to hear about everyone's safe places or even coping rituals that you have when you just need to shut the world out.

I consider my "safe zone" some place near where I live that there are no people and nature. I just moved in and for now I have a ruined castle half an hour away. I like to meditate in those places, during the journey to this I put on music to try not to think but once there I stay in silence and start thinking about my things.

If so, what is your imaginary safe place like?

Not exactly my safe place, but it did help me to disconnect in my lowest moments, although I took a liking to it and I usually do it almost every night to help me sleep. Like many, I imagine myself in various situations and try to keep the thread of the imaginary world. As a young man I used to imagine myself in the universe already created in videogames (hl2, l4d2, tf2 ... etc). Now I have been with 2 universes for a while that I am exchanging. In one of them I am the dictator of a habitable planet that was offered me a superior race for its entertainment, the condition is that I had to inhabit it with plant, animal and human life. And well from there sometimes I start to think about all the administration that it would require, the laws, transport, work, health, construction ... etc.

The other universe is in the present future of the earth. I am the owner of a large island where dinosaurs (among others) live. On this island the worst criminals are sent (like a battle royal) who will have to perform X tasks to be able to receive the food packages among other objects. As in the other universe, I have a lot to think about it, the management of the television program, security, transport of criminals, fauna and vegetation in addition to the dinosaurs ... etc.

 

[it's_all_a_game]

I like to daydream and real dream :) Sometimes lucid, sometimes non-conscious dreams

I have created characters from my own stories I have written that hang out with each other in my head. Strangely, I've never met them personally.

 

[imsorrythatimhere]

Yes. I'm rich and have friends and a significant other or something. I've sort of stopped going to the "imaginary place" though, after realizing it'll never be real

 

[Throwmyselfaway]

This one will either make people laugh or wonder what's wrong with me. Lol. Some of my fav movies are the saw movies. I like to work myself into a series of traps to see if I can survive. Oddly this helps with sleep. In all fairness I never die but it's an interesting puzzle.

 

[Nicothe13th]

I did, found some inner happiness and thought i could make something of my life.

Then 2020 happened and EVERYTHING went to shit, now I'm just lying here waiting for the dawn sun to rise and set and my parents to go to sleep again so i can escape this 'life'

 

[Water-Lily]

Yes. For me its talking to my imaginary friends. Coincidentally, my mother mentioned she had imaginary friends when she was a child to help her cope with trauma. Sadly she passed it onto me with her trauma. Anyways, I have imaginary friends I talk to, even out loud, in public. I sometimes get stares from people but, I do it anyways. I have many of them who keep me calm when I am breaking, who manage to stop me from suicide (or sometimes encourage me, all my thoughts). I also like thinking about anime and Pokemon too. And even imaginary boyfriends/relationships. It all mirrors what I truly want in life. Genine friends and a boyfriend. thing is think I cannot have because I don't have the mental power to change my ways.