Fantasizing: Is it really worth it?

[Amelia]

Re: Fantasizing: Is it really worth it?

Daydreaming is enticing but creates disharmony with the natural flow of your life.

I know this well, and yet...

Waking up from a good dream and wanting it to continue, knowing that it never will... kind of like all the good things in life, too. I hope I am learning to drop things better...

I write as a hobby, and sometimes in the midst of a great story, I stop, knowing it is not real and will never be real, and I feel agitated at this fact-- at my plain life.

It's okay, though.

How many times have you created a fantasy in your mind set on auto-repeat that replayed over and over again?

Ah! So many times. My teen years were dedicated to it! So much suffering, too, as a result! (Anyone ever read I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, by Joanne Greenburg?)

Did that fantasy ever happen exactly as you obsessed about it?

Here's the odd thing-- it did (causing me to believe in some semblance of the Law of Attraction). But then, failing to rejoice in the loveliness of a dream come true, I built other dreams. Never satisfied... tsk tsk...

However, one should fantasize or dream without becoming there prisoner, or in excess, or forgeting to allow and live in how things are right now.

Since Harry Potter has been quoted lately, here's another one:

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." --Dumbledore :mrgreen:

Is that why they say it is a dream within a dream?

Be careful! Extractors might get into your subconscious and steal your secrets!

Fantasy may not always be appropriate, but it may be a gift to oneself at times.

One thing that I remember from my travelling days is walking home to Bondi Junction one evening and realising that I was actually living what I had always dreamed of doing and it was ....well just a contentment...I still had to pay rent, wake up early to go to work, eat! The basics don't change.

When sitting Zazen, eating Oryoki, working in the garden ... or perhaps washing the dishes, changing the baby diapers, making love ... do it with all one's all.

At other times, kick back ... watch TV or the grass grow, eat popcorn, daydream, pick lint out of your navel. Relax.

Thank you all for these bits of wisdom. _/_ And thanks to Jundo especially for going into some details in this thread that I needed to know.

Great thread!

[Ekai]

Re: Fantasizing: Is it really worth it?

I can see the family fantasy working out as a happy reality --- I myself never dreamed of a family, I thought I would remain unmarried and childless, made it until 42, then my fantasy of being a life long bachelor caved in!

I dreamed of drugs, sex and rock and roll --- got it all -- nearly killed me -- was hard damn work, all of it, the sex parties, the drug taking and the r'n'r scene was a grind -- walked away by the time I was thirty --
Walked away from the drugs and r'n'r yet dabbled in the sex a while longer --- Was a swinger and a exotic dancer so I was a man whore more or less, probably more but that's too much sex on demand and gets boring fast and you know what happens when a man gets bored with sex! I then dreamed of being a peaceful carpenter with a nice girlfriend at my side --- it too was a hellish rat race and hard work, nothing peaceful about it ... both being a handyman/carpenter and finding a "nice" girlfriend.

Funny, I used to be an exotic dancer too, for eight years as a single mother to pay my way through college. That was a long time ago, about 12 years ago. I quit right at the beginning of my Buddhist path but also ended my career for many other good reasons.

Ekai