Sinister: daydreams

[Jesse Chanin]

Dear Sinister,

I've been thinking a lot about daydreams lately and not (before you all get 
too interested) of the sexual nature.  I create little stories in my head 
and follow them and elaborate on them and repeat them day after day, like my 
own miniature soap opera.  But the thing is: they're neither witty nor 
intelligent and really have no discernable point whatsoever.  They involve 
people I know and people I don't and me-- but none of us are real.  We're 
all surface level replicas of ourselves, somehow glamorized even in our 
imaginary misery.  And everyone's witty, of course, but it's dumbed down to 
the point that the *fact* that they're witty holds more relevance than what 
is actually said; the conversations are interchangable but are held together 
by a constant artificial happiness, a constant wistful respect.

(Perhaps in rebellion against my own "rational" idea that the words should 
matter more than the sentiments attached to them, that writing "I am happy" 
on a piece of paper could mean infinitely more than the actual emotion-- 
with supporting details, of course.)

It's not new, I suppose.  When I was a kid I used to walk around with the 
characters of some book I had just finished in my head, creating whole 
plotlines for them that weren't hinted at in the actual literature.  In 
these daydreams I was rarely present, just an interactive onlooker, smiling 
at their clichéd adventures.  But I wasn't really that removed either-- I'd 
switch my perspective from character to character, heedless of gender or 
motive or background.  At some point all that changed and everything became 
a bit more egocentric.  Now it is rare that I will have a daydream in which 
I (or the surface level perfect self that has come to represent me) am not 
present.

Lately I've gotten a bit obsessed with them.  I look forward to the end of 
the day when I can be alone and devote my time to replaying senseless scenes 
in my head.  I take long walks to free my mind absolutely for thinking.  I 
smile when people in the daydream are happy and mouth their witty lines to 
the air.  But the problem is, when it comes down to it, it's just a line.  
And the people are all two-dimensional and pretty.  They're people the way I 
wish they were, except it's not even that, because I enjoy complexity and 
mystery and antagonism.  They're silly air people.  And I'm afraid I wish 
they were real.

It's like reverse schizophrenia, really.  I know that the characters are 
fake and yet I *want* them to be real.  Why attempt to make valid 
connections in life with those annoyingly moody three-dimsensional folks 
when I have an unlimited vault of witty people in my head always ready to be 
turned to?  It's safe and "perfect" in the most awful use of that word.  It 
is rare that you find a situation when "perfect" doesn't mean "fake" on some 
level, and I suppose this is no exception.

I'm addicted to alternatives to reality.  I've got different levels and I 
just move up and down the ladder, slipping in and out of what's real, of 
what's truthful and meaningful and into something less.  The levels seem to 
be:

1. real life
2. internet people
3. daydreams
4. sleep

So I guess I'm beginning (or perhaps it's been occurring for awhile, it's 
difficult to tell sometimes) to substitute fakeness in for real life.  Which 
brings up more questions about truth and reality, about what's real to me.  
If I spend all Saturday dreaming about a conversation on a boat with my long 
dead uncle, does that *become* my reality?  Surely it has affected me more 
than the fact that it was raining all day, which I hardly noticed, or the 
television I was ignoring in deference to my mind.

That's all really, I suppose.  Do you all have similar silly fantasies?  I 
hope so.  Maybe we could start a self-help group (unless the group part of 
that defeats the purpose of such a venture) or at least keep each other one 
level up for the moment.

Stay safe,
Jesse



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