Daydream Believer

When I wrote my post on the idea of building a whole new me, I had planned to write about daydreaming instead. It was another hijacked blog post!

Throughout my life I’ve been a big daydreamer. My mind creates fabulous lives for me to live. Some are short-lived, fanciful adventures, and some go on for ages. Despite how real these daydreams seemed, and how much I wanted them to be true, until I got older I never found myself diving in in real life to make them come true.

My first elaborate daydream involved me becoming an actress. While I did practice my Oscar acceptance speech, I never took a single step towards being in theatre. This fantasy started when I was in junior high, right around the time I became obsessed with the soundtrack to A Chorus Line.

The song “Nothing” talks about the activities in the first year of drama class. Just like Morales, I didn’t see why anyone would want to act like a table or imagine feeling non-existing snow on their face. I never seriously considered taking drama, but that didn’t stop the daydreams.

My next extended daydreaming involved me being a world class tennis player. I’d imagine all the training hours and being in championship games. This dream I worked towards … sort of. Every single day throughout the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I was out on our community tennis court for a couple hours. I practiced serving ,and I practiced rallying against the back wall of the court. What I never did was play against other people, although I knew many people who played. At least with this fantasy, I at least knew what a racket felt like in my hand.

For years I didn’t have a definite focus for my daydreaming time. The next big one was becoming a professional dance competitor and instructor. That one I worked towards every single day. I guess I got more serious with age.

One interesting feature about all my fantasy lives was that once I had completely worked out a scene in my head that felt genuine, I could never revisit it. Whenever I did, it had a forced feel to it, much like Bill Murray’s character in Ground Hog Day trying to relive his perfect date.

I really wish I had thought to write down these bits of perfected scenes. I wonder what I would think now of those gems from junior high. I’m currently without a daydream that I can easily slip into. You can bet that going forward I will capture those fully developed scenes.

Is anyone else out there a recurring daydreamers with extended visitations to the same idea? or Can anyone tell me how similar real life drama classes in high school compare to the images portrayed in A Chorus Line and Fame?