Topic: Impoverished Fantasy & Imaginal Life

English Alexithymia Forum > Alexithymie Questionnaire

Impoverished Fantasy & Imaginal Life
23.01.2017 by SectionEight

I scored 152 on the Alexi test and I’ve also been diagnosed with Bipolar II and Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPD). Despite getting 152 on the test, I don’t have an impoverished fantasy and imaginal life. Infact it’s one of the things that people who were diagnosed with SPD (before it disappeared from the DSM-V) have strongly.

I’m a member of Schizoid.net and this trait of having a strong fantasy life is prevelant and strong among us. To give you an example, when I walk home from work I often imagine myself in different situations (being held hostage, testify in court to win my freedom) and practice what I would say and how I would react.

Also as a prior avid gamer of Dungeon & Dragons I like to make characters and then imagine how they would react in certain situations and what they would say. Sometimes I do this so much I wonder if I should put pen to paper and try and make a cogent story.

So my question is how many Alexis out there actually have an Impoverished Fantasy & Imaginal Life? What is it like? Also many definitions of Alexi states that Alexi’s have boring routine dreams. Is this so and what are your dreams like?

Well
14.04.2017 by tiger91

The idea is the imagination is devoid of emotions for alexithymics.

Anyway I'm far from being a daydreamer, I don't have such a fantasy life you describe, I'm more external in my focus.

Same for most of my dreams. Some of them are different though, then emotions can surface in them.

Not a great deal of imagination...
24.08.2018 by Germanguy

I hardly ever dream, maybe 5 times a year at the most. The dreams that I do have tend to be of the functional kind.

When I daydream, I usually work out how to do something, solve a problem or I design for example furniture or architectural details in my head.

I have never told a story in my life.

15.04.2020 by User87815C31

Well I would blame my impoverished fantasy life on not being able to voluntarily imagine more than this condition considering I still love to lose myself in a story. And my dreams would make awesome fantasy stories, except I tend to not remember them much, maybe a few times a year.

15.04.2020 by User74504G85

My dreams are more important to me than actual life. I count on my daydreams to get me through the day and am often asked if i'm ok because I drift off into my mind. I feel like no one else gets it. I scored high on this test and bipolar is in my family, also friends have wondered if I have these things. Please text me if you want to talk 860-501-2655. I really need someone to talk to and help me get through this weird thing we call life.

22.06.2020 by User25660N61

Well I feel like its very complex and even confuses me. I have a very active imagination in kinda the same way. I often daydream of different scenarios with myself and others in my life or even strangers. such as, If i'm on the way to see them I daydream how I'm going to drive up and enter the house and greet them and what I'll say and do and act. Just one example. I daydream doing different dream jobs and different lifestyles. I love reading and art. I can't come up with my own original story though I usually need at least some type of topic. I struggled with writing my own story in high school english and just wrote about pirates.lol. Also I can come up with lots to paint but do not possess the gift of drawing. I can't play Minecraft because I literally get stuck on what to build for my house. I cant think of anything while my kids just go crazy and have millions of ideas. On sims i can't design the houses or the people/characters. I never understood why before now, before learning about Alexi. Now at least I know. I constantly daydream about the future like where i'll live, how i'll live, what i'll be doing for a living. But as a younger teenager I did not daydream very much and when i was even younger I basically never daydreamed unless it was about a book and everything i've read until then or a movie or tv i've watched. Also usually my dreams were never ever boring just mainly nightmares. Lately though I've been doing meditation and yoga and stopped smoking and my dreams have been quite boring. just about me living life. and before the boring but after the nightmares, well i still considered these nightmares, I would dream about losing emotional control. I hated it. It was frightening, I didnt even want to sleep. I was needy and crying and begging. Oh geez it really was the worst. well I remember I hated it, I think.

30.03.2021 by User57001D75

The fantasy was the only part of the Test that I wasn't categorized as an Alex. I dream a lot, all crazy and surreal dreams and I think they're funny. I also play a lot of RPG, I really enjoy it, but I don't "visualise" the characters and places (maybe because of Aphantasia, not Alex). I'm not good at interpreting my characters tho. But I still think about a lot of absurd things in my imagination.

07.04.2021 by User41112C50

I scored 145, my lowest one was the "restrictive imagination process" but it was still "high" on the scale.
I sometimes have wild nightmarish fantasy horror like dreams, like I'm living in a kingdom death or a call of cthulhu RPG. But I also have super mundane boring dreams where I'm literally just doing work. For example, when I was working as a cashier, I would just dream about ringing people through the till, and making change...and then go to work and do the same thing in real life. Another example: when I was playing a lot of Diablo, I would dream about playing the game., and it would be just like real life, I'd dream of what you would see on the computer, like you watching someone play the game.
I think that my dreams are my brain processing the days events, but it's almost like it can't distinguish between reality and fantasy. If I've read a bunch of fantasy/horror short stories, that's what I dream about. If I've done nothing but work and chores at home, I'll dream about that. Either that or my brain is trying to dream, but it needs fuel to get the creative fire started? I don't know. I do know that I prefer the nightmares/nonsense dreams; I'm always disappointed when I wake up and can remember that I was dreaming about washing the dishes or working.
side note, I notice a lot of us mention D&D or RPGs :)

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