Disquietude of the Mind & Spirit (Introduction)

This story is bout a guy who finds out he has FPP or Fantasy Prone Personality. He struggles with what's real and what's reality. But the one thing he fears most is the question that remains...

Fantasy prone personality or FPP is a disposition or personality trait in which someone experiences a lifelong extensive and deep involvement in fantasy. This disposition is an attempt, at least in part, to better describe the popular term "overactive imagination" or "living in a dream world". An individual with this trait, called a fantasizer, may have difficulty differentiating between fantasy and reality. Some severe cases reported people experiencing hallucinations, as well as self-suggested psychosomatic symptoms. Three closely related psychological constructs are daydreaming, absorption and eidetic memory. These were the facts of my 'condition', my psychological problem. At least...this is what I am told.

 

FPP was identified in 1981, said to apply to about 4% of the population. Besides identifying this fascinating trait, a number of childhood antecedents reported that likely caused the foundation for fantasy proneness in later life, such as a parent, grandparent, teacher, or friend who encouraged the reading of fairy tales, reinforced the child's ... fantasies. Fairy Tale books were something that all or most children had and to be momentarily lost in their play world was considered normal for the most part. Some parents or guardians   would treat the child's dolls and stuffed animals in ways that encouraged the child to believe that they were alive. They suggested that this trait was almost synonymous with those who responded dramatically to hypnotic induction. People with average lives that had FPP were involved in these hypnotic experiments, often walking away with more knowledge about themselves and FPP. However another set of highly hypnotizable subjects were those who had, had traumatic childhoods and identified fantasy time mainly by "spacing out." For them, their experience was most of the time not positive or enlightening. Their reactions to the experiments were more radical and often violent...

 

I'm told that a fantasy prone person is reported to spend a large portion of his or her time fantasizing, having vividly intense fantasies, paranormal experiences, and intense religious experiences. I have two of these 'traits', the intense religious one wasn't one I had experienced and it took little to explain why. I am an atheist and the fact I didn't get the 'oh-all-mighty-god' feeling in me when I was forced to sit in church was because I didn't believe half the crap that came out of the Reverends mouth. I recall a few times catching something that had contradicted a Mass he had hosted a week beforehand. But it appeared I was pretty much the only person who caught it. My mother however would smile with twinkles in her eyes as if someone had told her she just won the lottery. I didn't get it but played along for as long as I had to until I got into my teens. As I got older my fantasies may have became more mature themselves, including dissociation and sexual fantasies. Though I rarely tried testing these fantasies out as they were way on the meter scale for abnormal and strange fantasies. People with FPP are reported to spend over half of their time awake fantasizing or daydreaming and will often confuse or mix their fantasies with their real memories. Which was something that happened to me from time to time. But it wasn't often it'd occur so it was shrugged off as something to do with my sleeping habits, or lack of I should say.

 

Some people who suffered FPP also report out-of-body experiences. Which I thought was weird because I had a few similar experiences like that when I did actually sleep. It felt like a strange dream that was always played in slow motion. My body didn't change but I felt heavier, somehow harder to simply move or put any effort into walking. Running was something that was always out of the question due to the fact that I could barely raise my arm without fighting with every fiber of my being just to do so. Running, ha! Yeah you could forget that ever happening in these dreams. And if you had the sudden misfortune of being chased by some wide-mouth monster with ragged teeth and talons for nails you were S.O.L. Whenever that'd happen to me I'd always just get nearly caught and then wake up during a panic attack covered in ice cold sweat. The eerie feeling that I was just a moment ago in some sort of dimension I wasn't supposed to be in was unsettling.

 

I'd also see silhouettes of shadow creatures or people in my bedroom. It was pitch black but they'd be clear as glass in the darkness, being the blackest parts of my room. It would frighten me to no need, to the point that I'd all but given up on sleeping and just stay up until the sun was in the sky once more. Their movements weren't nearly like a persons though. When someone walks each step can be seen the length of their steps would determine just how far they'd get from point A to point B. However these beings, these Shadow People, were a whole other story. Depth perception was non-existent and seeing just how close they really were could only be determine by how much bigger they got. The closer they were the larger they seemed. I'll never forget the night one had reached my bedside...I'll never forget it.

 

When I told my Doctor about this her answer was pretty logical and straight forward, "A paracosm is an extremely detailed and structured fantasy world often created by extreme or compulsive fantasizers." It was like she had read that out of her text book and spit the information back at me like a struggling student who she didn't have the time for. I wasn't satisfied but it was the only answer I got.

 

After that I was given a list of characteristics many FPP patients had. They were consistent and the information had been passed along for decades making it highly unlikely to be false information. The characteristics are as followed:

 

1. Excellent hypnotic subject (most but not all fantasizers)

 

2. Having imaginary friends as child *

 

3. Fantasizing often as child *

 

4. Having an actual fantasy identity

 

5. Experiencing imagined sensations as real *

 

6. Having vivid sensory perceptions *

 

7. Reliving past experiences *

 

8. Claiming to have psychic powers

 

9. Having out-of-body experiences *

 

10. Receiving information from higher powers, spirits, intelligences

 

11. Believe they have powers for spiritual healing or faith healing

 

12. Encountering apparitions *

 

13. Hypnogogic hallucinations (waking dreams) *

 

14. Claiming to have been abducted by aliens

 

15. Receiving sexual satisfaction without any stimulation *

 

My skin crawled at how many of these 'characteristics' applied to me. The ones that bothered me most were all the ones involving the Paranormal and the very first one were WE made excellent hypnotic subjects. It was so strange to me to see that written so plainly on that piece of paper. I guess in the real world everyone really is only seen as numbers. At least that's what I thought of it anyways, felt it dehumanizing to be more correct. I made personal notes on the paper and put a Star next to each one that applied.

 

Nine...out of fifteen of these applied to me personally. I honestly couldn't explain the emotions running through me other than these very vivid two, the famous am I going crazy question and what if the so called 'explained' Paranormal experiences I've had didn't apply to these and they were real...? I'd rather be crazy to be perfectly truthful than have whatever the hell that has been following me be more than a hallucination. Well...whatever those things in my dreams and nightmares are.

 

Now apparently there are three pathways that can happen to make someone into a Fantasizer. Having a large exposure to fantasy during early childhood is an obvious one but this over-exposure to childhood fantasy has at least three important causes:

 

1. Parents or carers who provided a very structured and imaginative mental and/or play environment. People with fantasy prone personality are more likely to have had parents, or closely related family members that have made their inanimate toys as children seem real. They also encourage the child who believes they have imaginary companions, reads fairytales all through childhood and re-enacts the things they have read. Children who at a young age were involved in creative fantasy activities like piano, ballet, and drawing are more likely to obtain a fantasy prone personality. Acting is also a way for children to identify as different people and characters which can make the child prone to fantasy-like dreams as they grow up. This creates the person to grow up thinking they have experienced certain things and they can visualize a certain occurrence from the training they obtained while being involved in plays. People have reported that they believed their dolls and stuffed animals were living creatures and that their parents encouraged them to indulge in their fantasies and daydreams. For example, one of the girls that comes here, Judith, said her parents’ formula response to her requests for expensive toys was, “You could take this (household object) and with a little imagination, it would look just like that $200-whatever-Susie-just-got.” And she reported, “this worked for me �" although Susie couldn’t quite always see it.” Fantasy prone people generally don't find people exactly like them in the imagination department. It was a very long time for me to find someone moderately similar.

 

2. Exposure to physical an/or sexual abuse, such that fantasizing provides a coping or escape mechanism from the abuse. I wouldn't know anything about this cause in truth I lived a pretty average boring life. I wasn't traumatized by anything and no one 'touched' me in my private areas. So for those who came here with stories as such I stirred clear of them. Not because I don't care but because I didn't need my overactive mind imagining things making me believe I may have been.

 

3. Exposure to severe loneliness and isolation, such that fantasizing provides a coping or escape mechanism from the boredom. This and number one was pretty much the story of my childhood life. I didn't know how to make friends, I did things due to my FPP that have would embarrassed me if caught doing so and I simply was just socially awkward. Kid's like to poke and make fun, it hurt but what's the old saying? Kid's tend to say what they think, not think about what they say?

 

My doctor stated that, "Unsatisfied wishes are the driving power behind fantasies, every separate fantasy contains the fulfillment of a wish, and unproves an unsatisfactory reality." This applies to the loneliness and dissatisfaction in life that can result in people creating a fantasy world of happiness in order to fill the void. Young children who once were treated with abuse and had a parent leave created a world of fantasies to escape from reality. I just did it to escape...period.

 

Absorption is a disposition or personality trait in which a person becomes absorbed in his/her mental imagery, particularly fantasy. This trait thus correlates highly with fantasy prone personality. They tell me that fantasy proneness and absorption are highly correlated. Fantasizers become absorbed within their vivid and realistic mental imagery, loosing sight of reality.

 

Dissociation is a psychological process involving alterations in personal identity or sense of self. These alterations can include: a sense of self or the world is unreal (derealization and depersonalization); a loss of memory (amnesia); forgetting one's identity or assuming a new self (fugue); and fragmentation of identity or self into separate streams of consciousness (dissociative identity disorder, formerly termed multiple personality disorder). Dissociation is measured most often by the Dissociative Experiences Scale. Several studies have reported that dissociation and fantasy proneness are highly correlated. This suggests the possibility that the dissociated selves are merely fantasies, for example, being a coping response to trauma. However, a lengthy review of the evidence concludes that there is strong empirical support for the hypothesis that dissociation is caused primarily by exposure to trauma, and that fantasy is of secondary importance.

 

Some peoples FPP is so bad that they even have False pregnancies (pseudocyesis). Supposedly a surprisingly high number of fantasizers - almost nearly 60% of the women in than experiment - reported that they have had a false pregnancy at least once. They believed that they were pregnant, and they had many of the symptoms. In addition to amenorrhea (stoppage of menstruation), they typically experienced at least four of the following: breast changes, abdominal enlargement, morning sickness, cravings, and 'fetal' movements. Two of the subjects went for abortions, following which they were told that no fetus had been found. All of the other false pregnancies terminated quickly when negative results were received from pregnancy tests. I fear my FPP may have a dramatic effect on me health wise, however I've never had a false pregnancy...men normally can't have those.

 

Maladaptive daydreaming. Compulsive or maladaptive fantasizers who engaged in extensive periods of highly-structured immersive imaginative experiences. They often reported distress stemming from three of these factors:
 
1. Difficulty in controlling their fantasies that seemed overwhelming
 
2. Concern that the fantasies interfered in their personal relationships

 

3. Intense shame and exhaustive efforts to keep this 'abnormal' behaviour hidden from others

 

I have the lovely fortune of having all of these factors against me and the more I explain it in more Scientific terms, oddly, the better I feel. But those hauntings that happened to me through my young years of childhood will never leave me. My memories so vivid and chilling, I shiver at the very thought. In this world there are plenty of different shades of grey, even more so when trying to define people. No one is completely good or evil but simply somewhere in between. Depending on your morals and up bringing normally determines which side you lean to most. But there are however things in this life that are holy evil and if you can see them they want you to know they exist, whether it be your mind playing tricks or if there really is something else there. I've been face-to-face with one of them, it was one of the most terrifying experiences I've had in my life. It was also one of the may experiences that had happened when I was a child. I can still remember it clear as day...I wonder why, I hadn't ran then?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Note

(Authors Note) Heyo! So this is the Introduction of Disquietude of the Mind & Spirit. It's in 1st person which is weird for me because I normally write only in 3rd but I believe I maybe bouncing between the two on and off when the mood is suited for those situations. I basically wanted to explain what FPP is while adding in the characters inputs and thoughts. Otherwise it wouldn't be a very interesting story now would it? =) lol Anyways, now that the introduction is done and the readers will understand fully what exactly FPP is I can get started on Chapter 1 of it! Let me know if I should continue or not!

If there is some grammar issues I apologize. Misspellings I would like pointed out. I seriously have a problem when my work is chopped up because of a few typeos. So please feel free to copy and paste the section that is wrong and then point it out to me so I may go back and edit it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKZUUuumXfQ (Inspirational Music)

(Resource information from Wiki)