D is for Dreamer

As a participant in the A to Z Blogging Challenge, I will be making my way through the alphabet all month.

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I have this problem inside my head. I don't know if other people have the same issue because I've only ever been inside my own head, but I know it causes problems for me. My have great difficulty keeping my mind on task. It's not that I'm easily distracted. It's that my mind tends to wander. And it wanders far. Like "goes on epic quests" far. It's all over the place in my head.

I don't know how many times I will be telling my wife about how I plan to tackle a possible future scenario that will probably never happen. I know that I have something coming up in the future and have already considered all the possible outcomes and how I will approach them. I have also dreamed about all the reactions I may get from other people and how I will specifically address those concerns. She lets me talk for a long time without pointing out that I have stepped very far from reality.

It's like I checked out

Luckily, I have a job where my mind can go on autopilot. Soon after I start my task, my brain takes me for a ride. I remember old conversations and play them over and over in my head. I replay them with me responding in different ways to give it a better outcome. I think about movies I've seen and imagine how I would have responded if in that situation.

It just doesn't stop

When in school (elementary, high and college), something said by the instructor would send my mind on an adventure. I might be fighting pirates, killing zombies, delivering the perfect pick-up line to the cute girl in front of me, riding a polar bear or playing an awesome guitar solo in the gymnasium.

I also have a tendency to start to think about something in the future and my mind gets so far away from me that I start making plans as though this has actually happened. For example, winning the lottery, book getting published, my car being vandalized, etc. I have to snap back to reality and remember that I just took a trip for a few minutes. Stop and look around at what's real.

Lately, since I am working on a book, my mind tends to drift straight to it as soon as it has a chance. When I'm at work, I come up with scores of possible scenarios and have the time to figure out how to work them into my story and how to solve the problems of my protagonist. I'm starting to think having this wild imagination may finally be starting to work in my favor. I just have to keep it focused.