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Fantasy

Discussion in 'Rebooting - Porn Addiction Recovery' started by Meshuga, Aug 22, 2016.

  1. Meshuga

    Meshuga Fapstronaut

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    When confronted with the daunting task of defeating porn addiction, a lot of users want to know what is on and off limits for reboot. The answer is that no one is holding a gun to your head. You can do whatever you want, feel free to try anything you want, be as restrictive or permissive as you want. There are some things that will definitely help, like cutting out strip clubs, and other less obvious, and more difficult things to accomplish. Things like quitting fantasy.

    On the one hand, it seems like a relatively obvious element that will hold you back from a complete reboot. If porn is seeing idealized bodies in idealized situations doing idealized things, fantasy is simply imagining the same. The impact *might* be less severe, but it's still reinforcing unrealistic expectations of yourself and all future possible sex partners. It's something you can 'edge' to, or maintain a state of arousal, whether you actually touch yourself or not. More importantly, it keeps that dopamine drip cracked open. It's a less severe form of the same drug, like eating your pot instead of smoking it. It will also tempt you to go further, and succumb to a full PMO cycle.

    It is my contention that hanging onto fantasy is a definite obstacle to the reboot, if not a full violation of the principle. At best it will make your already difficult journey that much harder (pun intended), at worst, it will obstruct your recovery entirely. This opinion has been formed after personal observance gained over decades of trying to quit porn, and from information gleaned from other recovering addict's journals.

    I am the poster child for fantasy driven porn addiction. As a kid I spent hours by myself, imagining highly derivative fictional scenarios. In hindsight, I did it more in stressful situations. It's no surprise that my proclivities sometimes picked up a sexual element when I hit puberty. My first orgasm ever was in response to fantasy alone. No exterior stimulation was needed. After that I discovered masturbation and later, weak visual stimuli in the form of underwear ads, mostly. As my addiction progressed I incorporated erotica, harder images, and eventually hardcore porn. The videos, however, never seemed to be as enticing as the captions. I could see through the wooden acting, the unconvincing audio, the cliche dialogue, but my imagination was another thing. In my mind, I could make everything perfectly suited to my own, increasingly unrealistic tastes.
    Eventually, I learned to hide my inspirations better, and applied my overdeveloped imagination to an English literature degree with an emphasis in creative writing. Fantasy is no longer not only my crutch and my vice, it's my job.
    If anyone is able to legitimately claim that fantasy is too hard to quit, that would be me. I know how enticing it can be, and how easy it is to reach. You can install porn blockers for your computer, but not your mind. You can use fantasy when you drive, while you work, when you are having a conversation with your wife, and most of all, when you are up at night sweating it out because you are trying to quit porn and your brain is screaming, wailing, conniving and demanding its fix. It's not too hard to quit, though. For me it was quit sexual fantasy or don't bother rebooting at all, and my life was f***ed up enough that I had to go with the former. Don't let my current low counter fool you, I almost hit 90 days and am determined & confident this is my final run (2022 edit: it was not his final run).

    Here's how it's done.

    #1. You must learn the difference between your subconscious thoughts, and the ones you control. Your porn starved mind will do anything it can to kick start that PMO cycle, including reminding you of favorite fantasies and even inspiring new ones. You cannot stop the beginnings of these ideas from entering your mind. You can, however, choose to follow them to their conclusions, or think about something else.

    The good news here is that you don't have to reset every time you have a sexual thought. However, you do need to reset if you let those thoughts continue.

    #2. Recognize your vulnerabilities, and form contingencies. For me, this is early morning, in that hazy time between sleep and awake. In those moments I usually cannot stop myself from fantasizing while I doze. However, I can choose to get my addicted ass out of bed and start my day.

    If you fantasize in certain times or places, or in certain scenarios, I don’t necessarily advise avoiding that situation entirely. You want to break the association of that scenario with erotic fantasy, so you can go through that experience in the future without it being a problem. You do want to form a plan for how you are going to get through that time and place without fantasizing.

    #3. Don't get bored, don't get lazy, always be doing something. If your brain shoots several reminders of porn or fantasy in a short period, that's based in a physiological need for dopamine and a sure sign that you need to get busy with something else, so you can get that dopamine from a good source. Work on a tough problem, have a non sexual conversation with someone, work out, focus on an idea you find worthwhile. Nature abhors a vacuum, you cannot physically think of nothing. You can choose to control what you think about, or float along with the decisions your previous self made. These are the only two options.

    #4. Disabuse yourself of the lies. I developed and refined a lot of my ideas about sex based on fantasies, and the fantasies of others. I consciously knew porn wasn’t real, that I was getting an idealized version, but without knowing which parts were real and what wasn’t, I picked up a lot of misinformation. Somehow, learning some of the truths about sex (I still don't have a handle on it) has helped dispel the power of those old fantasies, and as long as I don't develop new fantasies adjusted with this new information, I'm safer than I was before. For instance, did you know that not all women want you to last as long as possible? I thought for sure that more time having sex meant more orgasms for her, and who wouldn't want more O? Turns out, my lady wants quality over quantity, and this sentiment has been verified to be shared by others.

    #5. Learn the difference between taking responsibility, and accepting blame. It is vital for an addict to take responsibility. The addiction wants to survive, so it shifts blame. It wants to continue, so it tells you it’s not your fault and there’s nothing you can do about it, ever, that this is the way it’s going to be, so you need to stop fighting and give up. The antidote is to take responsibility for your actions, so you can use whatever power you have to combat that addiction and build yourself into something better. There is a temptation, however, to over correct and take on more responsibility than you really own. When you do that, you are easily frustrated as things you don’t want to happen keep happening, and you think it’s your fault. That reinforces your addiction’s assertion that you are wasting your time, not to mention it creates negative emotions that we all know serve as triggers to seek cheap dopamine through PMO, or as I’m arguing here, FMO.
    There are going to be times when erotic thoughts spring into your brain, especially if you’ve trained yourself to fantasize in the past. Your previous self is responsible for this. Your present self is responsible for dealing with how that prompt is handled.
    It can be difficult to distinguish between those unconscious promptings your current self is not responsible for, and the conscious choices your present self is responsible for. Consequently, it’s easy to be confused about whether you should reset or not. Consult your gut. Reason it out in your journal. Many times some careful introspection will help you decide what to do. Regardless, reset from fantasy is not a failure. It's a victory! It means you are confronting a root cause for your addiction, instead of sweeping it under the rug to fester and rot and doom your recovery.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2022
  2. feo1966

    feo1966 Fapstronaut

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    Very true. Very nice post.

    The pattern is often:

    Too many fantasies -- > start searching for stuff on Youtube, Google images ----> Soft porn ----> Full blown porn ---> Orgasm ---> Say "I'm Done, last time" .....back to step #1

    And very true about not being able to stop the first thought from popping in your head. And trying to suppress it will make it worse.

    I've been using Neuro-linguistic programming, some ideas from Tony Robbins and other sources to:

    • Weaken and change the porn memories
    • Train a new mental pattern.
    • use physiology and focus to redirect to some happy and positive.

    You can't fight your subconscious, so you have to retrain it
     
  3. feo1966

    feo1966 Fapstronaut

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    One other thought.... Since your brain can generate both the trigger and the response, porn filters are useless.

    In the Pavlov Dog experiment, the Bell caused the dog to salivate in anticipation of Food (reward).

    When it comes to porn, your brain can ring the Bell in the form of porn memories, which causes arousal (salivation). But your brain/mind can also provide the actual mental porn (the Food, the reward).

    That is what makes this addiction harder than anything else. You can actually provide yourself with the drug you are addicted to just with your imagination. Your brain can create sexual images that provide an actual hit of your addiction.

    You can't do that with any other drug. You might have memories of smoking come to mind, which create smoking urges. But that's it. You can't just create the "reward".

    So I think changing the relationship we have with the images is important. There are Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques to weaken, distort, the images that come to mind.
     
    ultrafabber, swolfg, jest and 5 others like this.
  4. darkenedverse

    darkenedverse Fapstronaut

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    Liking this post! It really shows how masturbation/porn is more complicated than people assume. Masturbation/porn does use the same neural pathways as other addictions, but it's also different. As you point out, the trigger and reward are provided by the brain.
     
    feo1966 and Meshuga like this.
  5. Thanks for this post. These past few days I've taken a very hardened approach against fantasy since it has been the root cause for my last 2 resets.
    This one is a huge struggle for me, and I appreciate the simple advice of just get out of bed. I also have a huge problem with insomnia, and that's my biggest weakness. Lying in bed awake in the middle of the night, my entire body is exhausted and I have no motivation to do anything except think, and that's the problem. I have to incorporate insomnia into my plan to eliminate fantasy because it's so inconsistent. I can have a month of solid sleep, and then for no reason I get hit with a bout of insomnia. Worse than that, an unexpected argument with my wife will always keep me up at night. Instead of lying there awake, even getting up to watch tv will eliminate the fantasy, even though I know that's not the ideal solution.

    Fantasy isn't something I or any other addict can dabble in. It's in the same category as psubs and even porn itself.
     
    shrike and Meshuga like this.
  6. Dziki007

    Dziki007 Fapstronaut

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    This is so true. I started my porn addiction just from fantasing about diffrent scenarios with women, i didint even need to touch myself i could do it with my imagination. Fantasing about sex is not as bad as porn but its still creating fake world where you are stuck.
     
    Meshuga likes this.
  7. TheFutureMe

    TheFutureMe Fapstronaut

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    Fantastic post, thank you. I've been digging the fantasy subject lately since it's the most recent trouble i'm having in the reboot. Your experience and story is 100% similar to mine (except I haven't yet gone through the degree in French creative writing - yet.), so your words echo with perfect pitch and I realize this reboot might not be well-enough calibrated. Even now dreams are filled with extremely powerful imagery and sensations that my sleeping self sort of "watch happenning" until I wake up wanting to go all the way to O.

    That couldn't be more accurate, and for a fantasy-bound mind it's not causing mere confusion, it can be an anxiety-drenched torture.

    Thanks for sharing this, it came right on time to shed some light on some slowly-darkening spots. There doesn't seem to be any end to the progressive understanding of all the processes involved in the unhealthy habits we've devoted all this time to. Hopefully each bit of information/experience leads us further!
     
  8. BennyLow78

    BennyLow78 Fapstronaut

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    Thank you so much for this. I saw it a few days ago, and I feel like I've really got control of my fantasies.

    It was my mahout problem the previous times I rebooted. Thoughts became dirty, and I fantasised. Then I relapsed. It was vicious. I couldn't get the thoughts out of my head at all. But continuong them was the wrong thing to do.

    Now with this, I have much more control over them. Successfully caught and stopped them every time! Very happy. I'm not as horny anymore, cause I don't let myself become aroused.

    So seriously, thanks. It's been a great help.
     
  9. Meshuga

    Meshuga Fapstronaut

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    @feo1966 , could you share the neuro-linguistic reprogramming, so others can benefit?
    @TheFutureMe Good luck with the writing. It's harder than you think; you have to put a lot of work in before it's presentable.

    I'm glad this post has helped. If memory serves, permitting fantasy has often been the saboteur of my reboots prior to NoFap. I didn't want to recognize how destructive it was and excused it, saying it was too hard to beat. It isn't.
     
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  10. feo1966

    feo1966 Fapstronaut

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    Here is one book on NLP:
    https://www.amazon.com/NLP-Essentia...&sr=1-1&keywords=neuro+linguistic+programming

    Myself, I just try to avoid "extended" fantasies. I know I can't stop the 10 to 15 second fantasy. The just show up. But as soon as I catch myself, I kind of smile and say to myself "happy and healthy", which melts away the feeling of lust.

    Actually, I have found that it is almost impossible to have an urge or lust if you just force a happy smile on your face. It's the "facial feedback hypothesis".
    Even a forced smile increases dopamine and makes you feel happy.
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-food/201112/addicted-smiling

    So by giving your brain a nice shot of wholesome dopamine via a smile, it seems to say "ok.... thanks....I'll back off on the porn urge"
     
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  11. Bobrov

    Bobrov Fapstronaut

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    So it's possible to control one's dirty thoughts or at least prevent them from going too far? That's some awesome news for me since erotic fantasies are my biggest problem at the moment. I admit that fantasy hinders my progress a lot, sometimes it can even make me enter the same numb state I was in when on PMO. So yes, dreaming of porn is approximately the same as watching porn. Yet, I hoped these thoughts would fade out with time. But honestly that does not work, my fantasies are still with me.

    @Meshuga could you say that you fantasize less now? Have you learned to switch your mind to something else? Or maybe the fantasies (and urges) visit you less often? BTW, good luck with your surgery!

    Smile! That's an awesome advice, thank you )
     
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  12. Meshuga

    Meshuga Fapstronaut

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    Yes, it's possible to prevent them from continuing. My theory is that the beginning of the fantasy, the initial spark of lust that just smacks you out of nowhere, comes from one of two places. It's your subconscious brain attempting to kick start a familiar cycle that ends in dopamine reward, or your semi-conscious brain trying to cling to the complete addiction by telling you that quitting is impossible, because look how easy it is to fail. A balancing act is required to solve the problem.
    If you give yourself zero tolerance for fantasy, and reset every time an illicit sexual thought or pornographic memory enters the brain, the semi-conscious brain is validated. There is no way to stop these. I personally dreamed of porn a few times early in the reboot. You have no control over that. After a reset like that, an addict is feeling so low on himself it's a 50/50, or even 90/10 chance he's going to binge because "what's the use? I've already reset, might as well enjoy it" etc. I think most of us have been there.
    However, if you give yourself too much tolerance, and say "fantasy is beyond my control so as long as I don't touch myself, or look at actual porn, I don't have to reset for it," you've given your semi-conscious/conscious brain a "safe" outlet to indulge the addiction. Fantasy will then escalate, as it becomes the brain's reliable source of dopamine. This is dangerous, because you tend to make dumb decisions when you are super horny, so actually avoiding the "no touching, no porn" stipulation is unreasonably difficult. I have heard of one individual who "succeeded" in maintaining this precarious balance, but his addiction symptoms never changed. He remained irritable, combative with his wife etc., so his continued fantasies in effect prevented a genuine reboot.
    The solution is to forgive yourself for the initial fantasies. A visual or emotional trigger sends the brain a signal, and it helpfully offers a reliable solution. That's all that idea is. However, at some point you must assume responsibility for the thought chain. If you take your animal brain up on that offer and consciously continue the fantasy, you do need to reset.
    Exactly where this line is drawn is difficult to say. If it goes for a few minutes, it's probably grounds for reset. If you have to think about details, or begin subtly adding to and refining the fantasy to better suit your taste, that's grounds for reset. If you stop and say to yourself, "if I think any more about this, I'm going to have to reset" and continue to think about it, that's definite grounds for a reset.
    My last reset was caused by a fantasy I didn't even identify and catch until I was Ming and 3/4 on my way to O. It snuck in on me from an unusual angle, and I wasn't ready for it. That's ok, because I'm still fighting and I'll catch it next time.

    Now the answer to your question; yes, fantasies visit less often BECAUSE I trained to switch my mind to something else. You have to have something else ready to immediately replace it. Minds must be filled with something, and if you do not take control of that something, the subconscious, animal brain will. It wants its dopamine, and if you give it a chance it will do whatever it can to get it.
    My fantasies do occasionally still visit, but with far less frequency. This is because my brain has learned that this is not a reliable way to get its reward. It still hits that button every once in a while, in hopes that it still works. Like a pigeon in a Skinner box, I guess. It does not do this with as much frequency, though, and that has helped me sustain a couple two week streaks, and one 82 day one.
     
  13. SnowWhite

    SnowWhite Fapstronaut

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    This is totally right. I can clearly say that the PMO addiction has its root in fears, and thus, in moving up important decisions and not taking action.

    Instead of risking negative emotions, you prefer to cuddle up in the well-known world of PMO.

    Therefore, the first step to break the cycle is to build up your personality by facing your fears and taking decisions.

    I can not emphasize often enough to say how much this has helped me. Every time when I overcame a fear and I took a decision and finished some work, the PMO urges became less or went into background. The addiction cannot be controlled from top-down; it is done "bottom-up". By building up inner confidence, you build up a solid basis of a stable personality.
     
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  14. SnowWhite

    SnowWhite Fapstronaut

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    Yes, it's possible, but note, the "control" goes in a more indirect way. You begin by building up inner confidence. By doing exactly a decision which you have been moving up all the time. In the moment you do, your inner confidence levels up. It's also extremely important to learn how you can deeply relax your body and mind. My favorites are long swimming and sun. I also learned self-hypnosis and meditation. When you are deeply relaxed, you are more likely to take good decisions and to get things done..
     
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  15. Thanks Meshuga, this thread and your posts have been incredibly helpful for me to figure out why my reboot is stalling even though I have been PMO free 96 days... I was definitely doing this.

    Very helpful thanks!

    agreed.
     
    Meshuga likes this.
  16. Leeuwenhoek

    Leeuwenhoek Fapstronaut

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    yes, you know the thing is the Japanese porn, they cover the genitals and yet it is without a doubt far more erotic and powerfully stimulating. and the Japanese girls are incredibly convincing, which makes it much more arousing also. the better the actresses become, the more erotic it is, but also they are a lot lot more physically attractive. Plenty of 10's doing porn now, when porn used to only be shown in drive in theatres it was not very erotic at all. Not a lot of really good looking women, and it was sort of dumb.

    also second life fantasy is so incredily powerful, because the girls are real. it's a real person on the other end and that is the ultimate stimulating thing but yet you can imagine they would feel same way about you in real life but you have to accept that is NOT the case. They would probably hate you in real life, and it's because of your appearance. That is the fact of life. Love and hate is ALL based on appearance, and yet almost all physically attractive people are spiritual monsters in US. I see physically attractive people in other countries who are sort of humbled by circumstance but when physically attractive people have all their material wants satisfied they are incredibly, unbelievably wicked people spiritually, they seethe with contempt for everyone who is not attractive. I know it's a kind of insecurity or growing up in a godless society that has no real values or spirituality but it is the predominant attitude and I do not see how anyone can stand living in such a horrible soulless place.
     
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  17. Leeuwenhoek

    Leeuwenhoek Fapstronaut

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    more and more I discover almost all these beautiful women are such awful monsters and here you are MASTURBATING to them, they are your ultimate fantasy. That movie Metropolis is about precisely this, you know. it was made by the elites and hints at mechanisms if witchcraft employed by the elite sorcerers but the main thing is, the climax of the ending is all these men, lusting for this satanic woman in human form. In the form of a saint, in the form of 'Maria'. Maria of course being symbolic of mother of Christ, the Catholic Saint. See for hundreds of years people adored and reverred the saints, these where their role models. People who were kind, helped people, helped animals, peacemakers, symbols of sexual CHASTITY.

    This is good reading, it seems to be fantastic, unreal but yet you see that it IS real. it might make the world seem more interesting....and scary... because IT IS.

    it won't let me post a link to the vigilant citizen story , just google 'vigiliant citizen metropolis'



    much of the science of their witchcraft deals with sexual energy. You have no idea what you are doing when you focus sexual attention energy on demon possessed women. You are giving them power over your world. which they convert into control of your world banking systems. They use it to enslave your body...and soul. when you masturbate to demons , you surrender YOUR WILL to them. You willingly allow Satan to take your will captive. And they WANT this. They go to extreme lengths to obtain this, especially from children.
     
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  18. Meshuga

    Meshuga Fapstronaut

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    I think the imagery in "Metropolis" is a good metaphor. It's also good to understand how porn actresses are far removed from their personas. I recall searching for a specific starlet, and stumbling on a jilted fan's webpage dedicated to defaming her. There were long, vitriolic rants about her appearance and performance, but the heart of it seemed to be that he saw her at a live guest panel somewhere, and she was rude. You don't get that angry at someone because you don't like the way they look, or the way they perform. It was betrayal that had him spewing all that hate.

    It's also important to understand that these women have their own demons to fight as well. They are objectified, exploited, manipulated, and tortured for the pleasure of millions, and we fund it. I don't think many women think, "porn star, yeah, that's what I want to do with my life!" Despite their attractive features, I don't see many if any confident, self assured women submitting to the kind of abuse they endure on and off camera. They get threatened with withheld payment if they don't do things they previously said they weren't comfortable doing. Ex stars have talked about how they were fed cocaine, how painful the "work" was, and how hopeless they felt in a dangerous, soulless industry. The starlet is a figurehead. She's as much a victim as you; maybe more since it's your market demand that put her there.

    The real enemy, the one we can fight, anyway, is our own illusions. We are dissatisfied with our real life, so we ask for a little something. So they give it, and offer a little more. So we take it, and ask for a little more and so on. It's up to you to break the cycle.
     
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  19. Leeuwenhoek

    Leeuwenhoek Fapstronaut

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    here is the scene from Metropolis I am talking about.



    the guy in bed is the christ figure. As all the men lust for the demon in woman form, it drains life from Christ. How can it not? they are lusting after a demon that would torture Jesus Christ. They are giving her the POWER to curse Jesus. You will see lots of the pop stars in symbolic imagery of Maria from this movie, it is a fact.

    Lady Gaga even said her songs were about Jesus. A lot of the pop songs ARE about Jesus, you just don't know it. They are cursing Jesus, belittling him, mocking him and people who worship these people, or GIVE THEM THEIR MONEY are basically, somewhat unwittingly declaring their allegiance to satan.
     
  20. TheFutureMe

    TheFutureMe Fapstronaut

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    This is how you keep an animal population under control while you breed them, whatever species it is. It's also valid in the political and economical parts of modern societies. Could our addictions be symptoms of the grand order of human life (in standardized industrialized developped connected parts of the world) right now ?
     

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