Fantasy

On the pain side, I ponder frequently about all that PMO has cost, what it will cost, all the negative effects. This is kind of like constantly thinking about how smoking can lead to lung cancer. It gradually sinks into your subconscious so that you fear smoking because of the ill effects. You can train your subconscious to fear smoking, even though you have not yet died from lung cancer.
In this case, you are changing your whole desire. It's not Pavlovian. It is a trained response, but born out of conscious practice, not subconscious pain avoidance. It's still effective, as you have experienced. I personally avoid sex and even arousal, because of the negative effects I perceive accompanies. It's a delayed reaction (about 12 hours), but after I made the connection I quickly decided that O, even legitimate O with my wife, is not worth the repercussions. Still working on that autonomic response, but I'm getting there.

If I go one full week without fantasizing to the point an erection
How is this even possible? This stuff is darn near instantaneous for me. Maybe I should tighten up my parameters?
 
In this case, you are changing your whole desire. It's not Pavlovian. It is a trained response, but born out of conscious practice, not subconscious pain avoidance. It's still effective, as you have experienced. I personally avoid sex and even arousal, because of the negative effects I perceive accompanies. It's a delayed reaction (about 12 hours), but after I made the connection I quickly decided that O, even legitimate O with my wife, is not worth the repercussions. Still working on that autonomic response, but I'm getting there.


How is this even possible? This stuff is darn near instantaneous for me. Maybe I should tighten up my parameters?

Well let me clarify… I have kind of trained myself to watch for my penis starting to move. So I might fantasize for a few moments and then start to get an erection. But beginning of the erection sort of snaps me out of it

I suppose it is similar to how you would be driving and your head started to nod as you go to sleep, but because you were driving, the head movement scares you back into being awake.

Regarding whether Pavlovian conditioning has to be instantaneous or not. I don't think it is that clear-cut. As I understand it, the whole idea is that you have a subconscious physiological response that is not conscious.

Take for example a soldier who has been at war. Eventually just the sound of a helicopter will make his heart race. He does not try to make his heart racing fear, but the sound of the helicopter puts him in fight or flight. He has paired association between the helicopter and the possibility of death. This is Pavlovian fear conditioning.

Instead of the bell, it is the sound of the helicopter. And instead of the reward for food, it is the death of friends or the possibility of one's own death.

The dog has been conditioned to have a physiological response (salivate) to the sound of a bell, since the bell means a reward is coming

the soldier has been conditioned to have a physiological response (fear) to the sound of the helicopter, since the helicopter means risk of death.

But for the soldier, the conditioning likely didn't happen with one occurrence of the helicopter sound. It probably happened after several battles.

The idea is it one way or another, the subconscious has been programmed to either fear something, or get excited because of the potential for reward.

In my humble opinion, I don't think it matters that much if you used hypnosis, auto suggestion, or some other means to train your subconscious.. It is splitting hairs to say it may or may not be Pavlovian..

The important point, I believe, is that you used some method to train your subconscious in order to get it on your side so that it views porn is a threat, rather than a reward
 
Giving yourself a strong, Pavlovian censure in response to fantasy sounds like a good idea in theory. Certainly sounds more efficient than trying to slowly starve it out. I'm not sure it translates practically, though. If we're accessing the brute, animal parts of our minds, we need to be immediate and severe with the punishment. Not something merely unpleasant, like biting your tongue. Something powerful, like an electric shock or sting. Even then, I'm not sure this is something you can apply to yourself. You have to assess the situation, determine if the thought warrants the punishment, then choose to self inflict. This all takes time, and can be rationally circumvented. The series of choices alone could represent enough delay to render the attempt ineffective.

As an example, say you catch yourself fantasizing about a coworker. First you have to decide if it was a stray thought or a legitimate fantasy worth punishment. If you decide it is, what do you do? Wear a shock collar? Drive a pen into your leg? You have to decide whether it's worth making a public spectacle of yourself, potentially explaining why you are hurting yourself. If you delay until work is over, and make yourself do pushups or run laps, the delayed response weakens any Pavlovian benefit it might pose. Also, arguably, physical fitness or, say, praying the rosary, are good things. You don't necessarily want to associate them with either sexual fantasy specifically or bad behavior in general. You're reduced to self flagellation in a cloister, which I don't think would be effective.
Normally, the alternative would be to have a partner apply the punishment, circumventing all the choices. Friends punching one another on the shoulder for cussing, for example, has been effective for some. Unfortunately, fantasy isn't something that can be monitored by a third party.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just that these are the obstacles. You are certainly welcome to give it a shot. I would be interested in learning your results.

I noticed the idea of self punishment in order to curb the tendency to fantasize. To be completely honest, I believe a form of positive reinforcement would be more effective than negative reinforcement. An example of this that I could envision would be encouraging or rewarding yourself every time you avoid/redirect a fantasy. That would also eliminate the need to injure yourself in some way. Let me know what you think. Cheers!
 
How about using the fantasy itself against the tendency to fantasize stuff as we don't want it to happen?
It's just a notion, but fantasy seems to be important for life changes, to fill a vision with life (before actually realizing it in your life).

When I fantasize sexual stuff it's just so narrow and plain. And since it can be long times that I'm occupied with these thoughts I have the feeling that it's limitating myself. Even when I watch TV I think way more and I can get new input, new ideas, which of course never happens with porn.

Art cannot be imagined without erotic. But it doesn't work anymore when the head stops to work and the dick takes control.
 
i'd like to see this thread a sticky. Internal fantasizing is one of the biggest problems for me.. bigger than porn almost because I think that's where it begins..
 
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 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 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.

Here's how it's done. (Note: I consider this a living document. It currently just contains my experience, but as I learn what works for others, I will add to the list and perhaps shift emphasis)

#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. As always, recognize your weak points. For me, this was 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.

#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 a sure sign that you need to get busy with something else. Work on a tough problem, have a non sexual conversation with someone, work out, focus on something. Your conscious brain has to think about something, you need to control what that is.

#4. Disabuse yourself of the lies. I developed and refined a lot of my ideas about sex based on the vacuum of my own fantasies, and the fantasies of others. 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 ones adjusted for 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. Be honest with yourself, but not too hard, either. Since the line between addiction driven prompts and intentional fantasy is exasperatingly vague, there are going to be times when you will 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.

This is an awesome post and thread. I struggle with fantasies and have for quite some time. I am at the point now where I have a super loud voice in my head that yells stop immediately upon a fantasy trying to start up. So loud in fact that sometimes I end up saying it out loud. I am curious how your journey is going with extinguishing your fantasies. Have you been able to get rid of them altogether, or are they still haunting you? I am wondering if you have incorporated any other plans or rules regarding your fantasies. I want them to be gone so bad from my head and it feels like it will take forever. I look forward to your response. Stay strong!
 
I'm so glad @ILoathePorn lead me to this thread. It's exactly what I struggle with and what I wanted to improve on when I joined. I've not taken that seriously. If I was still using a counter I'd have to reset multiple times a day for most of the week. I'd feel like I've made no progress. But I do need to hold myself accountable. I think I'll count how many fantasies I have a day and document what lead me to them. I hope things continue to improve on your journey
 
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I'm so glad @ILoathePorn lead me to this thread. It's exactly what I struggle with and what I wanted to improve on when I joined. I've not taken that seriously. If I was still using a counter I'd have to reset multiple times a day for most of the week. I'd feel like I've made no progress. But I do need to hold myself accountable. I think I'll count how many fantasies I have a day and document what lead me to them. I hope things continue to improve on your journey

Yes, I think this is an awesome thread as well. I believe you will improve. I know this because you are here to change. Take one day at a time and be patient. I think not only be keeping track of how many but also document and analyze your feelings that go along with them. That could give some insight and maybe even help you to find a way to stop or at least resist easier.
 
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