Fantasies - How long for them to be gone?

Impossible question to answer I would say. How do you distinguish between withdrawal fantasies (where your mind is looking for dopamine hits) and normal fantasies that all humans have from time to time?

 

The longest I've gone without porn was Hard Mode for about 80 days or so. And they still were not gone. What did changed tho was TYPE of fantasies. I used to fantasize either about a porn video or me having sex in third person (kinda like observing myself), or some pretty intense fetish. With time they changed to me fantasizing about having sex in first person in very much vanilla kind of way. Ya know, just two people connecting sexually and gently without any kind of crazy toys or fetishes, and from first person perspective. So my fantasies became more healthier and stopped being influenced by porn, but they did not vanish. But then again, 80 days is relatively small number.

That's a good point tho. ARE they even SUPPOSED to stop? Cos we humans naturally have this brain, sometimes it makes up thoughts, memories or fantasies based on desire. So maybe it's just natural thing? I know there are some monks and spiritual experts who supposedly got so present that they stopped thinking when they don't want to. Like Eckhart Tolle for example. But that type of enlightenment is way beyond of what we here about. I believe for average human there will be thoughts coming up. I think the best we can do is try to be aware of those thoughts, be present and train ourselves to not get triggered by them. I do find tho that by doing exactly that takes away fuel from them and they stop. So yea, I am also able to stop them quite fast by not feeding them by indulging in them.

 

How long exactly have you been clean from porn? And how long have you been suppressing everything? Cos I mean I think there is some amount of time necessary, or at least beneficial, to try to get rid of ALL fantasies for a while, so your pathways in the brain could fade a little. Once that's done training your mind to focus on healthy things might be good idea.

Right now you're trying to block out a flowing river. But as long as that river is the only path for water to flow it will still do it, even if less, even if you prevent it for a while by building a dam. So what I think might be better solution would be to redirect the whole flow into new channel rather than trying to stop the whole thing. So instead of trying to stop fantasizing completely you might wanna train your brain to fantasize healthier. Create new thought patterns. And once they are stronger than the old ones then old ones should stop being used at all. That's my theory anyways. Like a river - you direct a flow of water to a new channel so the old channel dries up completely. Same goes with thoughts, I don't think you can stop them (as an ordinary human being anyways, maybe as a monk with decades of meditation experience you can). You need to redirect them. Or else the thing will just overflow like a constant stream of water.

I think the reason why we have certain fantasies might be because we have a desire. Well, often it's the case anyways. Maybe not always, sometimes they might be just conditioned habits of porn. But often fantasies are a symptom of desire. So if you're fantasizing about porn it might mean that you still have a desire. Not consciously but still there in your brain somewhere. So it just might be a sign that you haven't fully recovered. Or if it's other women you might have a desire for them. Sometimes it might be as simple as to just needing more time to fully heal. But sometimes you might need to do some brainwashing on yourself to re-program your mind not to desire those things and to desire your wife instead. Check out some NLP books by Anthony Robbins. It's rather beginner material, but still those techniques helped me quite a lot.

 

This is exactly my struggle at the moment. Last night (the night of day 2) was savage with fantasies. Savage in the sense that I would get one out of my head, think of something else, only to find the first fantasy had returned, or another had taken its place.

I also like the language of withdrawal fantasies—it helps me more keenly identify what's going on in my head. What I'm curious about, though, is: do these withdrawal fantasies actually jeopardize, or even just slow, the healing process?

On the one hand, I can see them substituting for a dopamine releaser akin to porn, but on the other hand I noticed I would drift closer to sleep if I let the fantasy go on auto-play instead of forcing my thoughts elsewhere. While I avoided fantasy, I got little, and poor, sleep. Maybe this dichotomy disappears over time, but for now it's definitely in the foreground of my attention as a struggle to contend with.

 

Really interesting perspective on this. I was talking with a colleague today who used the river analogy to describe our thought processes as well. Having failed a miserable amount of times, I feel it's actually from a failure to see the river for what it is. In other words, that fantasy ends up being like a bottle rushing down the river, and I fish it out from the side, and then I'm just obsessed with what's in the bottle. And then I miss all the other stuff that's coming down that river! I do feel whenever I need to stop, I have to "bounce" these thoughts of fantasy away. I have to let the bottle go down the river. I will literally stop myself and try and think of something else. They are- as you say- symptoms of desire, and that desire leads to a slippery slope.

I think creating a new channel is a cool way of thinking about it, but it seems like you'd need to have a long period of sobriety to do that, and have a well-structured mindfulness routine in place as well. In the meantime, I'm just going to throw that bottle right back in the river.

 

Everybody's path is different... there's no set time on when your fantasies will just "disappear" . Some longer than others but it took me a little over 3 months (around 100 days) ( I am on day 132 right now) . And they still haven't FULLY disappeared but the thoughts have been diminished so much ever since .