u/bogmonkey

I've never been interested in HaremLit stories, but after reading almost nothing but LitRPG for the last two years I found myself hitting a point where they were all starting to blend together. I needed something new and fresh.

As further background, I'm an asexual male. I'm not offended by sex at all, but I will fast forward through sex scenes in movies and TV shows simply because they don't interest me. I've read some Romantasy (like Fourth Wing) and will usually skim past the sex scenes because they go on for so long (and in the case of Fourth Wing, are laughable to the point where I would chuckle out loud)

I purchased Demi-Beast Husbandry 1 (the audiobook) expecting not to like it.. However, I enjoy slice of life LitRPG (huge fan of Heretical Fishing) so there was some hope, and it's well-reviewed.

Well guess what, it's freaking amazing! It's a simple, well-crafted tale and I was SHOCKED at how much I enjoyed the "husbandry" stuff. This is extremely odd because it's the first time I have read a sexually-themed story in ages that didn't bore me or make me want to fast forward. The narrator (female) does such an amazing job and really brings those scenes to life in a vivid way which made me feel very tingly actually!

The 'Husbandry' (ahem) is all handled in such a way you can't help but root for the protagonist and his farm-ladies. I'd assume I'd be a bit grossed out by the details (and resultant literal gallons of 'magical seed' haha) but not at all! I've never read such scenes handled in this way before. There's nothing non-consensual, and everyone is just having a great time. All of this is built on a foundation of solid storyline. I look forward to reading this whole series!

'Peter North', I salute you! What a great writer. You took a subject I have zero interest in and made it appealing and delightful.

I recently posted about how (at age 58) I first discovered that there are other people who experience Immersive Daydreams. ( https://www.reddit.com/r/ImmersiveDaydreaming/s/bDryPl2vVW )

I **have** to post an excited follow up...I'm simply beside myself and feel like a whole new world has opened up in front of me... and this is not hyperbole.

You see, all my life I have had the ability to do what I call Lucid Daydreaming (aka Immersive Daydreaming). However, the 'dream realm laws' would always still closely mirror the real world. My dream stories would actually be fairly pedestrian (i.e. becoming a world-famous author or musical star, saving the world from some threat, or winning 500 million at the lottery and changing all of my friends' lives). I would try to push the limits of these tales to the very max, but my dream-time was always limited to things that technically COULD happen within the real world. This was intentional. Some part of my mind told me that introducing a "fantasy" element would pop the dream bubble and eliminate the immersive factor. This has always been The Rule. Never have I even so much as flown across a lake or met a mythical creature in my dream time.

Well y'all, those days are behind me. For the very first time, I forced myself to expand my horizons. It was actually very difficult at first, as I was fighting a lifetime of internal "rules". I also wanted the story to flow naturally and without what I call "over seeding". I find that the best dreams occur when you don't guide the story, you simply open the door and the story builds itself, usually only requiring a small seed. However, in this case, I kept feeling resistance...a "dream wall" of sorts, since I have never done this before. I had no idea how to do it!

I ended up going with a very small seed...me meeting a faery being in need of help. I tend to believe in faeries and trolls and magic (cause why not?) so this is not a big stretch. Still, nothing was happening - which was very frustrating since I consider myself an expert at doing this!

Only once I completely emptied my mind, did an internal "mind reboot", and once again planted the seed with no expectations, did the door begin to slightly open. I went with the simple seed "I met a faery being in need of help" - nothing more. My mind was blank except for this statement, with no conscious imagery attached.

Folks- my oh my...what followed can only be compared to the beginning of The Giver by Lois Lowry, when the boy first sees a red apple and realizes the entire universe is in color. The doorway began to open slowly, but suddenly it was wide open and I was sucked through and felt my mind unlocking and expanding. I was instantly in the presence of a beautiful tree spirit who had found me and wanted me to join with her in causing our entire world to re-awake magic in it. We flew, she shared her faery DNA with me which in turn gave me access to all of her faery powers (and made me half faery), and I could instantly fly, create dimensional portals, and heal any sickness.

This alone was enough to almost make me weep with joy (I literally shed tears!). But the dream was only beginning. She took me through a portal into her world, a fairy realm which has countless earths under incubation. I met her whole fairy family, pets, magical beasts, ate at magical restaurants, sat in on planning sessions for our world as "resident expert", and worked to help the fae folk come up with a plan for transitioning our world into a magical realm. This felt like true freedom..like my mind was unchained after being anchored by concrete blocks for its entire existence

I truly feel this was meant to happen this way. For the last year I have felt like I was hitting a wall with my lucid daydreams. I could not figure out what the issue was, but I was tired of rotating through the same basic 4-7 stories (or varieties of them). Turns out I simply needed to learn that the dream world is INFINITE and UNLIMITED.

I only discovered this by reading the stories on this sub. Almost everyone was having these wild psychedelic dream experiences not based in reality. At first I assumed this was just because my situation was different, or my brain worked differently. Even as a child using the dream world as an escape from abuse, I never thought to escape to the stars or alternate dimensions...despite being obsessed with fantasy literature since I could first read.

My world has changed forever. I spent the past weekend going places in my daydreams I have never been before, and realizing just how infinite the dreamworld truly is, and what can be done within it. All it took was reading the candid experiences here on this sub to nudge me through the portal.

I have taken the first steps on a wild new journey and it's all thanks to you, my fellow Dream Kin!

(I originally posted this on the Maladaptive Daydreaming sub, but I was helpfully guided here)

I suddenly feel like I'm not alone in the world.

I'm 58 years old and have had "The Gift" (as I call it) since I was a teen. I had NO IDEA other people did this until recently and have never talked to anyone else about it (I thought it would make me seem like a crazy person). I've brought it up to a couple very close friends and family members but not in detail, and of course they have no way to truly comprehend or understand it.

Personally - I don't care for the term Maladaptive Daydreaming, so I call it Lucid Daydreaming. However, my talent definitely developed from Maladaptive origins as a teen, as a way to escape my absolutely insane and abusive family life (. I'm pretty sure that lots of our kind began this journey that way.

In the beginning, as a teen in the 1980's, I would put the album 'Rio' by Duran Duran on my cassette Walkman and just let it play for multiple hours using auto-reverse while I lay on my bed. It was ONLY this album which unlocked the magic escape time. I would just lose myself in wild scenarios where I was a big hero, save the school, etc. This was true Maladaptive Daydreaming. To this day, any song from that album can put me into a waking trance almost instantly.

I went through a large period of my adult life where I mostly forgot about the daydreaming. But around age 42 I began walking 5-6 miles daily and listening to music. Before I knew it, it was happening again - and I was astounded. I was no longer trying to escape reality. This was like turning on a hidden TV channel in my brain to enjoy while walking. It felt like an old friend coming home to visit.

These days I am walking 7-9 miles a day, and I Lucid Daydream almost every day on my lunch and evening walks. I love the feeling of disconnecting my mind from the world and just letting it play. It feels like meditation to me. I used to be extremely manic-depressive, but since I started walking and daydreaming (16 years ago) I have not had a single instance of depression. This is coming from a guy with multiple suicide attempts between age 25-40.

I also use the skill while driving. Basically any drive longer than 30 minutes I just put on some music and the drive feels like 5 minutes. This is *extremely* handy on 3-5 hour drives, though I will usually only daydream for an hour or two of that time. I am 100% aware and in touch with my car, driving and surroundings, while at the same time experiencing what feels like an alternate dimension (this would seem 100% crazy to anyone who had not experienced this). It feels very much like time travel!

Is it OK that this Daydreaming is a part of my daily life? I'm trying to figure out any negatives for it (after discovering Maladaptive Daydreaming is considered "bad" which greatly concerned me), but I simply cannot. I'm the happiest I have ever been, and for over 15 years now! I'm emotionally resilient, have deep and rich relationships with friends and family, and have worked at my dream job for almost 17 years....and as mentioned - no more depression.

I never daydream outside of my walks, or long drives...I like to keep it to those activities as that is where it feels like an upgrade. Lying in my bed at home doing it feels masturbatory (though I am almost never sexual in my daydreams, and am an asexual person as well). I prefer reading or art projects while at home.

I'm seriously blown away that this sub exists. I love the term "Immersive Daydreaming" and will use it from now on. It feels like I'm meeting a secret society of X-men style savants which I just discovered after a lifetime of assuming I was the only mutant in existence.

Sorry for babbling on for so long but this is quite a discovery for me...

This weekend I am meeting the parents of my daughter's long time boyfriend for the first time. They are Polish immigrants and I want to trip them out with something fun in their native language that they would not be expecting.

Any suggestions would be truly appreciated. I can figure out the pronunciation online. Looking for something one or two sentences long, humorous or witty. Possibly something that pokes fun at how our kids have been dating for almost 2 years and how weird it is that we have not met until now. Or a fun folk saying from the old country.

I am very good at getting nuance and accent down and I will practice it until I sound like a native.

This weekend I am meeting the parents of my daughter's long time boyfriend for the first time. They are Polish immigrants and I want to trip them out with something fun in their native language that they would not be expecting.

Any suggestions would be truly appreciated. I can figure out the pronunciation online. Looking for something one or two sentences long, humorous or witty. Possibly something that pokes fun at how our kids have been dating for almost 2 years and how weird it is that we have not met until now. Or a fun folk saying from the old country.

I am very good at getting nuance and accent down and I will practice it until I sound like a native.

NOTE: This post is a promised follow up to my original 90-day review, link below (the basic mattress details and initial review for the mattress are located there):

An in depth, 90-day sleep review of my Tempur-Pedic ProAdapt 12” (Medium, NON HYBRID) mattress : r/Mattress

I scheduled this follow up because I would often read posts which generally said "after two years Tempur-pedic mattresses are trash" or "the new foams are shitty", etc...so I committed to doing an actual comparison/observation on my purchase with brutal honesty. Also, it seems like all these people mostly trash talk mattresses within that initial 90 day period (usually right after a few nights of use), and never come back to talk about them years later.

I have now had OVER 2 years of use on my current mattress, and I have some big news for you. The mattress is still as good as ever! My loyalty to the Tempur-pedic brand was not in vain. The body support and comfort of this thing is unparalleled...STILL!

It has softened up slightly, but nothing beyond what I would consider normal break in. I buy a medium density foam because I want to have a certain level of firmness for years. I rotated the mattress at the one year mark as well. There's no "center dip" whatsoever. At night when I climb into this thing I still think to myself "damn..this bed is the best". I value good sleep above almost anything, as it affects the rest of my waking hours, and this mattress delivers on that promise.

Just last night I was sitting on the edge of the bed and wondering how the damn thing still manages to be so solid.

My last tempur-pedic (Rhapsody Medium) lasted me 11 years. At the end of that lifespan it was still sleepable, but had begun to develop a bit of a crater in the center. My current mattress has zero signs of cratering and generally is (without exaggeration) as good as when I bought it over two years ago. I would be happy walking out of a mattress store with it today.

I cannot speak to the longevity of other mattress brands such as Helix or Purple. I'm now going on almost 14 years of Tempur-pedic bliss, so why would I deviate from what I feel is already 'sleep perfection'? I understand they are expensive, but I'm seeing the value every night, and every morning when I wake up refreshed at 5am. I think that people buying Tuft & Needle or Amazon branded foam mattresses are just replacing them every 2-5 years and only expecting them to last that long. I have higher expectations for Tempur foam, and they are being met - so far. The cost, in my opinion, is worth it.

Also, both of my Tempur-pedics were bought as floor model/warranty returns. I highly recommend this option for value conscious shoppers. The mattresses are still 'like new' in all aspects, just priced about a thousand dollars cheaper (especially if you wheel and deal a bit with the salesman). Please be aware that WHEELING AND DEALING is almost mandatory in any mattress purchase unless you want to pay sticker price and not get any freebies.

And folks...don't forget to get a GOOD PILLOW. Half the mattress equation is a perfect pillow, especially for side sleepers like me. I personally use a Pillow Cube, and have for the last year.

I am now committing to a future five-year review. So - three years from now let's get back together and see if my bed is still impressing me. If at five years it's cratering, then I will re-assess my loyalty and try another brand. If it's still golden at 5 years, it has proven itself beyond a doubt to be legit.

I have already proven my commitment to this process by posting this two year review, so rest assured I will see you in 3 years.

I would love to hear from other Tempur-pedic fans or haters...and feel free to ask any questions about this current mattress.

https://preview.redd.it/xyax752jtr0h1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea6fa496fb95b5ec3206c8ca656bbfd2aa114e98