Welcome to Invisibilia Season 4! The NPR program and podcast explores the invisible forces that shape human behavior, and we here at Shots are joining in to probe the science of why we act the way we do. In Episode 5, they're investigating how it feels to live "in between," to be in two worlds at once. In the episode, and in the animation above, we meet M, a woman who worries that her intense daydreaming is interfering with her actual life.
The story of M begins innocently enough. She was a girl who felt isolated and misunderstood, so she began spending hours at a time on the swings in her backyard, daydreaming.
She imagined herself as many characters, blasting off to other planets, fighting crime and just generally saving the day. This made her feel loved, accepted, even understood.
M began to realize her daydreaming was not normal when her mother yelled at her and asked her why she was moving her lips. So she kept up her daydreaming in secret, hiding from friends at school, pretending to read a book, plugging in earphones to make it appear as if she was listening to music.