Daydreaming is good for you

And my spectacular failings at tennis.

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Eight years ago I decided to do a tennis course. I had never played tennis before but had a new-ish boyfriend, Tom, who is mad about tennis. And I was imagining spending long summer evenings together with the gentle thwack of the ball and clink of the ice cubes in my Pimms. Even though I don’t really like Pimms or being outside on summer evenings because of my hay fever. Plus I worked evenings at the time.

This was not all I was imagining though. Whenever I start something new, a sport or any other kind of hobby, I think – is this it? Is this the thing for which I’ve got an outstanding natural ability? That I’ll pick up the racket and ball and within minutes it’s obvious to everyone around me that I’ve got an incredible innate talent for tennis. And after a few weeks, an elite coach is called in to watch me and I’m so good that after an intensive year or so of training I’m entered into Wimbledon and as a complete unknown I win. And Annabel Croft is furious as I’m now the more famous tennis Annabel. 

And yes, I was 39. But would it be so unusual for someone from the sporting elite to be entering their discipline for the first time at nearly 40?

I Googled it. It was hard to find an example. The best I could do was the Nigerian basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon who didn’t pick up a basketball until he was 15. 24 years younger than I was at the time.

But that’s okay. I can be the new, even more impressive, example of later in life sporting glory. It would make it all the more special. And it’s not unheard of for unknowns to achieve wild success later in life in areas other than sport. KFC wasn’t started by the young buck Private Sanders. The Colonel was 62. Giving him all those extra years to practise secrecy about recipes.

With this in mind, I was pretty excited about my course. It was for absolute beginners and called Tennis Xpress. Suggesting some kind of fast track to competence, if not excellence, or even my much-imagined greatness.

When I turned up I found myself alongside nine other complete novices. Which was great. We were all starting from exactly the same place. Zero ability. But I soon discovered that I found it impossible to even hit the ball. I spent the next seven weeks doing a lot of swiping at air.

I was so bad compared to everyone else that nobody wanted to pair up with me. Quite often, three people played together while I played with the instructor, Keith. And when I say play, what I mean is Keith would hit a ball at me which I would then miss.

I never missed a lesson though, even though there was a look in Keith’s eyes each week that suggested he wished I would.

At the end of the course, everybody was invited to progress to the next level. Apart from me. When I enquired, I was told that if I wanted to continue I'd have to repeat Tennis Xpress again, kind of making a mockery of the Xpress bit of the title.

Now would have been a good time to give up. To forget about those summer evening tennis sessions with Pimm’s. Who wants lumps of fruit in their drink anyway? Let Annabel Croft remain the best tennis Annabel.

But because I’d already done this seven-week course once, I figured that when repeating it I’d surely now be the best, not the worst in Tennis Xpress. I’d claw back some small bloodied shred of dignity. It’s even possible that something clicks and I do discover a hidden talent. It had just been really, really hidden.

After all, Walt Disney got fired from an early job for lacking imagination. Michael Jordan was dropped from his high school basketball team. And after his 9000^th attempt to invent the light bulb, Thomas Edison was asked if he would give up. He replied, “Why would I ever give up? I now know definitely over 9,000 ways an electric lightbulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp.”

Similarly, I now know over 9000 ways to swipe at a ball and not hit it. It would be foolish to stop trying now. Edison didn’t give up and nor will I. I’m not a quitter. I will get better at tennis.

By the end of the first class of the new course of Tennis Xpress with a whole new set of absolute beginners, I was by far the worst. I was still the one swiping at the air that nobody wanted to play with.

It was confusing as I’d always assumed I had good hand-eye coordination. I’m able to deftly fast-forward through the ads on my recorded TV shows at x30 speed and land straight back on the programme. It’s something that I’ve always been proud of and secretly hoped would be made an Olympic sport so I could win gold and tearfully take to the podium.

I do wonder if I’m remembering it all as worse than it actually was. Luckily, I had a witness as one week Tom came to watch. He was interested to see how I was getting on being such a big tennis fan himself. So, I asked him what he remembered about it. This is what he said.

“I remember the rest of the class using tennis balls with rackets but you were to one side with one other person, a lady with some mobility issues, and you were throwing a ball to each other. The coach had told you to do this and to take two steps left or right and then throw the ball back. And it was with children’s soft tennis balls. Not real ones. You were the special ones not allowed rackets.

After the catching game, you had to do a rolling-the-ball game. Rolling and picking up. It was like he was keeping two small children or dogs busy, while the rest of the class learned tennis. I felt really embarrassed by you. Oh, and this was the second time you did the Tennis Xpress course. Not the first time.”

I made it to week five of the second course and then didn’t bother going back again. To any kind of sport. The gap between my fantasy version of events and reality was just too much. Which has proved to be a recurring theme in my life. My daydreams never quite match reality. But this hasn’t stopped me from retreating into this ideal world.

And with some degree of shame. Daydreaming is definitely viewed negatively. Fictional daydreamers like Walter Mitty and Billy Liar are seen as figures to be mocked or pitied. People are chastised for having their ‘head in the clouds’. Someone living, however temporarily, in their head is not outwardly productive, which is frowned upon. Why stare into space when you could have a side hustle?

But it’s very, very common. A 2010 Harvard study of 2250 adults found that they spent on average 47% of their waking day with their minds wandering. They also concluded that it makes you unhappy and I have some experience of this.

I was ten and watching A-ha on Blue Peter. (It wasn’t just the Cutty Sark and Advent crowns in the ‘80s.) And while watching I was imagining being married to the lead singer Morten Harket and being called Annabel Harket. Which is weird as when I actually did get (briefly) married, I didn’t change my name. But the ten-year-old me was up for doing all that paperwork and notifying the passport office, bank, credit cards, HMRC, electoral roll, council etc etc.

I don’t remember the paperwork being part of the daydream though. I just remember practising saying it. Annabel Harket. Mrs Harket. Mrs Annabel Harket. And this name change being the main part of the marriage daydream. I didn’t venture into the wedding, honeymoon, bitter rows and divorce.

But after about ten minutes of this, I suddenly stopped and realised that not only was I never going to marry Morten Harket but I was never even going to meet him. It was a terrible jolt of reality and I cried for about half an hour. I think it was the first moment I realised my interior life was a thousand times better than my actual life was ever going to be.

But I was blissfully happy while I was Mrs Harket adapting to my new surname. And now that I’ve accepted the gaping chasm between my daydreams and real-life world, there are no longer any tears.

Actually, that’s not strictly true. It is not uncommon for me to play out imaginary events in my head which lead to real tears. But they are enjoyable tears, like when watching a sad film. I no longer have daydreamer’s remorse.

For me, there’s an important distinction between mind wandering and daydreaming, which isn’t made in science (and not in the aforementioned Harvard study). I see mind wandering as involuntary and just a stray from what you were doing in that physical moment. Most of my mind wandering is working myself up into a fury about the tiniest past slights or what I’m going to eat next. Daydreaming for me is a conscious decision to take a relaxing journey into a fantasy world. Usually, a scenario where I’m a lauded hero or able to see my own funeral.

Fortunately, many other studies have shown the positive effects of daydreaming. It’s been shown to help with stress, anxiety, creativity, problem-solving, motivation, patience, pain tolerance, memory, emotional intelligence, productivity and happiness. (Although I must concede that I’m not living proof of all this.)

Daydreams have also changed the world. Einstein’s theory of relativity has its origins in a daydream. It helped Kary Mullis come up with DNA replication. Arthur Fry was daydreaming in church when he invented the Post-it note. And one day something great may come from my fantasy about having a knock to the head which for some reason makes me able to sing beautifully and I win the X Factor.

The most useful thing I find for daydreaming is getting to sleep at night. I have the same daydream every night and I’ve been doing it for so long and it’s so detailed that it bores me off to sleep.

In it, it turns out I’ve got a twin. My mum found out quite late into her pregnancy and realised she couldn’t cope with two so the midwife organised a secret illegal adoption. The only other people that know are M15 as my adopted twin is a spook. She’s working on an undercover operation and they need her double so I’m recruited. I have to undergo intensive training and then start the operation and obviously, I’m heroic.

Sorry if I bored you there. Although I do think other people’s daydreams are a lot more interesting than other people’s dreams. There’s more obvious insight. But we rarely share them. I’ve been told countless times (unfortunately) about others’ dreams but never been regaled with anyone’s daydream. We are keeping up to 50% of our waking life hidden.

Probably for a good reason. By revealing my secret twin daydream, we can all deduce I must be a terrible narcissist if my ultimate fantasy is that there is not one but two of me in the world. And you don’t need a psychology degree to work out what’s going on with my dreams of winning Wimbledon/X Factor/Morten Harket.

But at least there are benefits to it. So I’ve allowed myself one more tennis glory daydream. With me, in tennis whites, going back to Keith at Tennis Xpress. And hitting every single ball.