Desired Reality Ideas: 30 Places to Shift to and How to Pick

Hogwarts, the hallways of UA High, a K-pop practice room in Seoul or your own bedroom with a few things changed: any of these can be a desired reality (DR), the world a shifter hopes to shift to. The life you wake up to every morning is your current reality (CR). The DRs shifters name most often fall into six kinds (famous story worlds, anime, games, fame, calm real-life DRs and worlds they invent), and below you will find 30 ideas across them, plus five questions to help you pick yours.

Once you have a place in mind, our shifting script template helps you write it down one line at a time. Before your first try, please read how to keep reality shifting safe, because a few DRs on this page need more care than others.

What Is a Desired Reality?

A desired reality is anywhere you would like to wake up.

It can come from a story, like a school of magic. It can be a real place, like Tokyo or a quiet farm. Or it can be invented from nothing, a kingdom only you know about.

Shifters believe every one of these already exists somewhere in an endless multiverse, and that your mind can visit it.

Your CR is everything here: your own bedroom, your classes and your phone buzzing on the desk. Many shifters also keep a waiting room (WR), a calm private space they shift to first. If the other words still look strange, our plain-words guide to reality shifting explains them.

Shifting took off online in 2020, mostly among Gen Z. When researchers studied shifting posts in 2021 for a paper in Current Psychology, the DRs they found mostly came from films, books, TV and games, among them Harry Potter worlds, Star Wars, anime such as My Hero Academia, the science fiction world of Avatar, a mermaid world, life in a werewolf family and alternate families.

Most of those still turn up today, next to newer anime and game worlds.

○ How Do You Get to Your DR?

Pick one of the main shifting methods, write a short script about your DR, and try on an evening when you feel rested and calm. Shifters describe small signs that a shift is getting close, like tingling or feeling very light.

Real pain, a racing heart or trouble breathing is never one of those signs (more on that in the safety section).

Story Worlds From Books, Films and TV

These are worlds you already know by heart, and that is their biggest advantage. If you have read the books or watched every season, your imagination has plenty of detail to hold on to.

1. Hogwarts

The 2021 researchers called Harry Potter worlds one of the most popular places people shift to. Choose Hogwarts if you want classes, a house to belong to and a castle full of secret corridors.

Start your script on the morning after the Sorting. Which house table do you sit at, and who saves you a seat? What does the Great Hall smell like at breakfast?

Then use our Hogwarts shifting script for your wand, your pet and everything else, and pick one of these methods for shifting to Hogwarts.

2. The Marvel Universe

The Marvel world is much bigger than the Avengers now. You could train with the X-Men at their school for mutants, swing through a Spider-Verse where every reality has its own Spider-Person, or simply rent an apartment in New York while heroes fly past your window. This is the DR for powers, missions and a team.

Write one ordinary scene before the big battles, like pizza on a rooftop after a long training day. Small scenes are much easier to picture than an explosion.

And if a friend loves Marvel as much as you do, group shifting means writing one script together so you both aim for the same DR.

3. Star Wars

Star Wars was on the 2021 researchers’ short list of preferred shifting worlds. It suits shifters who love big skies and long trips. Humans, aliens and helpful droids live side by side there, with the Force running through all of it.

You do not have to be a Jedi. You could fix ships on a desert planet, run a noodle stall in a busy spaceport or study the Force in a quiet temple.

Script your first scene in detail (stepping off a ship into a noisy hangar, a droid beeping at your heels) and everything after it gets easier to see.

4. Camp Half-Blood

If you grew up on the Percy Jackson books, you already know Camp Half-Blood, the summer camp where every camper has a Greek god for a parent. It is a good fit if you want adventure, a strong group of friends and a cabin to come home to.

For your first scene, script the moment you find out who your godly parent is, sitting by the campfire on your first night. The lines for your parent, cabin and weapon are already waiting in the Camp Half-Blood part of our script template, so you do not need to start from a blank page.

5. Pandora

The science fiction world of Avatar made the 2021 researchers’ list of popular shifting worlds. Its setting, the moon Pandora, has forests that glow at night and mountains that float.

Pandora suits nature lovers more than fighters. You could live with a forest clan, learn to fly or look after the creatures.

Decide before you go whether you arrive as a human visitor or as one of the Na’vi. It changes everything about how you live there, so it belongs near the top of your script.

6. Hawkins (Stranger Things)

Hawkins, Indiana, is for you if you love mysteries, bikes at night and a loyal friend group. You could ride with the Party, work a summer job at the mall or keep the town’s secrets.

It is also a frightening world. Common Sense Media, which reviews shows for families, rates Stranger Things 14+ and warns of intense monster scares, death and gore.

So script how much fright you actually enjoy. You can live in Hawkins and help solve the mystery without ever meeting a monster up close.

Anime and Cartoon Worlds

The first thing people ask about an anime DR is whether it will look animated.

Shifters do not agree. In one popular Reddit thread on exactly this, the top answer said the DR looked just like the anime and felt completely natural, while others in the thread argued over whether it would look flat, with black outlines, or like a 3D world drawn in the anime’s style.

The good news is that you get to choose. Many shifters script the appearance, keeping the anime’s drawn style or making everything as real as the street outside your window. Either way, shifters say a DR feels as solid as this world, which you can read about in their shifting stories.

7. My Hero Academia

Most people in My Hero Academia have a quirk, and UA High is the school that trains heroes. Pick it if you want a goal to work toward and classmates who push you to be better. Common Sense Media gives the anime a 14+ rating and notes that its fights range from slapstick to life-threatening.

Building the world is half the fun here. Write the day your quirk first showed up when you were small, then your first morning in class at UA.

Shifters often play shifting subliminals for MHA, and a UA dorm ambience track (the background sound of the dorms) can help you build the setting in your mind as you drift off.

8. Jujutsu Kaisen

Jujutsu Kaisen turns up in shifting threads all the time, and some shifters say it has been their main DR for years. Common Sense Media rates it 15+, a year above My Hero Academia, and calls it dense with demons and fantasy violence.

Plenty of JJK shifters rewrite the story so that they survive and the characters they love stay alive. That is a perfectly good way to script it, and in our view the wise one.

9. Bungo Stray Dogs

When one shifter asked Reddit to choose a DR from their list, Bungo Stray Dogs was the pick that kept coming back, and the poster could not believe how many people wanted to shift there.

Mystery lovers feel at home here, with its detectives, their strange abilities and the found family they make in the port city of Yokohama.

Script which side you are on before you arrive. You might join the detective agency, or keep it calm with a job in the café downstairs. But the story is full of dangerous moments, so put your safety lines in first.

10. Naruto, Demon Slayer and Other Battle Anime

Ninja villages, demon hunters in 1920s Japan, the guilds of Fairy Tail. Battle anime are for shifters who want a training arc and a team that has their back.

Common Sense Media gives Demon Slayer the same 14+ rating as My Hero Academia and points to lots of fantasy violence, blood and scary-looking demons.

Give your DR self a rank and a teacher, and let them already be good at the basics. That way your first day is a training session, and the big fights can wait.

11. Winx Club, Miraculous and Cartoon Worlds

Animated DRs can be soft, too. The fairy school in Winx Club, the Paris of Miraculous and the gentle Beach City of Steven Universe suit shifters who want color, kindness and a little magic.

Pick what your magic comes from (music, plants, the sea) and where you live when you are not saving the day.

If you like rituals, crystals for shifting fit a world like Steven Universe, where the heroes are Crystal Gems. Some shifters place a garnet, an amethyst and a pearl under the pillow before they lie down.

Game Worlds

A game world raises one question before any other: what happens when there is danger?

Shifters answer it in the script. Write that you cannot be hurt, that monsters and enemies leave you alone or treat you as a friend, and that you can leave the moment you want. Staying safe in your CR is a separate matter, and the safety notes near the end cover it.

12. Teyvat and Honkai: Star Rail

If you have spent hours in Genshin Impact, living in Teyvat full time is the obvious dream, with open land to explore and no stamina bar. Honkai: Star Rail suits players who would rather travel between worlds on a train through the stars.

Choose one home town to start with, rather than the whole map, so your mind has one place to settle into.

A fun way into any game world is the lucid dream method, where shifters use a screen inside a dream as a portal. Dream that you are playing the game, then step through the screen into your DR.

13. The Pokémon World

Pokémon is a friendly adventure, with a partner Pokémon, a small town with a lab and a long road of routes ahead. It is a lovely pick for younger shifters.

You do not have to chase badges, either. You could run a café, work at a Pokémon Center or study wild Pokémon as a researcher.

Script your first meeting with your partner, down to the sound it makes when it sees you.

14. Undertale and Deltarune

Undertale has a smaller but loyal following among shifters, and plenty of its monsters would rather be your friend than fight you. That makes it a good first game world if you dislike danger. Deltarune, from the same creator, has the same soft heart.

Script that every monster you meet is friendly to you, and let the puzzles be the only challenge.

15. Royale High, Roblox and Minecraft Worlds

Some game worlds are made for building. Royale High (a Roblox game set in a magical school, famous for its outfits), other Roblox worlds and Minecraft are for builders, the shifters who like designing and decorating as they go.

Some shifters even model their waiting room on a Minecraft build or a Royale High dorm.

Decide which game rules come with you, like building a house in seconds, and which ones stay behind, like monsters that come out at night.

Fame and Dream-Job DRs

16. A K-pop Idol DR

A K-pop DR puts you on stage as an idol, in a group you love or one you invent. If you love music, dance practice and the buzz before a comeback, this is your DR. Writing your own songs for your DR group, as some shifters do, makes the world feel completely yours.

K-pop is only one option. Any band, in any genre, works the same way.

Script the minute before you walk on stage, with the hot lights, a crowd you can hear but not see yet, and your members counting you in.

17. A Fame DR: Actor, Singer or Streamer

A fame DR makes you a known actor, singer, athlete or streamer, often with the career already built when you arrive. There is even a “nepo baby” version, where you grow up with famous parents.

Decide how famous you want to be. Being recognized at a festival is fun. Being followed into the supermarket gets tiring fast.

Many fame DRs work better with a quiet home and a few friends who knew you before anyone else did.

18. Your Dream Job

A job you would love can be a DR on its own. You could be a vet in a busy animal hospital, a fashion designer before a big show or an astronaut on your first mission. Studying in your DR comes up in shifting threads too, as a way to practice a skill you love.

Write out one working day, including the dull parts like the commute and the coffee. Those plain details are what turn a daydream into somewhere you live.

Calm and Real-Life DRs

Not every DR is an adventure. Plenty of shifters choose quiet ones, and they are often the easiest to picture.

19. A Better CR

A better CR is your current life with some changes. Maybe you keep your parents, your street and your cat, but go to a different school, add a garden or give yourself a best friend next door.

Choose it if you mostly like your life as it is. It also makes a good first DR, because you already know how your kitchen sounds at seven in the morning.

Be kind to yourself while you write it. A better CR works best as a place you enjoy, not a list of everything you dislike about yourself or your life now. Our guide to better CR shifting goes much further, from a script you can copy to the wishes that need extra care.

20. A New Country or City

Some shifters want their own life somewhere else, like an apartment in Seoul, a farmhouse in Italy or a fresh start in Canada. This one is for you if you have always felt you belong in another place.

The language question comes up a lot. Shifters script it, and the 2021 researchers noted that scripts can include the languages spoken.

So write that you speak the local language as comfortably as if you grew up with it.

21. A Dream School or College

A boarding school in the mountains, an art college in New York, a university with a library the size of a cathedral. School DRs suit you if you love learning and friendship but want a school that feels kinder than the one you know.

Write your timetable, the classes you take and one teacher who believes in you.

22. A Hangout DR With Your Comfort Characters

A hangout DR is a house, a café or a holiday home where your favorite characters from different stories live together, and you spend your days with them. It suits you if you care more about the people than the plot.

A small 2026 study of shifters suggested that shifting may meet a need for new experiences partly through one-sided bonds with characters, the kind you feel for someone you know only from a screen.

That feeling is real and lovely. So enjoy your comfort characters, and keep a few friends here who can hug you back.

23. A Cozy Cabin, Beach House or Holiday DR

Picture a cabin in the woods in December. Snow sits on the window, the stove ticks as it warms up and there is nowhere you have to be.

A holiday DR is for shifters who are exhausted and simply want rest. Script how long the holiday lasts, and that you come home rested.

24. Your Waiting Room First

Many shifters do not go straight to a DR at all. They build a calm in-between place called a waiting room and stop there on the way, and some go there first so they can choose their DR from inside it.

Read how a waiting room works, then browse these ideas for designing one.

Original and Fantasy DRs

These are the uncommon DRs, the ones nobody has written for you. You build them from scratch, which takes more scripting, but you end up with a world nobody else has.

25. A Royal DR

Life in a palace or a fairy-tale kingdom suits shifters who love history, grand halls and a good gown or cape.

Choose your royal job. You might run the kingdom, or be the youngest royal with no duties and a horse to ride.

26. A Mermaid, Fairy or Werewolf Life

A mermaid world and life in a werewolf family both appear on that 2021 list of popular DRs too. They are for shifters who want a different kind of life altogether, under the sea, in a forest or with a pack.

Script how your new body works, such as breathing underwater or changing at the full moon, and that it never hurts.

27. A Magic School or Kingdom You Invent

If Hogwarts feels crowded, invent your own school of magic.

Give your world one rule that makes it different from every story you know, like magic that only works when you sing, or spells written in chalk that fade at sunset.

28. A Past Decade

Try the 70s, the 90s or the early 2000s if you love the music, the clothes or the slower pace of an era. Script the small things, like the song on the radio, a phone with a cord and a Saturday with no screens at all.

A past decade is different from going back to redo your own past, which we talk about further down.

29. A Mystery or Adventure Story

Detective, treasure hunter or friendly ghost hunter, this is a DR for puzzle lovers.

Write the case you are working on when you arrive, with one clue already in your pocket.

30. Anywhere You Can Imagine

Shifters say you can go anywhere you can imagine. To turn an idea into a DR, you need only a place, a role and a first scene. A few of our own seeds to start from:

• You are the conductor of a night train that wakes up in a different city every morning.
• You look after a library where every book opens onto the place it describes.
• You fly a hot air balloon that carries letters between floating islands.
• You run the only bakery in a mountain village, where the weather changes with people’s moods.

You will find plenty more ideas in online shifting communities. Keep your real name, school and location to yourself there, as you would anywhere online.

How to Choose Your Desired Reality

If you have too many ideas, or none, these five questions narrow it down.

1. What do you want to feel? Excited, safe, proud or free. A DR built around a feeling stays with you more easily than one built around a list of events.
2. Who do you want around you? A team, a family, comfort characters or nobody at all.
3. How much danger can you enjoy? Be honest here. If frightening films keep you awake, leave the battle anime for later.
4. How familiar should it be? A world you know well gives your mind more to work with than one you only heard about last week.
5. How long do you want to stay? A weekend visit and a whole new life need very different scripts.

If two or three DRs still fit, keep the others for later. They are not going anywhere.

○ Your First DR

We think a calm or familiar DR makes the best first one. A better CR, a holiday DR or a book series you know nearly by heart all ask less of you than a battlefield.

Choose one DR and keep at it for a few weeks. A new world every night means your mind never gets to know any of them.

Read or watch your world again before you start (for a real city, walking-tour videos help). If you really cannot decide, write your top picks on a spinning wheel and let it choose, which is exactly what some shifters do.

Try not to measure yourself against the instant shifts people post online, and never trade your sleep for an attempt. Our shifting tips for beginners have more on getting started.

○ Can Your DR Change the Story?

Yes. Shifters change stories all the time.

They keep characters alive, skip the war, set the story a few years earlier or add themselves to a class that never existed. Your DR is your version of a world, so the script, not the original plot, decides what happens there.

Nobody knows every detail of a world, and you do not have to either. If you can picture your home, your people and one place you love, the script can fill in the rest.

○ Who Are You in Your DR?

Your DR self is you in that world. You choose their name, age and personality, and plenty of shifters write into their script that they will arrive knowing everything their DR self knows, from the streets and the people to the language and even memories of a childhood there.

Looks are up to you too. Plenty of shifters look exactly as they do here, only dressed for their world.

A personality can change as well, a little braver or calmer, or stay just as it is. Your DR age can match the age you are now or be different, whatever fits the world you are going to. If a DR you loved at school no longer fits, read about outgrowing a high school DR.

Drawing your DR self, or keeping a journal in their voice, is a lovely way to get to know them. When you are ready to write it down, start with the About You part of our full template.

Script It, Then Go

Write the safety part first. Choose a safe word that takes you straight home to your CR, then add that nothing in your DR can seriously hurt you and that you never feel real pain there. After those lines, write whatever makes you happy.

If your DR comes from a book, show or game, our template has add-on lines for popular fandoms.

If you struggle to picture scenes in your mind, these methods for shifting without visualization were made for readers like you. Others skip the method and simply assume they are already there, which our guide to living in the end explains.

How Time Works in Your DR

You may be wondering whether your DR pauses while you are away, so you do not miss anything while you are in your CR.

You do not need to worry about that. Script that whenever you return to your DR, you arrive at the exact moment you left.

The same works in the other direction. A time ratio is how time in your DR compares with time here. With a ratio of one week to one hour, for example, a whole week in your DR passes in a single hour of your CR.

The 2021 researchers described notes like this, on time and on ways to return, as part of what a shifting script can hold.

To come home, script a safe word or a small action, such as tapping the back of your hand three times. Many shifters also add a line that they come straight back if their body needs them, if someone at home calls their name or if an alarm goes off.

DRs to Think Twice About

Most DRs on this page are simply fun to plan. A few deserve a second thought before you write them.

○ Frightening Worlds

Horror stories, liminal spaces and the Backrooms come up in shifting threads, and so do shows rated for adults. Those are not on this list on purpose.

A world that frightens you on a screen is unlikely to feel calmer from the inside.

Doctors in Slovakia have written up one case worth knowing about.

In a 2023 letter published in the Journal of Neurology, Ján Necpál and Marcela Šoltýsová described a 15-year-old girl whose tics were most severe while shifting, horror games and the Backrooms took up several hours of her day. Our safety page tells her full story. She had other struggles too, so her case shows a possible risk, not a rule.

Still, it is a good reason to leave the scariest corners of the internet out of your DR.

If you want a spooky world anyway, turn the fear down in your script: the ghosts are friendly, the lights stay on and you can leave at any moment.

○ Cruel or “Limitless” DRs

Some shifters talk about DRs with no rules, where they can do anything to anyone. What you script can stay with you, though.

On Reddit, one shifter described deep guilt over something that happened in their DR, a feeling that came back to their CR with them and stayed even after they changed that part of the script.

Choose a DR you will be glad to remember.

○ DRs Built to Undo a Loss or Redo Your Past

Some shifters want a DR where someone they lost is still alive, or where their childhood was happier. Wanting that is completely understandable, and nobody should make you feel silly for it.

If the pull is strong, or the wish comes from something that still hurts, please share it with someone who cares about you. A parent, a counselor at school or a close friend can help you carry it here, where you are.

The warning signs further down show when it is time for a break.

Is It Safe to Shift to Your Desired Reality?

Inside your DR, shifters rely on the script to keep them safe. Out here in your CR, the honest answer is that nobody knows for sure, because shifting has barely been studied.

The 2021 Current Psychology paper notes potential risks, including a decreased sense of control over your own thoughts. The same researchers say that whether shifting can cause distress or get in the way of daily life simply has not been researched yet.

So treat your DR as somewhere you visit, not somewhere you escape to. The researchers point out that pouring time into shifting instead of facing real problems, like loneliness or social anxiety, may do harm.

Your DR is a fun place to go. Your CR is where your friends, family and future are.

Some feelings are never shifting symptoms: chest pain, a pounding heart that will not settle, trouble breathing, fainting, a seizure, a severe headache or strong dizziness. If any of them happen, stop and see a doctor.

Call your local emergency number right away for sudden chest pain that does not go away, or chest pain with sweating, feeling sick, light-headed or short of breath. The same goes for gasping for air or not being able to get words out, and for anyone’s first-ever seizure.

If you notice any of these, give shifting a rest and tell an adult in your life, such as a parent or your doctor:

• Sleep paralysis that keeps happening. Just as you are dropping off or waking, your mind is awake but your body stays frozen and no words come out. On its own it is scary rather than dangerous. If it shows up often and makes you nervous about going to bed, or leaves you tired from morning to night, tell a doctor.
• Feeling outside yourself, as if you are watching your own life from a distance, or feeling that everything around you has gone unreal or foggy.
• Losing your grip on what is real, or shifting for so long that you skip sleep, school or meals.
• Shifting stays on your mind all day, and a break feels impossible.
• Feeling hopeless about your CR, or wishing you could leave it for good.

Sometimes wanting to stay in a DR forever is really about not wanting to be here at all. We wrote more about that pull in our guide to staying in a DR for good. If you have been thinking about ending your life, we hope you will not keep those thoughts to yourself. You can tell whoever picks up exactly that, because that is what they are there for.

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US takes calls, texts and chats at any hour. Samaritans volunteers take free calls on 116 123 around the clock, from branches across the UK and Ireland. Tele MANAS, India’s free 24/7 helpline, is on 14416 and lets you choose your language.

If you might not be safe in the next few hours, phone your local emergency number now.

Frequently Asked Questions About Desired Realities