Is it actually very common for people to have violent sadistic fantasies, possibly involving actual people in their lives?

I havent had anyone express views like this around me; at all.

Are you OK, OP?

From the Intrusive Thoughts Wikipedia Page:

Many people experience the type of negative and uncomfortable thoughts that people with more intrusive thoughts experience, but most people can dismiss these thoughts.[7] For most people, intrusive thoughts are a "fleeting annoyance".[8] Psychologist Stanley Rachman presented a questionnaire to healthy college students and found that virtually all said they had these thoughts from time to time, including thoughts of sexual violence, sexual punishment, "unnatural" sex acts, painful sexual practices, blasphemous or obscene images, thoughts of harming elderly people or someone close to them, violence against animals or towards children, and impulsive or abusive outbursts or utterances.[9] Such thoughts are universal among humans, and have "almost certainly always been a part of the human condition".

As long as they’re just thoughts, then it sounds normal to me

I would say no, that is not normal.

Its important to note that someone saying "I wish I could/ I would kill my [whoever]," that doesn't usually mean anything beyond just "I am voicing my frustration with that person." That doesn't mean they have actually given the idea thought.

If someone is actually thinking about killing or harming someone, please seek professional help.

It's normal to get such weird brainfarts, like the call of the void or imagining murder or other bad things, just like when a song suddenly gets stuck in your head. A healthy person thinks "wtf brain?" but when you start to think "that's a great idea I want to act on", maybe that's not completely normal.

Of course. Everyone does.

That's a difficult question to answer since the research into "fantasy" of any kind is minimal overall, and doesn't specifically delve into the "dark" fantasies outside of people that are known already to have them. So you end up having trouble finding reliable information, and even that's for a given value of reliable since replication efforts in psychology and psychiatry aren't exactly booming.

Then, the specific question you asked has "violent sadistic" as a combined criteria. It's definitely possible to have violent fantasies without sadism, and sadistic fantasies that aren't violent (unless you're one of those assholes that insists on stretching what the word violent means far beyond sense).

With all of that said, I can only give anecdotal information regarding people I know well enough to have the kind of honest talks that they would admit this kind of thing. In the way you asked, based on that, I would say that the incidence of violent sadistic fantasies is low. I would say the same about sadistic only fantasies. But violent fantasies?

If you include things like wanting to punch someone just one good time, I would call that fairly common, with the frequency decreasing as the level of violence goes up, and/or the duration of the violence goes up. But does that actually reach the kind of ideation that wolf be called a fantasy.

Myself, I say not usually. A fantasy is a conscious thing in most usages. It's something you think about, imagine, and focus on. The kind of violence most people have in their head is impulse driven, or stress driven. That isn't really conducive to fantasy. It's like wishing you had a nice cup of coffee isn't the same as imagining brewing up a pot of excellent Jamaican blue mountain when you get home and just sitting on the porch drinking it while the sun goes down. One is a passing though/impulse, the other is a fantasy.

Same analogy (or is it metaphor? Damned if my brain is pulling up the difference right now), but using sex. A passing thought that someone would look good naked isn't the same as picturing them naked and imagining what you'd do together. The first is not a fantasy, the second is.

Thus it is with violence. A sudden urge to pop your boss in the nose isn't a fantasy. Imagining beating the shit out of them is a fantasy. Until you're constructing the scene with intent, I say it isn't fantasy at all.

Now, me? I'm prone to violent impulses. My PTSD stems from violence (civilian) in childhood and as an adult. You get attacked and injured enough, you react differently to perceived threats. Someone cuts too close to me when driving, there's a flash of wanting to kick them in the nuts/twat. But it's a flash. For me to seriously want to fuck someone up, it has to reach a level of threat or problem much higher. Even that isn't sadistic in the truest sense, since it isn't about me enjoying the process, but that's splitting hairs. There are people in the world that I would enjoy beating the fuck out of, but it's my experience that I'm kinda rare in that. Most people would avoid it even if they knew they would get away with it.

no not really

I can't say I've ever fantasized about killing a boss or coworkers. However, when I was 4 years old I imagined an alternate dimension that held a mirror universe to our own universe. However the big difference was in the alternate universe everybody was naked, and chained to a really really long wall. Like the great wall of china, except it spanned the entire globe.

Then whenever a kid in preschool or a teacher, or whomever made me mad, I'd go into the alternate dimension and poke them with hot skewers while they couldn't move.

Saying it like that, I sound really messed up as a kid.....

Hmm, the human mind is very complex. So there are all kinds of things. I'm not having these thoughts involving actual people. But I can let my creativity run free and imagine all kinds of fantasies. I also read books and picture things. Or watch movies that contain violence. But I separate that from reality. With that said... There are things like intrusive thoughts. A lot of people for example report being haunted by the intrusive thought, they could (while driving) at any time yank the steering wheel, crash into that concrete bridge pier and die. That might be uncomfortable. I think it's called "L'appel du vide" or "the call of the void". But I think it's connected to the brains ability to weigh options, picture outcomes and assess risks. We can also assess dark scenarios. That in itself isn't bad. But it becomes an issue once you lose control or it starts affecting things. Same applies to other disturbing thoughts/fantasies. I'd be super careful if it involves real people. But I mean we do that. We sometimes also fantasize about positive things. Like having sex with someone who is out of reach. Maybe that's practically the same thing. But it comes with issues.

So yeah, I'd say things like that happen to mentally sound people. It depends on the extent and how you deal with it. And there isn't anything like a "mentally sound" person in my opinion. Most people I've met are crazy (in a good way) one way or another. And life isn't strictly one thing or another, either.

One thing that makes me worried though, is you mentioning the word "sadistic". I can't relate to that. I'm not sure if it's a common (or healthy) feeling. I think I've never experienced any urge to be sadistic towards any living being.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought

If you're worried, have a Hare test done. It's a question and answer survey that helps diagnose sociopathy.

Personally I have a hypothesis that humanity has invisibly specialized, like ants. Hundreds of thousands of years of living in very dangerous environments with people living a few miles away that constantly want to kill you and take your food.

This has led to a mentally prepared warrior caste that will be less likely to fall to fear or panic in combat (of course this is natural selection, only the surviving warriors get to reproduce)

And I am thinking part of that is, as you experience, these violent fantasies.

You aren't having them because you are mentally ill, you are having them because your ancestors evolved over thousands of generations to have more Fight than Flee in your emergency response.

Unfortunately that means your brain is geared for violence, like mine.

Were we born 400 years ago we might have been lauded heroes, but in our modern safe world we are relics that society wants to forget.

There’s a big difference between thinking/imagining something and acting on it. I wouldn’t consider it an issue unless it’s causing damage to your life or relationships. Fixating on morbid stuff to the point that it impacts your life is probably a sign of something bigger going on.

I think there are different kinds of violent fantasies. I imagine all kinds of violent stuff in an unrealistic action movie kind of way, with exploding heads and disembowelment and all that (I run D&D games lol). I got worried that I might be dangerous. Then, one time I tried to vividly imagine the actual real world consequences of hurting a real person that I knew, and I couldn't get any further than imagining the pained, betrayed look on their face before I had to hit the eject button. That brief exercise fucked me up for weeks afterward, but it was pretty reassuring. In the long run. I think I'm the schmuck in the horror movie that chokes when it comes down to actually firing a gun at someone and gets killed for hesitating, and honestly I think I'm okay with that.

Like when discussing char.ai, acting out sexual or romantic fantasies is something a lot of people do, but it's considered embarrassing. While people freely discuss violent roleplays without any shame.

Violence is culturally normalized, while sexual things are usually shamed and censored. We can see this a lot in different media, especially the US is very big on that part.

And then there's the cliche of fantasizing about killing one's boss or coworkers.

Never heard of that and I'd say that's downright sociopathic. I think the only time I had seriously violent thoughts were about my cheating ex girlfriends, and there was a lot of shit that came along with that, that I'm not going to go into here. Let's just say it was very traumatic and accordingly caused a lot of very different thoughts in general. But casually having fantasies about killing people? Nah dawg. That's when you get a therapist.

Reading through these comments makes me worry about y'all and maybe the people I interact with on a daily basis.

Like I would understand maybe punching someone to try and "convert" the emotional/mental pain they caused you into actual pain they can understand; to teach them a lesson or open their eyes. Take punching a nazi as an example.

But having "violent sadistic fantasies" especially involving those close to you should probably invoke some level of concern about your mental state and warrant a psych eval.

Put it this way, if you sat down in front of a therapist and told them what you just told us, would they warn the authorities after the appointment or just go about their day?

Lol me and my gf used to play this game when we went into public areas. And we would decide how they would die. Than it bore down into who would you eat first on a desert island with no food.

No idea, but I have a prescription for prn anti-psychotics after discussing this very topic with my mental health provider ... so, do whatever you want with that information.