Maladaptive Daydreaming

Stay tuned for a pharmaceutical company to release a pill replete with some obtuse name to 'relieve the symptoms' of those 'suffering from maladaptive daydreaming'. Ask your doctor if its right for you!

Yes, I am very familiar with it. It's where you become so absorbed in your fantasy life that it interferes with normal functioning - studying, work, exercise, responsibilities like paying bills and relationships. You lose social skills, and can get into a car accident or get hit by a car when you're walking. The dopamine high is incredibly addictive. It starts as a way of compensating for defects in your life or perceived inadequacies in yourself. Abused children lose themselves in fantasy to cope with their powerless to escape an abusive situation.

About 99% of people do this.

Very interesting, r2. I can understand how debilitating in could be in day to day life, but definitely more pleasant than dissociation & depersonalization as a trauma response.

I think Bobbie had it in Dressed to Kill.

I've suffered from this when I was younger, but I can't imagine continuing this way into my 70's. As someone said, it interferes with your daily functioning and soon enough you reach a breaking point where you have to get real or you just can't function.

[quote]R2 It's where you become so absorbed in your fantasy life that it interferes with normal functioning… The dopamine high is incredibly addictive.

So, they’re junkies.

Run of the mill junkies!

Lt. Barclay, is that you at r2? Get the hell of the Holodeck and attend to your real life duties!!

My God, that's what I had! I didn't know it was an actual diagnosis, but I would do just that as a way to escape reality as a young person. I was bullied throughout my childhood, didn't learn how to properly handle it at all, and ended up with severe self-esteem issues as an adult, which led to depression until my late 40s. That's when I finally got therapy, which resulted in my getting better. I still daydream, but not to that interfering extreme anymore.

I agree with R3, every human being does this to some extent.

This sounds like ADHD.

A psychiatrist might say I did this as a teen, I was dealing with some horrific issues and I checked out of reality as much as I could and lived in a fantasy world. It wasnt good for my grades but I think it did more good than harm overall, i think I was freeing my mind from the abuse and insanity that was my real life... and as such was the first step in freeing myself from the abusive environment.

I did grow out of the excess daydreaming as an adult, reasonable daydreaming only, and ended up saner and kinder than some people who've been through horrible things as kids. I didn't grow up pathologically angry or self-destructive, and I definitely didn't continue the intergenerational abuse.

Not a real psych diagnosis.

Daydreaming is a normal, very common experience in childhood and adulthood. However, a new phenomenon – termed ‘Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD)’ – which takes daydreaming to an extreme form, is currently being investigated. Maladaptive Daydreaming is not listed as an official disorder in the ICD-10 or DSM-5 presently.

Maybe its just being delusional. Not being able to deal with reality.

Each and every psychological disorder is a thought process taken to its extreme; the far end of a continuum. This is why people dismiss debilitating conditions as something everyone does/has, because they do, just not to the extent it disrupts daily life and function.

I daydreamer situations that would bring me to tears occasionally. I wondered why I would do that. Later I sought treatment for depression. When I read about maladaptive daydreaming, I realized that since I had started on antidepressants, I had stopped doing that.

When I'm in a depressive state, I can get fixated on daydreaming (comforting) and neglect my responsibilities. That is what I assume is meant by maladaptive. I think this phenomenon could be related to depression, PTSD, anxiety, autism, or narcissism. Relevant to my depression - daydreaming requires no energy or actual activity, it offers no challenge, it can create a "fake" self-esteem based on the good feelings from the fantasy. I would bet that modern life causes this phenomenon to express itself more commonly and more severely. For many, if not most, young people - social media is the primary "public space" - wherein they project an idealized persona into that space to interact with other personas. I think it may even be the case that our material reality seems like a dull distraction from the "real life" of online apps. Perhaps this creates a certain attachment to the inner fantasy that's more extreme than ever. I think there are other cultural/social factors at play - we have a culture that promotes wild individual ambitions, which almost nobody has even a chance at achieving.

This is a term some Ph.D came up with in 2002 that generated subreddits and TikTok interest. It's meaningless. The behavior and thinking this dude is describing is often present in depression, autism, ADHD, OCD, probably many more DSM classifications.

'The International Consortium for Maladaptive Daydreaming Research (ICMDR) is an informal network of scientists interested in the study of maladaptive daydreaming.'

Notice how the group is 'informal' and the wording implies 'maladaptive daydreaming' is already an established disorder instead of a term invented by the guy who started the 'Consortium'. Soon this guy Eli Somer will become an expert in the ersatz field he created out of thin air.

This is something I do. Often I’m so involved or lost in some mental WIP that I don’t fully concentrate on what I’m doing or saying. Because to be present fully is terrifying and painful and scary, and doesn’t usually go well for me.

R17 makes a lot of sense, I think that’s all true. I myself also have Asperger’s and chronic depression, probably causing me to check out of sensorially or emotionally stressful and disappointing situations any way I can.

Would that diagnosis also include children having imaginary friends, or is that a separate issue?

^You can't be 'diagnosed' with maladaptive dreaming because it's not a recognized disorder in any official diagnostic manual. If a mental health practitioner says it's a diagnosis he's a quack.

*maladaptive daydreaming*

WOW - thank you to all who responded, especially R2. It helps me understand this even more, though I would appreciate more experiences shared, to understand it better. It does sound like what this friend was explaining at dinner, though.

-OP

I used to do this until I was about 35. It started in childhood. I was bored and lonley and used to watch a lot of TV. Some random TV character would grab my attention for some reason, and I'd become fixated on that character, think about them all the time, write fanfiction. I'd imagine talking to this character, but at the same time, being this character.

By the time I was a teenager, I created my own characters and became them. The first few didn't stick, but the last one stayed with me for years. When I have struggles or nerves, I put them on the character instead so I don't actually have to deal with it. When I'm walking around, it's the character's strut. My life is boring, the character's life is interesting.

It's not something that you put effort into, like you don't just say "oh, I'll be Holly right now". It either happens organically or it doesn't work. Eventually I lost interest in the character and nothing new has wormed into my head for years now, so I'd say my maladaptive daydreaming is gone.

[quote] I was bored and lonely and used to watch a lot of TV. Some random TV character would grab my attention for some reason, and I'd become fixated on that character, think about them all the time, write fanfiction. I'd imagine talking to this character, but at the same time, being this character.

Nowadays, that's known as 'fictionkin'.

Is it another word for dissociation?

Thank You, R24

OP

Maladaptive daydreaming may have been named by the practitioner and she interpreted that as a diagnosis, rather than a symptom of another condition, r21. Or she's seeing some sort of unlicensed quack, perhaps.

This sounds like the new fibromyalgia. “I can’t work because of my maladaptive daydreaming!”

Did they give her something for anxiety. It’s usually linked with it.

R29 That was the first thing I thought of when she was telling us her story.

OP

Oh.

You're a dumb-dumb.

Psychiatrists are the last ones who people need to go to for advice, did we not decide that they're all batshit? Think about it.

I succumbed to the same behavior when I turned 70. Didn't know what it was called but I'm still fighting it. I get caught up in the daydream that I am the sexual partner of a man I admire, even when I am driving or shopping or visiting friends.

Kati Morton breaks it down rather well.

I am perfectly happy in my maladaptive daydreaming. When I'm daydreaming, my life id perfect. I am always rich, beautiful, and young. In reality, I'm a broken-down 73-year-old.

It's called imagination and creativity. the only 'problem' - there is no PRODUCT produced thus no relevance to the wider world.

Daydreaming has dragged my ass thru some big messes over the years. Thank God for that harmless escape. Don't crazy-fy it, psychiatrists!

[quote]I get caught up in the daydream that I am the sexual partner of a man I admire, even when I am driving or shopping or visiting friends.

That doesn't strike me as terribly unusual. Unless it's actually preventing you from doing things, I think it's harmless fantasizing.

My NY shrink diagnosed me with Maladaptive Daydreaming. Then I saw a Alpine mountain witch in Interlaken who determined I wasn't daydreaming, but was possessed by the spirit of a tall handsome hiker who died in the Dyatlov Pass incident. He removed the spirits for 1000 Swiss francs and removed my warts by magic for free.

R9 what kind of therapy did you find most helpful? Sounds like you made great progress

R12 here, who checked out of reality as a kid, and who thinks it did more good than harm...

There's only been one time in my adult life when I found myself doing something that could be described as maladaptive daydreaming, when I was in a job I hated and spending my evenings studying for a different career. There was a time when finals were approaching and I found myself overwhelmed by fantasy, to the point where I couldn't concentrate, couldn't study, and I ended up doing very badly on the finals and questioning everything I was doing.

And if I'd done well on the finals and kept studying that field, I'd have been fucking miserable in the long run! I ended up completely changing my focus and ended up establishing a completely different new career, so again I think the overwhelming daydream was actually more good than bad. It was my subconscious mind trying to derail my conscious mind from a life path I would have regretted taking.

Buck never daydreamed.

I have it.

R37/R38/R42 exactly! A soulless world is out to pathologise what makes us the creating and dreaming beings we are..

[quote] Psychiatrists are the last ones who people need to go to for advice, did we not decide that they're all batshit? Think about it.

Xenu has entered the chat.

R33 it's time for your shot

Isn't everything healthy maladaptive if you do it too much? Exercising, drinking water, sleeping, reading.

Daydreaming and fantasy are the only way to get through life. Life is harsh.

[Quote][R9] what kind of therapy did you find most helpful? Sounds like you made great progress

R41 I had DBT. But the reason it worked for me was because of my great therapist. I'm a gay Black male, and I was lucky to have a Black female who was a gay ally, and understood the homophobia I encountered inside, and outside, of the Black community, and the different ways it all traumatized me.

I was also traumatized by racism towards me (I grew up in very conservative and White Staten Island, NY), and by having very Christian parents who taught me to pray for the racists to change, and for myself to become "more like a man." Basically, the advice and guidance I got from my parents, and from the society I grew up in, fucked me up.

My therapist worked hard with me to properly understand how bad that was, and to undo the damage it caused me. I still have my sad days, but it's nothing like the depressions I had suffered from since my early teens.

All my favourite books & movies reference some form of intense escapist dreaming. What would we do without it...

I also think that this phenomenon is often how an introverted/avoidant person might express or experience a manic episode.

R45 no no, the term "maladaptive daydreaming" isn't referring to anything like that. Imagine a person who is late for their appointments, failing to maintain a clean environment or practice hygiene, neglecting their career and financial responsibilities, neglecting important relationships, etc. It's referring to a situation that looks more like video game addiction - where someone is pathologically wasting their own time to the point that it interferes with essential functioning.

R50 thanks for answering my question.

Glad to hear you got a great therapist to help you work through all that, it sounds like you had a lot of really awful experiences through no cause of your own.

Happy you're doing a lot better now x

R52 yep guilty as charged

It's like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

A lot of interesting responses on this thread; I was having a discussion with my sister about why, even though kids have so much more (access to knowledge, nice things, travel, all that) than we did, it's harder than ever to be a kid. Her answer was the kids live their life almost entirely online and I suppose MD is an aspect of that - you're so caught up in some online world, you can't deal with the real one in which you live.

That's not a clinical diagnosis.

Basically, maladaptive daydreaming is a form of OCD - obsessive thoughts/compulsive behaviour to such a degree as to impact normal functioning.

It is also a substance abuse disorder, although in this case, the substance is the daydreamer's own neurotransmitters.

It beat the fuck out of reality.

Anything taken to an extreme could be considered "maladaptive".

Here's a famous proposal to classify happiness as a clinical diagnosis, to show that anything that doesn't occur frequently can be termed a "disorder"

I'm extremely grateful I 'suffered' from this as a child. I was isolated with an physically and verbally abusive narcissistic single mother who kept me away from other children (and her own family members). And from the terrible bullying I suffered because I was a whacked out weirdo in school who didn't know how to fit in. It's all I had (other than an FM radio in a room alone a night, and she'd only let me listen to music she liked, while she entertained an endless assortment of gentlemen callers - Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Eydie Gorme, in the 1970s!)

The only thing that therapist mentioned that I think is a significant problem is being so distracted while driving that you kill someone or yourself.

However, I've always been able to 'code switch' or whatever you call it, at least to an adequate degree. I do get caught talking to myself a lot, even in stores, but I'm not very loud -- and, well hell, the embarrassment is a small price to pay for my surviving at all.

It beats suicide or violence towards others, from the pent-up rage (which I would yell out in an imaginary fight to get it out of my system.

R61 reading the first part of your post with the narcissistic mother and 'gentlemen callers' including Frank Sinatra I thought you were going to sign as Christina Crawford!

Sorry you had such a hard time.

Oh I didn't make that clear - Frank Sinatra was one of the singers on the radio station I was allowed to listen to - the gentlemen callers I barely knew. Sorry bout that.

I got through it - left home at 17 and was lucky to get out and I did much better in community college - found a group of friends (based on binge drinking and partying but hey, it was a way to "fit in" lol). I'm ok now.

I have a fairly similar story above, R61, and I also think the extreme daydreaming was a survival tactic. There was abuse in real life, and I was too young to stop it or escape it or to have any control.over my life... but my soul lived in the sci-fi and fantasy I loved. So during the worst of times, I was thinking about science, the difference between good and evil, heroic quests, righting wrongs, etc.

I turned out more or less okay, roo. I got a STEM degree eventually, work in the helping professions, got away from my horrible family, sober 20 years, friends, hobbies . Things could have been so much worse.

OMG, like, the latest mental condition for me to claim on social media! It’s so hot right now! Guys remember to smash that like button and subscribe to my channel.

If you've never experienced this, you don't know how serious it can become. As far as relationships go, you pretty much give up on finding one or improving one you have, because you can retreat into your own perfect fantasy world any time you want, where you control everything and there is no possibility of pain or disappointment.

R66 that’s what I do, but the odd part is that it’s vicarious, always about two (or even three) fictional or fantasy crush objects in a relationship and not myself.

For whatever reason I cannot imagine myself in a full real sexual or romantic relationship, it just does not compute. I’ve never had one irl, or felt comfortable engaging in real flirtation or dating or sexual contact. Afaik I don’t have conscious sexual trauma (at least, not that I remember) and had a pretty safe sheltered upbringing with stable married parents, so idk why I’m so deeply averse to the idea of love & sex for myself, trapped instead in my dreams.

So I channel any longings and desires and frustrations I have into the characters in my mind or into pictures on a screen/page, and sort of exorcise and drain them off that way. Sometimes, I’ll drift off to sleep deliberately thinking of one of my couples or throuples together, so I can wake up thinking about them too. Sad and weird, I know.

Had this for twenty years, knew it was a problem, but couldn't stop because it felt so good. And yes, it fucked my life properly in all sorts of ways.

I'm in the throes of this right now. I'm trying to stop. I know it's because I'm extremely bored with my life. I'm bothered by how disengaged I am. Hopefully no one in my life has noticed.

R69 if you have loved ones close to you, they've probably noticed something, but may not know what's up. Is one of them a trusted person you could open up to?

Not R69, but I would say no. There is a deep sense of shame about revealing this private world. The Israeli researcher who first described this phenomenon expressed gratitude to his patients for their trust in him in sharing the details of their fantasies.

I think the at some point in our lives the "Walter Mitty" thing happens to all of us. When I was younger, I used to conjure up complex pretend lives. Beings a famous actor, or living in a foreign country, or doing an act of bravery and receiving praise for it, etc. These made-up lives would have ongoing chapters, much like in a soap opera, and develop over extended weeks, months, and even years. It had a calming, almost narcotic effect on me. Although I gradually outgrew it and now lead a typical adult life, when I was younger, it served as a means to avoid doing something or as a way to pass the time.

I also did this when I couldn't sleep. I would try to recall a space, such as a friend's apartment, and reimagine how I would decorate it if it were mine. Today I simply pop a Valium and poof - sleep.

No, r70. It's embarrassing to explain it to another person and I don't think they could help anyway. It's just something I have to figure out

Curious don't you think: From the moment we have agency as children (our own thoughts, ability to move about in the world, impact the environment) almost all of us are plopped down in front of a machine that pumps a steady stream of fantasy and unreality, heavily tinged with violence, into our heads. What do we do with that? Especially when we do hit the 'real' world and find it's usually worse than the fantasies we grew up with --- or so boring and mundane that all that's left is the feeling "Is this all there is?"

For abused and neglected children it’s the only place that promises a world that can have any safety. I think a lot a people do this as adults and call it “manifesting” now.

Anyone remember the movie "Kiss of the Spider Woman", from 1985? A prisoner whose life is an inescapable hell learns to flee into a fantasy world, because that is the only joy and safety available.

That ought to have a different descriptive term than the actual maladaptive daydreaming described by R68 and R69.

R76 I know the musical of 'Kiss Of The Spider Woman'. In fact, DL introduced me to it.

R75 isn't manifesting more just intensely wishing for an ideal lifestyle or income or relationship to become reality? That seems quite different than mentally and emotionally fleeing into an impossible escapist idyll.

Depends on the severity.

Sounds like a fancy way to say "laziness" and "procrastination".

Pour one out for the dreamy bitches!!

Just had my clinical diagnosisfor ASD, and am told it’s one of the features that presents in my case.