October 24, 2024 • 41 mins
Daydreaming can be a perfectly normal part of life - zoning out in the shower, before we fall asleep, on the train to work. But some of us cross over into dangerous territory or what we call maladaptive daydreaming where we can't pull ourselves away from the fantasy. We feel disconnected and it makes our real life feel so much less bright and enjoyable. It can cause us a lot of distress and distraction. Why is that? And why can't we stop ourselves? In today's episode, we break down:
- What makes daydreaming 'maladaptive' or 'excessive'
- What are the signs + the 16 item scale for maladaptive daydreaming
- The impact on our emotional health
- Maladaptive daydreaming and creativity
- Maladaptive daydreaming, trauma, anxiety and OCD
- Is daydreaming a form of escapism?
- How to turn daydreaming into intentional visualisation
Thank you to our listeners who contributed their perspective. Happy listening!
The 16 item scale here: https://traumadissociation.com/mds
The Reddit help group: https://www.reddit.com/r/MaladaptiveDreaming/
Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast
For business: psychologyofyour20s@gmail.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here.
Back for another episode, as we, of course break down
the psychology of your twenties. Today's episode was inspired by
a listener who emailed me a few weeks back with
(00:22):
a conundrum, and I'm going to start the episode by
reading what they said. Hi, g Emma, I have a
more rare but personal episode request that I would love
for you to consider. Basically, my situation is that it
feels like I've spent my whole life daydreaming about a
better life rather than just living the one I have.
(00:43):
I can get lost in these big dreams whilst I'm
still awake, minutes passing by without me even realizing. I've
created imaginary friends, imaginary enemies, pets, careers, scenarios, and I
play them over and over again anytime I get the chance,
I daydream. And it's getting to the point where I've
lost too many hours in my life to count, probably
(01:06):
more than four hours a day. What can you tell
me about this? And am I the only one? As
soon as I read this email, I knew I had
to do an episode on maladaptive daydreaming because this listener
is by no means alone. There are thousands millions of
people going through the same thing, finding comfort in their
(01:27):
imagination and their daydreams that you know, they can't find
that comfort in the real world, spending hours thinking about
their dream life and picturing it so intensely, but also
struggling to make real life progress towards it or to
be fully present in their day to day existence. I
don't think it's surprising to say that this has become
(01:47):
a lot more common, especially for people in their twenties,
because of how uncertain this decade is, how uncertain the
world is. Daydreaming offers a temporary release from the stress
and from the choice overload, and from the confusion. As
we'll get into, you know, the more lost, confused, anxious, disappointed,
(02:09):
heartbroken maybe you feel, the more likely you are to daydream.
And it's no surprise that this is common amongst this
generation because we are so overwhelmed by getting it right,
we are facing such intense pressure to be exceptional. Everything
just feels so much harder for our age group as well.
You know, who doesn't want to feel like they have
(02:30):
an escape, and we all find a way to escape
somehow through drinking, through I don't know, maybe drugs, through addiction,
and daydreaming is also one of those ways. So let's
talk our way through why that is. What are the
basics of maladaptive daydreaming that you should probably know but
maybe don't, How does it differ from just having a
(02:53):
really immersive creative imagination or being a visual thinker, and
what are the signs to look out for. I also
to talk about the link between loneliness trauma over city anxiety,
because daydreaming is actually a lot more complex than we think.
There is this whole cycle that can explain what draws
people into maladaptive daydreaming as a coping mechanism. But because
(03:17):
it is such a private experience, it's so hard to
actually get answers and to talk about it openly, and
it's not really part of the discussion, but of course
it really should be. I also want to talk about
a really interesting theory that I came across that explains
how we actually can turn daydreaming into a method to
motivate and energize ourselves rather rather than as this form
(03:40):
of escapism. How we can shift our imagination towards intentional visualization.
When I came across this theory, I was like, this
is incredible. This is remarkable. It's like scientific manifestation. It's wonderful.
So I really hope that you take something away from
this episode. I hope you learn something about yourself. I
hope you learn something about how to be a more
(04:02):
kind of like powerful cognitive and mental being, taking that
daydreaming element that sometimes you can be so negative, and
turning it into something really positive. So I'm gonna stop
rambling without further ado, Let's get into the psychology of
maladaptive daydreaming. If you want to know whether you have
(04:26):
a problem with maladaptive daydreaming, it is probably firstly best
to know what it is and what distinguishes it from
kind of aimlessly losing track of your thoughts from time
to time. Well. Maladaptive daydreaming occurs when we spend a
lot of our time during our days, weeks, and months
daydreaming about the past, the future, making up these really
(04:50):
vivid and complex plots that completely engulf us. The key
word here is maladaptive. There is such a thing. It
is healthy daydreaming. You know, some people would call it
immersive daydreaming, where we zone out for a few minutes
here and there, our brain kind of switches off and
we get to like pop into our warm gewey imagination.
(05:13):
That is totally healthy, it's totally normal. It's part of
how our brain works. But the distinction is that those
instances are quite brief, and they are often something that
we can control. It is not as well where we
spend most of our days. So there are a few
components that really make maladaptive daydreaming stand out, and they
(05:33):
put it in a league of its own. First of all,
it interrupts your daily life and it pulls you away
from everyday activities. You know, you could be doing your dishes,
and then suddenly you are like absorbed by a daydream
for like ten twenty minutes or even longer before you
like come back down to earth and you're like, wait,
twenty minutes has passed and I'm still kind of just
(05:55):
aimlessly standing at the sink. The daydreaming also almost feels
preferable to your real life. It's addictive in a way,
so it pulls you back in again and again and again.
Some people have actually described to me as almost being
like a hobby like there, it's something that they prioritize
that they're like, you know, I'm not gonna go see
(06:15):
my friends. I'm gonna deliberately stay up later. You know,
I'm not gonna get up from the couch because I
just kind of want to sit here and daydream. I
want to sit here and fantasize, like that's something that
I plan for. The daydreams, as I said before, are
often really vivid and compelling. It is like a whole
(06:36):
almost movie series is happening in your brain. There are characters,
there are plot lines, multiple plot lines, there are different
settings that you could almost describe in detail. It's such
a personal, private experience that it's really hard to get
specific examples of what this looks like. But some people
(06:59):
have really reported creating entire lives in their imagination where
they run multiple successful businesses, they have homes in three states.
They can describe this the love of their life that
they have in their imagination. Then they can almost go
into these like subplots, like they could tell you when
they met that partner, what's inside their homes, what these
(07:21):
homes look like. Because they spend so much time building
out this world some people also, you know, they daydream
about all the ways they could go back and change
something in the past. They may also think about what
it would be like to be famous, what it would
be like to do something really heroic, and they have
this like one instance, that they replay very intimate moments
(07:43):
with a partner, shared ventures with a partner. What it
would be like to have someone like that. You know,
you could tell me almost like the smells, the sensations,
the sounds of what this feels like, and all the
while you could be sitting in front of me and
have this entire highly different world playing out in your head.
(08:04):
If you are actually someone who experiences, I really want
to hear from you because it sounds so intriguing. Like
all the reports that I was receiving in all the
different case studies that I read and the people that
I heard of, it was completely different for basically every
single person. So please DM me if you have stories
about this or what it feels like for you to
(08:26):
kind of switch into your maladaptive daydreaming state. It's because
of this very aspect actually how amazing it feels, and
how personal and private and intimate, how specific an individual
it is that it can be really easy to form
an emotional attachment to our daydreams, even having like our
(08:47):
favorites that we repeat over and over again like a
favorite movie. With time, though we kind of realize that
they aren't true, they may never be true, and because
of how invested we've become, we feel we all really
really disappointed. We feel crushed. We also start to feel
like we have wasted all of this time. As that
person said at the beginning, that we could have spent
(09:09):
creating that reality. We've wasted all this time, that we
could have spent being present, doing something about our dreams,
but instead we have been stuck in this thought loop.
Nothing has come from it. That time feels wasted. Even
though it felt so nice, things are still the same,
(09:30):
and that can make us really stressed and really desperate
to find a way to stop, to just be present,
to make our reality be just as good, even if,
like specifically, we don't know how. And that is the
curse of maladaptive daydreaming. It's like, here is our brain,
and it's going to serve us up something that is
(09:51):
so delicious and desirable and believable and perfect for us
that we forget it's not real, and then when do
there is this very long fall back to reality. It's
something quite a few people report, like a day dreaming
hangover or daydreaming guilt, kind of like when you, you know,
(10:15):
you wake up from a really good dream and you
try to like fall back asleep or you try to
like relive it as soon as you wake up, but
you know, eventually it just feels like it's moving further
and further away. I remember being like twenty and I
had this amazing dream about being on a holiday increase
and I met this man and this amazing guy, and
(10:37):
in my dream we had this like crazy well wind
romance and we fell in love and it felt so amazing,
and then we woke and then I woke up. Oh
my god, did you just hear? I said, how? I said?
We look? Yeah? I woke up. He's not real and
it wasn't real. And the aftermath though, of trying to
hold on to how real it did feel and longing
(10:58):
in this sadness that is a dream hangover. And I
cannot imagine feeling like that all the time from a
day dream. So hopefully you kind of get the picture.
It's a lot more complex than just you know, occasionally
zoning out. But now for you know, more clinical perspectives
and of the science attached to why this kind of happens.
(11:21):
You know, researchers used to think that it was a
type of like dissociative disorder where there was like a
loss of connection between who we are, our thoughts, our feelings,
and our surroundings and this pattern of I don't know,
fantasy that was happening in our brain. There's also been
like a real push actually in recent years, and it
(11:41):
was just in the news last week to get maladaptive
daydreaming listed as its own mental health disorder in the DSM,
mainly because people are like, well, this is just so
complex and destructive. We need really great minds on this.
I need a diagnosis. But of course, if you know,
like the clinical psychology community in the DSM, it is
(12:03):
so hard to get new disorders considered. So as of
right now, validaptive daydreaming is not a mental health disorder.
It's still seen as quite rare or niche. But most
professionals would actually say that that's because maladaptive daydreaming isn't
so much a condition. It's a coping strategy, so it
(12:24):
is not the root of our so called problem. It
is a symptom of that, and it comes as a
result of things like loneliness, trauma, general depression. It's a
product of those previous experiences. But because it's seen as
a symptom rather than as the origin or a condition,
(12:46):
it actually means that no one is systematically measuring the
prevalence in society. There's not many people doing in depth research.
There is a group that is very dedicated to this,
and I did find some studies from them over the
past two years that really wanted to look at the
prevalence of maladaptive daydreaming. So there was one study in
(13:07):
twenty twenty two that said about two point five percent
of people experience this. There was a twenty twenty one
study that said thirty four point three percent of their
participants identified as being maladaptive daydreamers. I'm just going to
caveat that and say that's really quite high. That was
a group of university students though, and as we know,
(13:29):
it is more common in younger population groups. But still
thirty five percent, you know, just that's mind blowing. The
most trusted source in my mind, though, for how many
people are experiencing this came from a study that observed
around three thousand American adults and it concluded that about
four percent of us would meet the clinical cutoff for
(13:50):
maladaptive daydreaming. That's about one in twenty five, which I
think is quite believable. Now, when we say clinical cutoff,
what they're really referring to is actually this measure of
whether you are a maladaptive daydreamer or not. And it
is called the sixteen item Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale. Super simple name.
(14:12):
There are sixteen questions. Something that had me shocked, though,
have a guess when it was developed. So maladaptive daydreaming
has been around for years and years and years centuries.
Only eight years ago, eight years ago was when they
had the first screening tool implemented that could tell they
could kind of, I don't know, not diagnose, but had
a clinical cutoff for what we could count as maladaptive daydreaming.
(14:37):
That's like yesterday in my mind, like only eight years ago,
twenty sixteen. That's wild. So there are sixteen questions on
this list. Some of them include like when you know
that you have something important or challenging to pay attention
to or finish, how difficult was it for you to
stay on task and complete the goal without daydreaming? Another question,
(14:59):
when the real world interrupts one of your daydreams, how
annoyed do you feel? How much does your daydreaming interfere
with your academic or occupational success? To what extent is
your daydreaming dependent on listening to music? These are just
some examples. I'll leave a full link to the measure.
It's actually publicly accessible. I'll leave it below. Just a
(15:21):
quick reminder if you're going to go and look at
it with all self reporting scores, try and be honest,
score yourself accurately, and just remember that it's not the
only confirmation you know. It is important to talk to
a professional. But it's an interesting resource, definitely something really
really fascinating. The individuals who actually developed this scale, they
(15:43):
make up a group called the International Concertorium. You saying no,
is it International Concertorium Formal Adaptive Daydreaming Research. This is
an entire body of researchers and psychologists who are primarily
interested in in why we get so wrapped up in
these fantasies, and they've had a lot of really cool
(16:05):
discoveries over recent years. What was really fascinating was one
of their recent papers that found people who are maladaptive
daydreamers as adults were often very creative children. They often
had make believe imaginary friends. They were more likely to
be scolded for daydreaming in class when they were younger.
(16:28):
So that kind of pattern of creativity and imagination follows
us into adulthood, but also and maybe less pleasant. There
is a really known relationship between adverse childhood experiences and
becoming a maladaptive daydreamer. So when your circumstances as a
child are very bleak and hard and stressful, and you
(16:51):
don't have the autonomy or the independence to leave to
walk away, you find a private internal escape, and that
sanctuary is often your mind and your thoughts and your dreams.
I actually used to work in this space. I don't
know if I've spoken about this much on the show,
but before I started the podcast, I would interview people
(17:15):
about child maltreatment and child abuse. And one of the
biggest misconceptions is that adverse childhood experiences only refer to
abuse or neglect or physical violence. But if you also
include being a child in an angry household, or being
a child with absent parents who worked a lot, being
(17:36):
a child in a house with a lot of conflict,
in yelling, having narcissistic or emotionally abusive parents, living through
a tragedy, or being bullied. Those are also experiences that
can make you find an escape through daydreaming. You know
how many of us have been in those circumstances when
you are being bullied as a kid, or your parents
(17:57):
are yelling at each other, or they're dealing with like
financial problems, and the only place that you can go
that is your own is your mind. So daydreaming it
does become an escape. And I want to talk about
that a little bit more. Why we find ourselves so
invested in these visions and our imagination after this short break.
(18:23):
The most prominent explanation in like the psychological community for
why maladaptive daydreaming occurs is that it is a form
of escapism. Like we've alluded to, escapism basically means finding
a way to distract ourselves from real life problems deliberately
or by accident, and either just for a moment when
(18:44):
things get stressful temporarily or for a prolonged period of time.
It's a really incredible survival instinct. Is survival urge in
our brain that is basically like, Okay, there is nothing
more I can do, but I can maybe minimize the
trauma of this experience if I just completely clock out,
(19:06):
if I just leave this behind all of us. I
think do need that kind of escape sometimes from what's
going on around us. That's actually perfectly natural. It's hardwired
into our minds, but it's not meant to last forever.
It's meant to temporarily, you know, prevent us from being
(19:27):
emotionally and cognitively overloaded, kind of like blowing off of steam.
And you know, when you get home from work, putting
on music or switching off in front of the TV.
Those are other forms of like that kind of mental
escapism or mental switch off that is important for our brain,
but excesses escapism of any kind, whether it's getting incredibly
(19:49):
invested in video games or social media or shopping or
substance use. It becomes a problem when we rely on
this habit to regulate our emotional lives, and that's our
only skin. You know, we don't feel okay without it.
It's our only way to cope, and it's getting in
the way of everyday life. I read this one person's
(20:10):
really compelling story on Reddit actually that I wanted to
share to explain why maladaptive daydreaming is kind of up
there with a lot of other forms of escabism and
how complex it is. I've actually been doing a lot
of deep diving into Reddit recently when I'm researching things
for the show, because there are just like so many
(20:31):
communities of people online, and there are communities for every
single issue or problem you can think of, and people
are so vulnerable and open, but it's anonymous and they
give each other advice. It's like being a fly on
the wall for these like deeply personal twelve hour online
discussions and just getting to observe. And when I went
(20:53):
searching for people's personal experiences with maladaptive daydreaming, I found
this support group that had like one hundred and twenty
thousand members, and this one person's testimony, which they had
only posted maybe like a day before, it really stood out.
I don't feel like I belong in this world, so
I created my own at this point, my pyrocosm, which
(21:13):
which is basically a fancy word for imaginary world. My
paracosm feels more real than my actual life. I don't
escape into my daydreams. That is my home. What other
people call real life is just a place that I
visit from time to time. This is an extreme example
of excessive escapism that has probably come from a really
(21:36):
prolonged habit of maladaptive daydreaming. But what it really articulates
to me is that those of us who daydream quite excessively,
there is a definite split between imaginary world and the
real world. And this person is basically saying, like, I'm
choosing to stay in the imaginary world because it's safer. Normally,
(21:57):
this really intricuate, you know, internal life. It has been
developed because there's something about our real life that we
want to avoid. But you know, unlike escapism through physical
external activities like gambling or impulse spending or drugs or
video games from the outside, no one would not, like,
(22:17):
there's no obvious warning signs of excessive maladaptive daydreaming because
by nature, like, it's so private, and so I think
there is a lot of people who get away with
this being a real advice for them and no one
really being able to tell because there's no symptoms. There
was a twenty twenty two study conducted in Finland that
(22:39):
also found that there is quite a strong correlation between
how bad we think things are going in the world
and how often we find ourselves mentally escaping through these distractions,
and as our stress levels rise, as did the hours
spent daydreaming by participants. Another correlation by two researchers in
India back in twenty twenty one found that people who
(23:01):
are lonely, they spend what hours maladaptive daydreaming between like
four to seven hours a day was their estimate. That's
like more than my screen time for the day in
my own thoughts, being quite disconnected, and it makes sense
to me why now and in the last ten years,
rates of daydreaming and other forms of escapism have really
(23:23):
increased and become such a buzz topic because a lot
of us, in this younger generation, we are more pessimistic
than ever, We are lonelier than ever. The real world
feels very gloomy, but fantasy can be whatever we want
it to be. Our dreams can be whatever we want
them to be, and they really do feel quite real.
(23:45):
There is also, I'm going to say, like quite an
important relationship between maladaptive daydreaming and anxiety, because it can
be so soothing in the moment when everything around us
feels stressful and is really heightened and intense. You know,
maladaptive daydreaming is like this place where we can go
(24:07):
to retreat. But there's also a component of it that
is emotional avoidance. You know, if we can always just
retreat to this place in our mind and we use
this unconscious protective mechanism, it means that we never actually
confront what it is about our environment, our circumstances, our
real life that is so upsetting. The most significant link
(24:30):
as well, it's not to do with anxiety, it's not
to do with escapism. It's actually interestingly to do with OCD,
and we haven't even mentioned it yet despite being like,
if you look at the literature on maladaptive daydreaming, so
much of it comes back to OCD. So OCD, for
a refresher, is a condition that features like recurring unwanted thoughts, ideas,
(24:54):
or obsessions that you can't switch off. You know. One
of my biggest pet paves is when people a like, oh,
you know, OCD is basically just like wanting things to
be neat, or like germophobia or being quite type a.
You know that is such a miscinception. It leads to
so many people being misunderstood. You know, OCD is really
(25:15):
about trying to control unwanted, intrusive thoughts that make us
feel intense stress and anxiety. And the only way that
we feel we can lessen that anxiety is by these
repetitive behaviors. If we think about that, in the case
of maladaptive daydreaming, something in our life is really unpleasant, uncomfortable,
(25:37):
that is the trigger. It's not as we want, and
it's bringing up a lot of really anxious thoughts that
we don't want to confront. But they we just like,
can't they just keep coming into our brain. We can't
control this. We can't control this. This is happening, and
so we have this compulsion, this compulsion towards our daydreaming
that alleviates the stress and the pain. There is a
(25:59):
real strong body of evidence that between thirty to fifty
percent of people with OCD also report experiencing prolonged daydreaming,
and a person with OCD might engage in this because
it is literally the only time when they don't feel
fearful or anxious when they're in this state. One group
(26:23):
of researchers in Germany. They recruited seventy seven people who
reported daydreaming excessively, and they asked them to keep a
daily diary for just two weeks, and they wanted them
to basically be like, how often do you find yourself daydreaming?
And then how's your mood? How are your mental health
(26:43):
symptoms specifically like looking at depression, anxiety and OCDA. And
it was found that when participants handed back these kind
of like diaries, these journals, when they were engaging in daydreaming,
when it was becoming more frequent for them, their mood
actually became worse. They felt more annoyed, more frustrated, they
(27:06):
felt more anxious, and they also experienced significantly more OCD
symptoms because there was a cycle. There was a cycle
between maladaptive daydreaming and an initial you know, soothing, calming sensation,
some fun, maybe some entertainment, but actually a long term
(27:30):
avoidance and a long term contribution to a worsening problem.
Here is what that cycle looked like. We experience a
negative emotion or a negative thought, which makes us daydream more,
which in turn makes us feel worse, which makes us
more disconnected from reality and our daily experiences, which makes
(27:53):
us more likely to daydream, which makes us feel worse again.
So there is this whole cycle every time something bad
confronts you and you're like, oh, hey, this is just
too much. This assignment is too much, this friendship is
too much. I don't want to think about my relationship failing.
I'm just gonna like settle in for a daydream, maybe
not even thinking about it. The cycle and the initial
(28:16):
feelings just become bigger. I know this is all sounding
really really serious. I got quite heavy there for a second.
But again, like, not all daydreaming is bad for you.
We're not going to make huge generalizations here that every
instance of having a nice thought, thinking about Christmas with
your family, thinking about your wedding, thinking about graduating, like
(28:36):
you're suddenly mentally unwell. You know, it's an important part
of how our mind protects it itself, and it's actually
probably what makes us very human, being able to fantasize
and being able to dream. So please don't apply a
deeper meaning, like it's not always a sign of mental illness,
it's not always a sign of escapism. Sometimes it is
(28:58):
just how we cope. And there is actually suggestions that daydreaming,
when it's at a healthy level, can help us reach
GOVS faster because it is a form of motivation. When
you like, have a really super clear idea of what
you want in the future and what that feels like
and looks like, and all the sensations associated with it,
and when you you know, think about that quite regularly,
(29:21):
it can really inspire you and line of fire to
work harder. It's actually like a whole motivational self improvement
strategy called visualization, which we've talked about before. You know
that is a healthier version of daydreaming, one that is
incredibly powerful, And I want to talk about how we
can turn out unhealthy, excessive daydreaming into something that is
(29:45):
future orientated, into something that is useful quite mentally powerful
as well. So we are going to discuss all of
that and more and how we can get our maladaptive
daydreaming under control after this short break, turning maladaptive daydreaming
(30:07):
into something helpful like motivational visualization, where we develop a
mental image of what we want to achieve and how
we imagine ourselves getting there. It really involves shifting our
daydreaming from being escapist to being purposeful, and I want
to really hammer that home from escapist to purposeful. Essentially,
(30:29):
we want to get to a place where we aren't
trying to run anymore or find a break from reality.
We actually want to take back control of our reality
to make it a place we want to be, even
if it is the harder decision. Some really interesting studies
have found that when you intentionally spend time in your
day visualizing the life that you want and the steps
(30:52):
you're going to take to get there, rather than just
having that unstructured daydreaming, you do tend to make more progress.
You feel more purposeful, your actions are more in alignment
with the final outcome you want because you are internally
motivated by the possibility. It's actually called by some the
power of the mind's eye, creating like a very vivid,
(31:15):
detailed mental image of where you want to be as
a way to clarify your desires and make more constructive progress.
I guess, and I know it sounds very similar to daydreaming,
but the big thing that we need to articulate here.
The big difference is that visualization is deliberate, it's structured,
(31:36):
it's realistic, so you're not fantasizing about marrying a celebrity.
You're not fantasizing about saving a crashing plane. You're fantasizing
about something or visualizing something that is possible. It's definitely
not excessive as well, and it's used situationally to inspire.
(31:56):
Daydreaming is unstructured, it takes up a lot of time,
it's very landish, and it's more distraction than intension. And
I think the really good thing about visualization in its
kind of treatment of maladaptive daydreaming is that you don't
have to give it all up right. It's like supplementary.
It's like a replacement therapy that is healthier. I think
(32:17):
moving away from maladaptive daydreaming can be a hard shift
without that, because it does mean that you have to
spend more time being present before we bring in that visualization.
That is something that you have to confront that you
do have to see the parts of your life that
might not necessarily be as positive or as enjoyable. It
(32:42):
also means more time feeling our feelings, feeling uncomfortable, sad, disappointed,
really listening and seeing what's going on around us. But
you have to stick with it. You have to, like
it's acceptance. There is a real acceptance to this that
life is not perfect, it is not a fantasy, but
you still have to be there for it because that's
(33:02):
what makes it so sweet. You know, the imperfections, the rollercoaster,
and when you've spend a lot of time avoiding that,
it can be really, really hard, but people do People
do it all the time. So what we want to
do is really recognize triggers and patterns, Identify when, where,
why you start maladaptive daydreaming. Is it when you're in
(33:24):
a certain environment, around certain people, after seeing certain people?
Is it at the end of a hard day, is
it at your job? Is it when you're alone and
feeling lonely? I think, and I believe really deeply that
maladaptive daydreaming is not unprompted. It might feel like it
comes along spontaneously, like suddenly we're daydreaming, but actually there's
(33:49):
normally a feeling at the root of it. There's normally stress, borttom, disappointment,
loneliness that is causing us to find this safety and sanctuary.
Once you know that, I think that that's the first step.
I think then you're able to find alternatives to being
in those situations you are able to really consciously, deliberately
(34:10):
think if this is if my reality, if my life
is creating this urge to not even be present in
my life, to escape my life, is it really what
I want? And that is the shift that I want
us to grab onto. The possibility you can change your life,
you can do something about it, rather than just you know,
daydreaming about doing so or escaping. And this is where
(34:33):
we can transition our daydreams towards visualization. What this involves
is consciously assessing your daydreams for what could happen, what
is basically possible versus impossible, and trying to focus more
on what is real. You know, I think we mentioned
it before, being more realistic about what you're thinking about.
(34:53):
Visualize really purposefully instead of like fantasizing aimlessly. I want
you to channel all that and and all the investment
that you have in your day dreams to daydreaming about
the goals that you really want to achieve, that you
know that you can that are possible. Picture achieving things
like personal milestones like career success, small wins. What will
(35:16):
that feel like? Will you feel proud, excited, peaceful, loved?
Put all the energy into a realistic vision of your future.
Visualization is also action oriented thinking rather than only daydreaming
about the end result this big, bright, flashy future. Visualize
(35:37):
and fall in love with the process. Imagine yourself taking
steps towards your goals, overcoming challenges, persisting through setbacks, and
you can kind of use your day dreams, use this
mental blackboard to rehearse your next steps, and that really
helps you like clarify your path, consider possibilities, consider different strategies,
(35:59):
and build confidence. This mental confidence that you know, if
I can think it, I can do it. I've rehearsed this,
I've thought about this, these are my next steps. All
of my mental energy is going towards bringing about this reality.
That's like the whole basis for manifestation, right. You know,
it sounds very similar because it basically is. It's essentially
(36:21):
a version of this practice that is a bit more scientific.
We're going to combine that focused intension with the positive thinking,
with the visualization that creates action, that creates a self
fulfilling prophecy, whereby, the more we think about something and
believe that it could come true, the more confidence we
have in taking actions that will make it true in
(36:45):
confirming our expectations because we are already kind of seeing
success rather than failure. You know, it's quite spiritual, but
we can also make it quite actionable. After you have
those moments of in or intentional visualization, I want you
to finish and finish with an action that you can
take now. Every time you are fantasizing, thinking, dreaming, imagining
(37:09):
this future. When you're done, what is one thing you
can do in the next ten minutes that could actually
help you towards this thing that you are fantasizing about,
no matter how minor. You know, if you've been visualizing
about starting a business, your small step after you stop
visualizing could be learning how to register a business, learning
taxation law for the kind of business that you want,
(37:32):
learning and just researching about manufacturers or supply chains, all
those things. You know. I think that we have the
nice feeling of being like, Wow, this is exciting, this
is something that's possible. I want that we take that
nice feeling and we put it into action and we
use it as motivation to do, and that ties your
(37:55):
daydreaming or in this case, your visualization, to real progress
to something you can see in front of you. Remind
yourself thinking about something is not doing, as much as
it may feel that way. How much do you actually
want the life that you are imagining? And can you
(38:15):
afford to spend hours just fantasizing about it or is
there something you could do with that time that would
get you closer to that actual outcome. I also think
that going back to what we said before about the
links between daydreaming and OCD and anxiety and trauma, is
(38:36):
that something that you really need to address. Is that
really what could help you stop turning to this habit
as a form of escapism. Is it something more mental,
more psychological. I really think it's worth looking into it.
It's worth finding a really great therapist who can assist
(38:57):
you with that journey of discovery, that journey of shifting
how you address and how you tackle stress and anxiety
and really bad thoughts. You know. There's a really interesting
article by Harvard Medical School that I read as I
was researching this topic, and they say there is no
single treatment for maladaptive daydreaming because it is so private
(39:18):
and individual. But you have to find what works for you.
That could be treating daydreaming like meditation that you do
once a day. You only do it in a specific
location or at a specific time, like in the shower
or on the train, and then every other time you
have to actively stop. For some people, that's keeping busy.
Find what works for you. Maybe it is visualization. You
(39:40):
can't quite let go of the habit, but at least
you can make it something that helps you rather than
distracts you. You can make it something that is intentional
and inspiring and motivating. This was such an informative episode
for me to even do with some of my prior
knowledge and some of the new knowledge that I picked up.
I want to thank the person and there were multiple
(40:00):
people actually who messaged me to do this episode. Thank you.
I've learned so much. I feel so enlightened. And it's
crazy how you look at these things and you're like, oh,
you're a maladaptive daydreaming Like I just like to daydream
a lot. And when you start diving into the research
and the science, it's so much more complex and nuanced
and emotional and personal. So if you're struggling with this,
(40:22):
I'll leave some resources in the description, including that measure
and that method for assessing yourself, and that concertorium of
people who are doing some really cool research into this.
You can also DM me on Instagram with your own stories.
I want to hear more about what this experience is
like for you. We also, of course take episode suggestions
(40:42):
and if you did enjoy this episode, make sure to
leave us a five star review. Follow along on Spotify
or on Apple podcasts, and until next time, stay safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself, and we will talk
very very soon
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here.
Back for another episode, as we, of course break down
the psychology of your twenties. Today's episode was inspired by
a listener who emailed me a few weeks back with
(00:22):
a conundrum, and I'm going to start the episode by
reading what they said. Hi, g Emma, I have a
more rare but personal episode request that I would love
for you to consider. Basically, my situation is that it
feels like I've spent my whole life daydreaming about a
better life rather than just living the one I have.
(00:43):
I can get lost in these big dreams whilst I'm
still awake, minutes passing by without me even realizing. I've
created imaginary friends, imaginary enemies, pets, careers, scenarios, and I
play them over and over again anytime I get the chance,
I daydream. And it's getting to the point where I've
lost too many hours in my life to count, probably
(01:06):
more than four hours a day. What can you tell
me about this? And am I the only one? As
soon as I read this email, I knew I had
to do an episode on maladaptive daydreaming because this listener
is by no means alone. There are thousands millions of
people going through the same thing, finding comfort in their
(01:27):
imagination and their daydreams that you know, they can't find
that comfort in the real world, spending hours thinking about
their dream life and picturing it so intensely, but also
struggling to make real life progress towards it or to
be fully present in their day to day existence. I
don't think it's surprising to say that this has become
(01:47):
a lot more common, especially for people in their twenties,
because of how uncertain this decade is, how uncertain the
world is. Daydreaming offers a temporary release from the stress
and from the choice overload, and from the confusion. As
we'll get into, you know, the more lost, confused, anxious, disappointed,
(02:09):
heartbroken maybe you feel, the more likely you are to daydream.
And it's no surprise that this is common amongst this
generation because we are so overwhelmed by getting it right,
we are facing such intense pressure to be exceptional. Everything
just feels so much harder for our age group as well.
You know, who doesn't want to feel like they have
(02:30):
an escape, and we all find a way to escape
somehow through drinking, through I don't know, maybe drugs, through addiction,
and daydreaming is also one of those ways. So let's
talk our way through why that is. What are the
basics of maladaptive daydreaming that you should probably know but
maybe don't, How does it differ from just having a
(02:53):
really immersive creative imagination or being a visual thinker, and
what are the signs to look out for. I also
to talk about the link between loneliness trauma over city anxiety,
because daydreaming is actually a lot more complex than we think.
There is this whole cycle that can explain what draws
people into maladaptive daydreaming as a coping mechanism. But because
(03:17):
it is such a private experience, it's so hard to
actually get answers and to talk about it openly, and
it's not really part of the discussion, but of course
it really should be. I also want to talk about
a really interesting theory that I came across that explains
how we actually can turn daydreaming into a method to
motivate and energize ourselves rather rather than as this form
(03:40):
of escapism. How we can shift our imagination towards intentional visualization.
When I came across this theory, I was like, this
is incredible. This is remarkable. It's like scientific manifestation. It's wonderful.
So I really hope that you take something away from
this episode. I hope you learn something about yourself. I
hope you learn something about how to be a more
(04:02):
kind of like powerful cognitive and mental being, taking that
daydreaming element that sometimes you can be so negative, and
turning it into something really positive. So I'm gonna stop
rambling without further ado, Let's get into the psychology of
maladaptive daydreaming. If you want to know whether you have
(04:26):
a problem with maladaptive daydreaming, it is probably firstly best
to know what it is and what distinguishes it from
kind of aimlessly losing track of your thoughts from time
to time. Well. Maladaptive daydreaming occurs when we spend a
lot of our time during our days, weeks, and months
daydreaming about the past, the future, making up these really
(04:50):
vivid and complex plots that completely engulf us. The key
word here is maladaptive. There is such a thing. It
is healthy daydreaming. You know, some people would call it
immersive daydreaming, where we zone out for a few minutes
here and there, our brain kind of switches off and
we get to like pop into our warm gewey imagination.
(05:13):
That is totally healthy, it's totally normal. It's part of
how our brain works. But the distinction is that those
instances are quite brief, and they are often something that
we can control. It is not as well where we
spend most of our days. So there are a few
components that really make maladaptive daydreaming stand out, and they
(05:33):
put it in a league of its own. First of all,
it interrupts your daily life and it pulls you away
from everyday activities. You know, you could be doing your dishes,
and then suddenly you are like absorbed by a daydream
for like ten twenty minutes or even longer before you
like come back down to earth and you're like, wait,
twenty minutes has passed and I'm still kind of just
(05:55):
aimlessly standing at the sink. The daydreaming also almost feels
preferable to your real life. It's addictive in a way,
so it pulls you back in again and again and again.
Some people have actually described to me as almost being
like a hobby like there, it's something that they prioritize
that they're like, you know, I'm not gonna go see
(06:15):
my friends. I'm gonna deliberately stay up later. You know,
I'm not gonna get up from the couch because I
just kind of want to sit here and daydream. I
want to sit here and fantasize, like that's something that
I plan for. The daydreams, as I said before, are
often really vivid and compelling. It is like a whole
(06:36):
almost movie series is happening in your brain. There are characters,
there are plot lines, multiple plot lines, there are different
settings that you could almost describe in detail. It's such
a personal, private experience that it's really hard to get
specific examples of what this looks like. But some people
(06:59):
have really reported creating entire lives in their imagination where
they run multiple successful businesses, they have homes in three states.
They can describe this the love of their life that
they have in their imagination. Then they can almost go
into these like subplots, like they could tell you when
they met that partner, what's inside their homes, what these
(07:21):
homes look like. Because they spend so much time building
out this world some people also, you know, they daydream
about all the ways they could go back and change
something in the past. They may also think about what
it would be like to be famous, what it would
be like to do something really heroic, and they have
this like one instance, that they replay very intimate moments
(07:43):
with a partner, shared ventures with a partner. What it
would be like to have someone like that. You know,
you could tell me almost like the smells, the sensations,
the sounds of what this feels like, and all the
while you could be sitting in front of me and
have this entire highly different world playing out in your head.
(08:04):
If you are actually someone who experiences, I really want
to hear from you because it sounds so intriguing. Like
all the reports that I was receiving in all the
different case studies that I read and the people that
I heard of, it was completely different for basically every
single person. So please DM me if you have stories
about this or what it feels like for you to
(08:26):
kind of switch into your maladaptive daydreaming state. It's because
of this very aspect actually how amazing it feels, and
how personal and private and intimate, how specific an individual
it is that it can be really easy to form
an emotional attachment to our daydreams, even having like our
(08:47):
favorites that we repeat over and over again like a
favorite movie. With time, though we kind of realize that
they aren't true, they may never be true, and because
of how invested we've become, we feel we all really
really disappointed. We feel crushed. We also start to feel
like we have wasted all of this time. As that
person said at the beginning, that we could have spent
(09:09):
creating that reality. We've wasted all this time, that we
could have spent being present, doing something about our dreams,
but instead we have been stuck in this thought loop.
Nothing has come from it. That time feels wasted. Even
though it felt so nice, things are still the same,
(09:30):
and that can make us really stressed and really desperate
to find a way to stop, to just be present,
to make our reality be just as good, even if,
like specifically, we don't know how. And that is the
curse of maladaptive daydreaming. It's like, here is our brain,
and it's going to serve us up something that is
(09:51):
so delicious and desirable and believable and perfect for us
that we forget it's not real, and then when do
there is this very long fall back to reality. It's
something quite a few people report, like a day dreaming
hangover or daydreaming guilt, kind of like when you, you know,
(10:15):
you wake up from a really good dream and you
try to like fall back asleep or you try to
like relive it as soon as you wake up, but
you know, eventually it just feels like it's moving further
and further away. I remember being like twenty and I
had this amazing dream about being on a holiday increase
and I met this man and this amazing guy, and
(10:37):
in my dream we had this like crazy well wind
romance and we fell in love and it felt so amazing,
and then we woke and then I woke up. Oh
my god, did you just hear? I said, how? I said?
We look? Yeah? I woke up. He's not real and
it wasn't real. And the aftermath though, of trying to
hold on to how real it did feel and longing
(10:58):
in this sadness that is a dream hangover. And I
cannot imagine feeling like that all the time from a
day dream. So hopefully you kind of get the picture.
It's a lot more complex than just you know, occasionally
zoning out. But now for you know, more clinical perspectives
and of the science attached to why this kind of happens.
(11:21):
You know, researchers used to think that it was a
type of like dissociative disorder where there was like a
loss of connection between who we are, our thoughts, our feelings,
and our surroundings and this pattern of I don't know,
fantasy that was happening in our brain. There's also been
like a real push actually in recent years, and it
(11:41):
was just in the news last week to get maladaptive
daydreaming listed as its own mental health disorder in the DSM,
mainly because people are like, well, this is just so
complex and destructive. We need really great minds on this.
I need a diagnosis. But of course, if you know,
like the clinical psychology community in the DSM, it is
(12:03):
so hard to get new disorders considered. So as of
right now, validaptive daydreaming is not a mental health disorder.
It's still seen as quite rare or niche. But most
professionals would actually say that that's because maladaptive daydreaming isn't
so much a condition. It's a coping strategy, so it
(12:24):
is not the root of our so called problem. It
is a symptom of that, and it comes as a
result of things like loneliness, trauma, general depression. It's a
product of those previous experiences. But because it's seen as
a symptom rather than as the origin or a condition,
(12:46):
it actually means that no one is systematically measuring the
prevalence in society. There's not many people doing in depth research.
There is a group that is very dedicated to this,
and I did find some studies from them over the
past two years that really wanted to look at the
prevalence of maladaptive daydreaming. So there was one study in
(13:07):
twenty twenty two that said about two point five percent
of people experience this. There was a twenty twenty one
study that said thirty four point three percent of their
participants identified as being maladaptive daydreamers. I'm just going to
caveat that and say that's really quite high. That was
a group of university students though, and as we know,
(13:29):
it is more common in younger population groups. But still
thirty five percent, you know, just that's mind blowing. The
most trusted source in my mind, though, for how many
people are experiencing this came from a study that observed
around three thousand American adults and it concluded that about
four percent of us would meet the clinical cutoff for
(13:50):
maladaptive daydreaming. That's about one in twenty five, which I
think is quite believable. Now, when we say clinical cutoff,
what they're really referring to is actually this measure of
whether you are a maladaptive daydreamer or not. And it
is called the sixteen item Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale. Super simple name.
(14:12):
There are sixteen questions. Something that had me shocked, though,
have a guess when it was developed. So maladaptive daydreaming
has been around for years and years and years centuries.
Only eight years ago, eight years ago was when they
had the first screening tool implemented that could tell they
could kind of, I don't know, not diagnose, but had
a clinical cutoff for what we could count as maladaptive daydreaming.
(14:37):
That's like yesterday in my mind, like only eight years ago,
twenty sixteen. That's wild. So there are sixteen questions on
this list. Some of them include like when you know
that you have something important or challenging to pay attention
to or finish, how difficult was it for you to
stay on task and complete the goal without daydreaming? Another question,
(14:59):
when the real world interrupts one of your daydreams, how
annoyed do you feel? How much does your daydreaming interfere
with your academic or occupational success? To what extent is
your daydreaming dependent on listening to music? These are just
some examples. I'll leave a full link to the measure.
It's actually publicly accessible. I'll leave it below. Just a
(15:21):
quick reminder if you're going to go and look at
it with all self reporting scores, try and be honest,
score yourself accurately, and just remember that it's not the
only confirmation you know. It is important to talk to
a professional. But it's an interesting resource, definitely something really
really fascinating. The individuals who actually developed this scale, they
(15:43):
make up a group called the International Concertorium. You saying no,
is it International Concertorium Formal Adaptive Daydreaming Research. This is
an entire body of researchers and psychologists who are primarily
interested in in why we get so wrapped up in
these fantasies, and they've had a lot of really cool
(16:05):
discoveries over recent years. What was really fascinating was one
of their recent papers that found people who are maladaptive
daydreamers as adults were often very creative children. They often
had make believe imaginary friends. They were more likely to
be scolded for daydreaming in class when they were younger.
(16:28):
So that kind of pattern of creativity and imagination follows
us into adulthood, but also and maybe less pleasant. There
is a really known relationship between adverse childhood experiences and
becoming a maladaptive daydreamer. So when your circumstances as a
child are very bleak and hard and stressful, and you
(16:51):
don't have the autonomy or the independence to leave to
walk away, you find a private internal escape, and that
sanctuary is often your mind and your thoughts and your dreams.
I actually used to work in this space. I don't
know if I've spoken about this much on the show,
but before I started the podcast, I would interview people
(17:15):
about child maltreatment and child abuse. And one of the
biggest misconceptions is that adverse childhood experiences only refer to
abuse or neglect or physical violence. But if you also
include being a child in an angry household, or being
a child with absent parents who worked a lot, being
(17:36):
a child in a house with a lot of conflict,
in yelling, having narcissistic or emotionally abusive parents, living through
a tragedy, or being bullied. Those are also experiences that
can make you find an escape through daydreaming. You know
how many of us have been in those circumstances when
you are being bullied as a kid, or your parents
(17:57):
are yelling at each other, or they're dealing with like
financial problems, and the only place that you can go
that is your own is your mind. So daydreaming it
does become an escape. And I want to talk about
that a little bit more. Why we find ourselves so
invested in these visions and our imagination after this short break.
(18:23):
The most prominent explanation in like the psychological community for
why maladaptive daydreaming occurs is that it is a form
of escapism. Like we've alluded to, escapism basically means finding
a way to distract ourselves from real life problems deliberately
or by accident, and either just for a moment when
(18:44):
things get stressful temporarily or for a prolonged period of time.
It's a really incredible survival instinct. Is survival urge in
our brain that is basically like, Okay, there is nothing
more I can do, but I can maybe minimize the
trauma of this experience if I just completely clock out,
(19:06):
if I just leave this behind all of us. I
think do need that kind of escape sometimes from what's
going on around us. That's actually perfectly natural. It's hardwired
into our minds, but it's not meant to last forever.
It's meant to temporarily, you know, prevent us from being
(19:27):
emotionally and cognitively overloaded, kind of like blowing off of steam.
And you know, when you get home from work, putting
on music or switching off in front of the TV.
Those are other forms of like that kind of mental
escapism or mental switch off that is important for our brain,
but excesses escapism of any kind, whether it's getting incredibly
(19:49):
invested in video games or social media or shopping or
substance use. It becomes a problem when we rely on
this habit to regulate our emotional lives, and that's our
only skin. You know, we don't feel okay without it.
It's our only way to cope, and it's getting in
the way of everyday life. I read this one person's
(20:10):
really compelling story on Reddit actually that I wanted to
share to explain why maladaptive daydreaming is kind of up
there with a lot of other forms of escabism and
how complex it is. I've actually been doing a lot
of deep diving into Reddit recently when I'm researching things
for the show, because there are just like so many
(20:31):
communities of people online, and there are communities for every
single issue or problem you can think of, and people
are so vulnerable and open, but it's anonymous and they
give each other advice. It's like being a fly on
the wall for these like deeply personal twelve hour online
discussions and just getting to observe. And when I went
(20:53):
searching for people's personal experiences with maladaptive daydreaming, I found
this support group that had like one hundred and twenty
thousand members, and this one person's testimony, which they had
only posted maybe like a day before, it really stood out.
I don't feel like I belong in this world, so
I created my own at this point, my pyrocosm, which
(21:13):
which is basically a fancy word for imaginary world. My
paracosm feels more real than my actual life. I don't
escape into my daydreams. That is my home. What other
people call real life is just a place that I
visit from time to time. This is an extreme example
of excessive escapism that has probably come from a really
(21:36):
prolonged habit of maladaptive daydreaming. But what it really articulates
to me is that those of us who daydream quite excessively,
there is a definite split between imaginary world and the
real world. And this person is basically saying, like, I'm
choosing to stay in the imaginary world because it's safer. Normally,
(21:57):
this really intricuate, you know, internal life. It has been
developed because there's something about our real life that we
want to avoid. But you know, unlike escapism through physical
external activities like gambling or impulse spending or drugs or
video games from the outside, no one would not, like,
(22:17):
there's no obvious warning signs of excessive maladaptive daydreaming because
by nature, like, it's so private, and so I think
there is a lot of people who get away with
this being a real advice for them and no one
really being able to tell because there's no symptoms. There
was a twenty twenty two study conducted in Finland that
(22:39):
also found that there is quite a strong correlation between
how bad we think things are going in the world
and how often we find ourselves mentally escaping through these distractions,
and as our stress levels rise, as did the hours
spent daydreaming by participants. Another correlation by two researchers in
India back in twenty twenty one found that people who
(23:01):
are lonely, they spend what hours maladaptive daydreaming between like
four to seven hours a day was their estimate. That's
like more than my screen time for the day in
my own thoughts, being quite disconnected, and it makes sense
to me why now and in the last ten years,
rates of daydreaming and other forms of escapism have really
(23:23):
increased and become such a buzz topic because a lot
of us, in this younger generation, we are more pessimistic
than ever, We are lonelier than ever. The real world
feels very gloomy, but fantasy can be whatever we want
it to be. Our dreams can be whatever we want
them to be, and they really do feel quite real.
(23:45):
There is also, I'm going to say, like quite an
important relationship between maladaptive daydreaming and anxiety, because it can
be so soothing in the moment when everything around us
feels stressful and is really heightened and intense. You know,
maladaptive daydreaming is like this place where we can go
(24:07):
to retreat. But there's also a component of it that
is emotional avoidance. You know, if we can always just
retreat to this place in our mind and we use
this unconscious protective mechanism, it means that we never actually
confront what it is about our environment, our circumstances, our
real life that is so upsetting. The most significant link
(24:30):
as well, it's not to do with anxiety, it's not
to do with escapism. It's actually interestingly to do with OCD,
and we haven't even mentioned it yet despite being like,
if you look at the literature on maladaptive daydreaming, so
much of it comes back to OCD. So OCD, for
a refresher, is a condition that features like recurring unwanted thoughts, ideas,
(24:54):
or obsessions that you can't switch off. You know. One
of my biggest pet paves is when people a like, oh,
you know, OCD is basically just like wanting things to
be neat, or like germophobia or being quite type a.
You know that is such a miscinception. It leads to
so many people being misunderstood. You know, OCD is really
(25:15):
about trying to control unwanted, intrusive thoughts that make us
feel intense stress and anxiety. And the only way that
we feel we can lessen that anxiety is by these
repetitive behaviors. If we think about that, in the case
of maladaptive daydreaming, something in our life is really unpleasant, uncomfortable,
(25:37):
that is the trigger. It's not as we want, and
it's bringing up a lot of really anxious thoughts that
we don't want to confront. But they we just like,
can't they just keep coming into our brain. We can't
control this. We can't control this. This is happening, and
so we have this compulsion, this compulsion towards our daydreaming
that alleviates the stress and the pain. There is a
(25:59):
real strong body of evidence that between thirty to fifty
percent of people with OCD also report experiencing prolonged daydreaming,
and a person with OCD might engage in this because
it is literally the only time when they don't feel
fearful or anxious when they're in this state. One group
(26:23):
of researchers in Germany. They recruited seventy seven people who
reported daydreaming excessively, and they asked them to keep a
daily diary for just two weeks, and they wanted them
to basically be like, how often do you find yourself daydreaming?
And then how's your mood? How are your mental health
(26:43):
symptoms specifically like looking at depression, anxiety and OCDA. And
it was found that when participants handed back these kind
of like diaries, these journals, when they were engaging in daydreaming,
when it was becoming more frequent for them, their mood
actually became worse. They felt more annoyed, more frustrated, they
(27:06):
felt more anxious, and they also experienced significantly more OCD
symptoms because there was a cycle. There was a cycle
between maladaptive daydreaming and an initial you know, soothing, calming sensation,
some fun, maybe some entertainment, but actually a long term
(27:30):
avoidance and a long term contribution to a worsening problem.
Here is what that cycle looked like. We experience a
negative emotion or a negative thought, which makes us daydream more,
which in turn makes us feel worse, which makes us
more disconnected from reality and our daily experiences, which makes
(27:53):
us more likely to daydream, which makes us feel worse again.
So there is this whole cycle every time something bad
confronts you and you're like, oh, hey, this is just
too much. This assignment is too much, this friendship is
too much. I don't want to think about my relationship failing.
I'm just gonna like settle in for a daydream, maybe
not even thinking about it. The cycle and the initial
(28:16):
feelings just become bigger. I know this is all sounding
really really serious. I got quite heavy there for a second.
But again, like, not all daydreaming is bad for you.
We're not going to make huge generalizations here that every
instance of having a nice thought, thinking about Christmas with
your family, thinking about your wedding, thinking about graduating, like
(28:36):
you're suddenly mentally unwell. You know, it's an important part
of how our mind protects it itself, and it's actually
probably what makes us very human, being able to fantasize
and being able to dream. So please don't apply a
deeper meaning, like it's not always a sign of mental illness,
it's not always a sign of escapism. Sometimes it is
(28:58):
just how we cope. And there is actually suggestions that daydreaming,
when it's at a healthy level, can help us reach
GOVS faster because it is a form of motivation. When
you like, have a really super clear idea of what
you want in the future and what that feels like
and looks like, and all the sensations associated with it,
and when you you know, think about that quite regularly,
(29:21):
it can really inspire you and line of fire to
work harder. It's actually like a whole motivational self improvement
strategy called visualization, which we've talked about before. You know
that is a healthier version of daydreaming, one that is
incredibly powerful, And I want to talk about how we
can turn out unhealthy, excessive daydreaming into something that is
(29:45):
future orientated, into something that is useful quite mentally powerful
as well. So we are going to discuss all of
that and more and how we can get our maladaptive
daydreaming under control after this short break, turning maladaptive daydreaming
(30:07):
into something helpful like motivational visualization, where we develop a
mental image of what we want to achieve and how
we imagine ourselves getting there. It really involves shifting our
daydreaming from being escapist to being purposeful, and I want
to really hammer that home from escapist to purposeful. Essentially,
(30:29):
we want to get to a place where we aren't
trying to run anymore or find a break from reality.
We actually want to take back control of our reality
to make it a place we want to be, even
if it is the harder decision. Some really interesting studies
have found that when you intentionally spend time in your
day visualizing the life that you want and the steps
(30:52):
you're going to take to get there, rather than just
having that unstructured daydreaming, you do tend to make more progress.
You feel more purposeful, your actions are more in alignment
with the final outcome you want because you are internally
motivated by the possibility. It's actually called by some the
power of the mind's eye, creating like a very vivid,
(31:15):
detailed mental image of where you want to be as
a way to clarify your desires and make more constructive progress.
I guess, and I know it sounds very similar to daydreaming,
but the big thing that we need to articulate here.
The big difference is that visualization is deliberate, it's structured,
(31:36):
it's realistic, so you're not fantasizing about marrying a celebrity.
You're not fantasizing about saving a crashing plane. You're fantasizing
about something or visualizing something that is possible. It's definitely
not excessive as well, and it's used situationally to inspire.
(31:56):
Daydreaming is unstructured, it takes up a lot of time,
it's very landish, and it's more distraction than intension. And
I think the really good thing about visualization in its
kind of treatment of maladaptive daydreaming is that you don't
have to give it all up right. It's like supplementary.
It's like a replacement therapy that is healthier. I think
(32:17):
moving away from maladaptive daydreaming can be a hard shift
without that, because it does mean that you have to
spend more time being present before we bring in that visualization.
That is something that you have to confront that you
do have to see the parts of your life that
might not necessarily be as positive or as enjoyable. It
(32:42):
also means more time feeling our feelings, feeling uncomfortable, sad, disappointed,
really listening and seeing what's going on around us. But
you have to stick with it. You have to, like
it's acceptance. There is a real acceptance to this that
life is not perfect, it is not a fantasy, but
you still have to be there for it because that's
(33:02):
what makes it so sweet. You know, the imperfections, the rollercoaster,
and when you've spend a lot of time avoiding that,
it can be really, really hard, but people do People
do it all the time. So what we want to
do is really recognize triggers and patterns, Identify when, where,
why you start maladaptive daydreaming. Is it when you're in
(33:24):
a certain environment, around certain people, after seeing certain people?
Is it at the end of a hard day, is
it at your job? Is it when you're alone and
feeling lonely? I think, and I believe really deeply that
maladaptive daydreaming is not unprompted. It might feel like it
comes along spontaneously, like suddenly we're daydreaming, but actually there's
(33:49):
normally a feeling at the root of it. There's normally stress, borttom, disappointment,
loneliness that is causing us to find this safety and sanctuary.
Once you know that, I think that that's the first step.
I think then you're able to find alternatives to being
in those situations you are able to really consciously, deliberately
(34:10):
think if this is if my reality, if my life
is creating this urge to not even be present in
my life, to escape my life, is it really what
I want? And that is the shift that I want
us to grab onto. The possibility you can change your life,
you can do something about it, rather than just you know,
daydreaming about doing so or escaping. And this is where
(34:33):
we can transition our daydreams towards visualization. What this involves
is consciously assessing your daydreams for what could happen, what
is basically possible versus impossible, and trying to focus more
on what is real. You know, I think we mentioned
it before, being more realistic about what you're thinking about.
(34:53):
Visualize really purposefully instead of like fantasizing aimlessly. I want
you to channel all that and and all the investment
that you have in your day dreams to daydreaming about
the goals that you really want to achieve, that you
know that you can that are possible. Picture achieving things
like personal milestones like career success, small wins. What will
(35:16):
that feel like? Will you feel proud, excited, peaceful, loved?
Put all the energy into a realistic vision of your future.
Visualization is also action oriented thinking rather than only daydreaming
about the end result this big, bright, flashy future. Visualize
(35:37):
and fall in love with the process. Imagine yourself taking
steps towards your goals, overcoming challenges, persisting through setbacks, and
you can kind of use your day dreams, use this
mental blackboard to rehearse your next steps, and that really
helps you like clarify your path, consider possibilities, consider different strategies,
(35:59):
and build confidence. This mental confidence that you know, if
I can think it, I can do it. I've rehearsed this,
I've thought about this, these are my next steps. All
of my mental energy is going towards bringing about this reality.
That's like the whole basis for manifestation, right. You know,
it sounds very similar because it basically is. It's essentially
(36:21):
a version of this practice that is a bit more scientific.
We're going to combine that focused intension with the positive thinking,
with the visualization that creates action, that creates a self
fulfilling prophecy, whereby, the more we think about something and
believe that it could come true, the more confidence we
have in taking actions that will make it true in
(36:45):
confirming our expectations because we are already kind of seeing
success rather than failure. You know, it's quite spiritual, but
we can also make it quite actionable. After you have
those moments of in or intentional visualization, I want you
to finish and finish with an action that you can
take now. Every time you are fantasizing, thinking, dreaming, imagining
(37:09):
this future. When you're done, what is one thing you
can do in the next ten minutes that could actually
help you towards this thing that you are fantasizing about,
no matter how minor. You know, if you've been visualizing
about starting a business, your small step after you stop
visualizing could be learning how to register a business, learning
taxation law for the kind of business that you want,
(37:32):
learning and just researching about manufacturers or supply chains, all
those things. You know. I think that we have the
nice feeling of being like, Wow, this is exciting, this
is something that's possible. I want that we take that
nice feeling and we put it into action and we
use it as motivation to do, and that ties your
(37:55):
daydreaming or in this case, your visualization, to real progress
to something you can see in front of you. Remind
yourself thinking about something is not doing, as much as
it may feel that way. How much do you actually
want the life that you are imagining? And can you
(38:15):
afford to spend hours just fantasizing about it or is
there something you could do with that time that would
get you closer to that actual outcome. I also think
that going back to what we said before about the
links between daydreaming and OCD and anxiety and trauma, is
(38:36):
that something that you really need to address. Is that
really what could help you stop turning to this habit
as a form of escapism. Is it something more mental,
more psychological. I really think it's worth looking into it.
It's worth finding a really great therapist who can assist
(38:57):
you with that journey of discovery, that journey of shifting
how you address and how you tackle stress and anxiety
and really bad thoughts. You know. There's a really interesting
article by Harvard Medical School that I read as I
was researching this topic, and they say there is no
single treatment for maladaptive daydreaming because it is so private
(39:18):
and individual. But you have to find what works for you.
That could be treating daydreaming like meditation that you do
once a day. You only do it in a specific
location or at a specific time, like in the shower
or on the train, and then every other time you
have to actively stop. For some people, that's keeping busy.
Find what works for you. Maybe it is visualization. You
(39:40):
can't quite let go of the habit, but at least
you can make it something that helps you rather than
distracts you. You can make it something that is intentional
and inspiring and motivating. This was such an informative episode
for me to even do with some of my prior
knowledge and some of the new knowledge that I picked up.
I want to thank the person and there were multiple
(40:00):
people actually who messaged me to do this episode. Thank you.
I've learned so much. I feel so enlightened. And it's
crazy how you look at these things and you're like, oh,
you're a maladaptive daydreaming Like I just like to daydream
a lot. And when you start diving into the research
and the science, it's so much more complex and nuanced
and emotional and personal. So if you're struggling with this,
(40:22):
I'll leave some resources in the description, including that measure
and that method for assessing yourself, and that concertorium of
people who are doing some really cool research into this.
You can also DM me on Instagram with your own stories.
I want to hear more about what this experience is
like for you. We also, of course take episode suggestions
(40:42):
and if you did enjoy this episode, make sure to
leave us a five star review. Follow along on Spotify
or on Apple podcasts, and until next time, stay safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself, and we will talk
very very soon
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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