What is maladaptive daydreaming?

Maladaptive Daydreaming

It’s common to get lost in your thoughts every once in a while. Experts estimate we spend about 47% of our waking hours in a daydream, momentarily distracted from the world around us as we let our mind wander. If your daydreams are so intense that they interfere with your daily life, however, you may be a maladaptive daydreamer.

What Is Maladaptive Daydreaming?

Sometimes known as daydreaming disorder, maladaptive daydreaming describes a condition where a person regularly experiences daydreams that are intense and highly distracting  — so distracting, in fact, that the person may stop engaging with the task or people in front of them. These daydreams may be triggered by real-life events or stimuli, such as a noise, smell, conversation topic, or movie.

Maladaptive dreamers may dissociate from reality to absorb themselves completely in their daydream and may unknowingly act out the behavior or speak dialogue for the characters in their daydream. The content of the daydreams is richly detailed and fantastical. Some have been described as a soap opera, while others feature an idealized version of the daydreamer.

Maladaptive daydreaming may develop as a coping strategy in response to trauma.  The inner world may feel safer than the experience happening outside. For example, people with maladaptive daydreaming found themselves engaging in the behavior more frequently during the COVID-19 lockdown. They felt less able to control their urge to daydream, and the vividness of their daydreams intensified.

Maladaptive daydreaming was first defined in 2002 and is not yet recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The prevalence of maladaptive daydreaming is unknown, but the condition appears to be more common among people with anxiety, depression, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Over half of maladaptive daydreamers have a mental health disorder.

Symptoms of Maladaptive Daydreaming

A person with maladaptive daydreaming may experience one or more of the following:

• extremely vivid daydreams with their own characters, settings, plots, and other detailed, story-like features, reflecting a complex inner world
• daydreams triggered by real-life events
• difficulty completing everyday tasks
• difficulty sleeping at night
• an overwhelming desire to continue daydreaming
• performing repetitive movements while daydreaming
• making facial expressions while daydreaming
• whispering and talking while daydreaming
• daydreaming for lengthy periods (up to several hoursTrusted Source)
• significant distress about daydreaming
• awareness that the internal fantasy world is different from external reality

You may also have a diagnosis of another disorder, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Maladaptive daydreaming is different fromTrusted Source regular daydreaming in terms of content, controllability, frequency, and your experience, including the distress it causes and its impact on daily life.

It’s also different from general mind wandering, as it involves “structured, intentionally generated fantasy narratives,” according to expertsTrusted Source writing in 2019. In contrast, mind wandering tends to occur spontaneously and relate to everyday life.

Complications of Maladaptive Daydreaming

Maladaptive daydreams can be so immersive and lengthy that the person dissociates from the world around them, negatively impacting their relationships, work or school performance, sleep, and daily life. Studies of medical students have found that those who engaged in maladaptive daydreaming reported a significant decline in their GPA.

Maladaptive daydreamers may spend 4.5 hours of their day distracted by their daydreams. They may become so absorbed with their inner world that it becomes harder to ground themselves in reality. Due to the all-consuming, immersive nature of their daydreams, people may end up neglecting their relationships and responsibilities in the real world, causing them emotional distress. Unfortunately, despite the strong desire to daydream, people generally feel worse emotionally after doing so.Maladaptive daydreamers may spend 4.5 hours of their day distracted by their daydreams. They may become so absorbed with their inner world that it becomes harder to ground themselves in reality.

In general, people who daydream — maladaptively or not — are more likely to have troubled sleep. Poor sleep can cause sleep deprivation, which impairs one’s ability to focus, concentrate, and pay attention — all symptoms of maladaptive daydreaming. This may explain why a night of disturbed sleep tends to be followed by a day of maladaptive daydreaming.

Dissociation, another symptom of maladaptive daydreaming, is also associated with sleep disorders. Finally, some of the mental health conditions linked to maladaptive daydreaming, such as anxiety and depression, are associated with poor sleep.

What’s the Difference Between Daydreaming and Maladaptive Daydreaming?

Daydreams are a normal part of existence. They’re typically pleasant, though they can sometimes be annoying. While they can distract us from the task at hand, they offer several benefits, such as the ability to plan future events, relieve ourselves from boredom, find meaning in our life’s story, and boost our creativity.

While maladaptive daydreams can be pleasant as well, they are more likely to involve themes of violence, power, control, sex, captivity, or rescue and escape scenarios. Unlike traditional daydreams, maladaptive daydreams commonly enter the realm of fantasy.

Finally, normal daydreaming occurs entirely in the mind, while maladaptive daydreaming is an immersive experience that is often accompanied by repetitive movements, facial expressions, or verbalizations.

Maladaptive Daydreaming Diagnosis

Experts still do not know what causes maladaptive daydreaming, and there’s no official method of diagnosis. While it has been linked to social anxiety or previous trauma, people may develop maladaptive daydreaming without any prior trauma. There is also some evidence that maladaptive daydreamers tended to have active imaginations as children.

Early researchers developed a test known as the Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale (MDS)⁹ to further study and define the characteristics of MD. This 14-part self-assessment can help doctors determine whether a person is suffering from maladaptive daydreaming. A person rates the severity and frequency of their symptoms, answering questions like:

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• Can you stop yourself from daydreaming? Do you want to?
• Do your daydreams interfere with your daily life?

There is more than one proposed MDS reported in the literature.  Depending on the scale used, different cutoff scores have been suggested to delineate those with clinically significant maladaptive daydreaming.

Due to the nature of the symptoms, maladaptive daydreaming can be confused with schizophrenia; however, these conditions are very different. Most notably, individuals who experience maladaptive daydreaming know that their daydreams are not real, while those with disorders like schizophrenia have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy.

There is some overlap between maladaptive daydreaming and other conditions, however. Individuals with maladaptive daydreaming exhibit more symptoms of depression, general anxiety, social anxiety, and dissociation. They are also more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and depression.

Can maladaptive daydreaming cause other conditions to develop?

There is no evidence that maladaptive dreaming can lead to another condition, but it can impact your overall quality of life.

It can affectTrusted Source your:

• ability to focus
• ability to be productive in work and studies
• attention to real-life relationships
• mental well-being, due to anxiety about managing the daydreams

Other conditions that people have reportedTrusted Source alongside maladaptive daydreaming include:

• depression
• anxiety disorders
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• OCD
• ADHD
• bipolar disorder
• borderline personality disorder
• dissociative disorder
• psychosis

However, it’s not yet clear how these disorders relate to maladaptive daydreaming.

In one study, around 25 percentTrusted Source of people with maladaptive daydreaming had attempted suicide at least once, but the link between suicide and this condition is unclear.

Treatment for Maladaptive Daydreaming

There is no official course of treatment for maladaptive daydreaming. Fluvoxamine, a drug commonly prescribed to treat OCD, was found effective in a case study of one patient. Typically, treatment focuses on reducing the likelihood of experiencing a maladaptive daydream through better sleep and symptom management.

Improve the Quality of Your Sleep

Adopting better sleep habits can improve your sleep quality and potentially have an impact on maladaptive daydreaming.

Set and follow a regular sleep schedule every day of the week, even weekends

• Provide yourself with enough time to enjoy at least seven hours of sleep
• Establish a calming bedtime routine to help you relax into sleep
• Exercise daily and eat well

Reduce Fatigue During the Day

Expose yourself to natural sunlight throughout the day, especially in the morning. Consider consuming caffeine for an extra boost, but avoid having more than 400 milligrams per day and schedule your last cup of coffee at least 6 hours before bed.

Understand Your Symptoms

Use a small notepad or the notes app on your phone to record what you were doing before you had a maladaptive daydream. Once you know what your triggers are, you can take steps to avoid them or understand why they’re triggering you.

Get Support

Explain your symptoms to people you trust, like family members and friends. This will help prevent your daydreams from straining the relationship while also enabling these people to help you by interrupting you when they notice symptoms occurring.

What is the outlook for maladaptive daydreaming?

Maladaptive daydreaming can interfere with your daily life. You may want to get the help you need to deal with this condition.

Joining a support group to learn how others cope with their condition may make it easier to manage maladaptive daydreaming. There are several online forums for people who experience maladaptive daydreaming, including Daydream In Blue and Wild Minds Network.

Takeaway

Maladaptive daydreaming involves highly structured daydreams or fantasies that can be difficult to manage. You may feel trapped in an internal world that involves complex plots and many characters. However, you’ll also be aware that this is not the real world.

Experts don’t know why maladaptive daydreaming happens. Possible explanations include past trauma, difficulty managing everyday challenges, and having another condition, such as ADHD.

There is no specific diagnosis or treatment for maladaptive daydreaming.

Treatments for OCD and anxiety, such as CBT and ERP, may help. People who experience maladaptive daydreaming may also benefit from treatment aimed at a co-occurring condition.