Maladaptive Daydreaming - Silent Dream Destroyer

Sometimes when we watch a talk show or even listen to your favorite playlist it makes your mind wander. The next minute you’ll catch yourself daydreaming about being in the Ellen show and you’re talking about how you handle fame as a celebrity. We all have those moments where we were listening to a sentimental song and we suddenly daydream as if we’re in a music video. I still even remember 12 years ago, I daydreamed of Justin Bieber being so in love with me while I played his first hit song ‘Baby’ during 2012. If you’re wondering if I’m still daydreaming to be Justin Bieber’s wife, well come on, it's already 2022. I’m moving on with Harry Styles.

What is Daydreaming?

Daydreaming is one of our altered states of consciousness where your mind or attention shifts from an external event to an internal direction. In other words, you withdraw your attention to pleasant thoughts or scenarios in your head. We frequently do this more than we thought to. In fact, according to research our mind wanders nearly 30-50% of our waking conscious experience.

Positive Effects of Daydreaming

• It taps our creativity. Daydreaming allows your subconscious thoughts to explore and reflect in your mind. It helps you see the bigger picture and lets your mind reorganize the information and ideas. In school we are conditioned to follow a schedule or a program and let the professor lead on what are the things we should focus on. But in daydreaming it allows you to zoom out and see for yourself the whole picture. It allows you to have your own perspective and let your own creativity flow.

• Daydreaming lessens your stress. Cyclists have terms like recovery and breakthrough when they are on a long bike trip or race. Breakthrough in race cycling means giving your 100% effort and energy on the road or race. It means you’ll keep kicking the pedal and maintain that pace so that you’ll win the race. Recovery means giving your muscles and breathing to unwind and relax. It helps you re-energize for the last minute of the race. Daydreaming is like our recovery period. When you’re all stressed with work, you can give yourself some time to relax and daydream. It prepares you to go back to your task calmly.

• It exercises your brain. While daydreaming, our problem-solving network and creativity network works simultaneously. It stretches our brain with the information we haven’t reached for a very long time.

Is Daydreaming Too dangerous?

It’s normal for a human being to daydream for a few minutes while walking or cooking. Daydreaming is already part of our brain activity. There are tons of positive effects on our brain when we daydream but too much of it could disrupt our daily activities. Daydream could impact our life negatively if we do it often as it should be. If you tend to refuse or it gets difficult for you to do those simple tasks because you are overly distracted in daydreaming, it means you might be experiencing Maladaptive daydreaming.

What is Maladaptive Daydreaming?

Cleveland Clinic defined Maladaptive Daydreaming as a “behavior where a person spends an excessive amount of time daydreaming, often becoming immersed in their imagination. This behavior is usually a coping mechanism in people who have mental health conditions like anxiety. For some people, this behavior disrupts work, hobbies or friendships and relationships.”

A Clinical Psychology Professor in Israel, Eli Somer, first coined the term Maladaptive Daydreaming way back in 2002. There’s 297 mental disorders listed in DSM-5 and still Maladaptive daydreaming isn’t included yet. I wonder how many mental disorders or maladaptive behavior out there that goes unnoticed.

What are the symptoms of Maladaptive Daydreaming?

1. Longevity. Maladaptive daydreamers daydream on average 4-6 hours per day. Some uncontrollably daydream the whole day.

2. Too Detailed. Daydreaming for just a moment is normal unless you daydream with very detailed plot and characters.

3. Intensity. A lot of maladaptive daydreamers can experience real emotions through scenarios and characters. They vividly feel and imagine how and what it feels like.

4. Dissociation. Maladaptive Daydreamers unintentionally or sometimes intentionally disconnect with their surroundings. Most especially if they are so into their daydream world.

What Causes Maladaptive Daydreaming?

There is no exact cause for this disorder but based on the private forum of maladaptive daydreamers they use it as their coping mechanism. Some people cope with their problems through social interaction such as opening up to a friend or having quality time with their loved ones. Some cope up with binge eating by releasing all their stress and tension through eating too much food. As we become familiar with our own comfort zones it becomes addictive. Individuals with Maladaptive Daydreaming, they tend to create their fantasy world to feel comforted and to escape their painful reality.

The Struggles of Maladaptive Daydreamers

Their addiction isn’t as visible as those who have drug addictions or eating disorders. Their addiction and obsessions only exist in their own minds. The most crucial part is that they can’t just leave or avoid their minds the way drug and alcohol abusers avoid using drugs and alcohols. The struggle of this condition is to find a new coping mechanism that is not maladaptive. A coping mechanism that would help them get in touch with their reality and get closer to who they really are.

Another struggle for having a Maladaptive Daydreaming is the lack of understanding and support from our loved ones or peers. Unlike having Stage 1 Bone Cancer, people will empathize your situation. But when having a Mental Disorder that is not yet known it will be difficult for them to understand your condition. That’s why most often people with this condition prefer to face it alone rather than getting help.

Zoning out. You won’t even notice you’re dissociating until you catch yourself wandering and talking to your characters. Focus is inevitably important in all aspects of our lives. Losing focus in academics or jobs or even in simple tasks can be annoying and disruptive on our daily routine. Maladaptive daydreaming becomes your coping mechanism or escape from your depressing reality but the more you escape the more you lose focus on what is important in your present moment. Thus, losing focus on one aspect in your life can lead to more problems and stressful situations and that would lead to daydreaming again. Having Maladaptive daydreaming is a cycle of nightmares.

How Maladaptive Daydreaming Destroys Your Dream

1. MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING WASTES YOUR HOURS, DAYS, MONTHS OR YEARS IN YOUR LIFE

You’d stop hustling unlike your batchmates who never stop working hard to get their dream job. Unlike your cousins who never stop bettering themselves. And then when you get in touch again with your reality, you’ll suddenly realize how lonely and pathetic you are. You’ll realize you missed the occasions and events where you should have been making memories with them rather than living in your made up world. Suddenly years have passed and you still receive a minimum salary because you were so busy creating a grandiose world at night. You’ll realize that all the months and years you’ve spent living inside your head becomes a waste of time. You lost the youth where you should be out there living life to the fullest. You lost the time spent improving yourself.

2. MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING PUSHES YOU TO BECOME A MEDIOCRE

When you’ve reached contentment with what you feel in your daydream world and it gives you that satisfaction you were looking for, you’d lose motivation to pursue your goals. ‘Cause after all what you’ll ever think is “Why would i? Well, I am already successful in my daydream world. What for?” and then your real life goals start to fade. You have become so attached to what you’ve built up to the point where you’ll stick to it. You’ll stick on being mediocre. You’d feel satisfied with the life you have in your daydream world and then slowly you’ll forget the dreams you’ve dreamed when you started in college or when you were still a kid. Maladaptive daydreaming caters you all the satisfaction you need which makes you feel you don’t need to exert an effort in your real world. Besides, maladaptive daydreamers get easily exhausted because of the time spent daydreaming which prevents them from pursuing their real life goals.

3. MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING DOESN’T REALIZE YOUR REAL POTENTIAL

Dreams don’t come true unless you work hard for it. Not all we visualize in our life manifest in our real life. It takes a plan and discipline to make it come true. It takes sacrifices and courage to fail and unfold the best version of yourself. But those won’t happen if you’ll still keep on living in your head. Our mind is our only limit. Our mind is our only enemy and ally. Maladaptive Daydreaming eats out your hope to have a better life in your reality and makes you forget the potential you have. It fogs your mind and distracts you from what you can really offer. It makes you stop wondering who you can become in your real life because you’re so busy chasing characters that aren’t real.

Hope For Maladaptive Daydreamers

Join a support group

• This is literally a silent battle to face at first. But you don't have to face this alone once you’ve already realized what condition you are in. You may share your condition with a professional or a loved one you can fully trust. You are not alone. You are not the only one experiencing this condition.

Reflect on your past

• There’s a reason behind your maladaptive daydreaming. This is going to be challenging for you but tracing where everything started might help. Going back in the past and reflecting what had happened that caused you to daydream excessively will help a lot.

Verbalize the word “Daydreaming”

• If you get stuck on daydreaming again, you can whisper or tell yourself vocally that you are only daydreaming. It would help your mind refocus and shift its attention.

Mindfulness

• Carefully and mindfully thinking about your present moment will help you be in touch with your reality. Enjoying the little moments and finding a new way to channel your emotions and stress will help you slowly condition your mind to cope up in a healthy way.

Reflect on your present feelings

• Never force yourself to stop daydreaming. It would make your situation worse. Stress, pressure and unpleasant emotions trigger maladaptive daydreaming. The more you force yourself to stop, the more you’ll get stressed out which urges you more to daydream to cope up. Don’t treat your mind as your own enemy. Understand what and why you feel that way. Reflect on what’s pulling you from behind. Take a look closer at your mind and heart as if something or someone is hiding through your broken thoughts. Take a step back as if you’re a detective and you might be standing already on the victim’s clues.

References:

AZSEO, “Daydreaming Research Paper”, AZWriting, 13 December 2019

Blaszczak-Boxe, Agata. “Surprising Facts About Daydreaming” LIVESCIENCE, 15 September 2016

Nerenberg, Rebekah. “Daydreaming: what is it, why we do it, can it be dangerous?” Cognifit, 1 February 2019