MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING

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Almost half of all human thoughts qualify as a daydreaming activity. In the past, daydreaming has been perceived as a universal experience, which is a part of a normal mental activity. Nowadays, we recognize the condition called maladaptive daydreaming, which is concerned with spending an unhealthy amount of time daydreaming. So, when does daydreaming cross the line and become an issue? 

Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) is a psychological condition, where people spend an excessive amount of time losing themselves in their own imaginary world. Their daydreams are extremely vivid and have well-structured plots and characters. Even though those characters might be the people that maladaptive daydreamers encounter on a daily basis, they do not have a problem with differentiating a reality from a daydream. 

Maladaptive daydreamers struggle with stopping or reducing the amount of daydreaming. It is also hard for them to control the desire to fantasize, so they may feel extremely upset and thrown off, when they don’t have a chance to do so. For them it might feel similar to an addiction. Schupak and Rosenthal conducted a study about a woman troubled with excessive daydreaming. For research purposes she underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) procedure conducted by researcher Malia Mason. Later on Mason stated: “The test showed great activity in the ventral striatum, the part of the brain that lights up when an alcoholic is shown images of a martini. Frankly it was super strong”. It indicates how intense their desire is and how much relief the daydreams bring to them. 

MD mostly occurs in people with other mental health issues, such as:

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Anxiety disorder 
• Certain types of depression 
• Dissociative disorders 

It is not strictly correlated with any of them, but people with those disorders are more prone to be maladaptive daydreamers. Another contributing risk factor is childhood abuse. People who previously experienced abuse might, but not necessarily will, develop their own fantasy world in order to escape reality and cope with difficult emotions. 

Maladaptive daydreaming usually occurs simultaneously with certain kinesthetic activity such as pacing. Those movements were found to be a secondary response to the daydreaming activity. Robinson, Woods, Cardona, Baglioni, and Hedderly (2014) studied children who engage in daydreaming with body movements. They observed that those children usually perform those stereotyped movements when bored or relaxed, which might reflect a propensity for a need to increase cognitive stimulation during those moments. Accordingly, researchers suggested that engaging in periods of intense daydreaming might serve as a purpose to increase cognitive stimulation, while the stereotyped body movements might boost concentration and provide sensory gain. 

The prevalence of that condition is still not thoroughly established, because there’s not a lot of research on that topic. That’s partially due to the fact that maladaptive daydreaming is not an officially recognized condition yet. Nonetheless, in a research by Nirit Soffer-Dudek and Nitzan Theodor-Katz the 2.5% prevalence of MD in Israeli adults was found. Another study by Nitzan Theodor-Katz, Eli Somer, Rinatya M Hesseg and Nirit Soffer-Dudek  estimated that about 20.5% of adults diagnosed with ADHD met the proposed diagnostic criteria for MD. 

MD does not have officially established diagnosis criteria yet, but the maladaptive daydreams are often characterized by:

• Intensity: they are much more vivid than standard daydreams 
• Complexity: they have well-established plots with repeatedly recurring characters
• Duration: they last for a long periods of time, even for hours 
• Intent: they are intentional. People affected my MD can start daydreaming on purpose 
• Disconnection from what’s happening around: they are so intense, that people experiencing them disconnect from the world around them (which is similar to dissociation) 

Maladaptive daydreaming have some negative effects on people’s life and well-being, such as:

• Disruptions in social life: people affected by MD often prefer daydreaming rather than spending time with others
• Interference in life goals: MD can cause problems with reaching goals in work, school or other pursuits 
• Feeling of shame and guilt: those people usually feel bad about doing it, especially when it interferes with other parts of their life 

Summing up, maladaptive daydreaming is a psychological condition affecting both children and adults of any gender. It differs from a regular daydreaming in a way, that it’s much more intense and complex, it consumes greater amounts of time and has negative effects. If affected by MD, the right thing to do is to contact a healthcare provider, especially the ones specialized in treating disorders such as ADHD and OCD, because they are most likely to be familiar with this condition.

Kornelia Pacholec

korneliapacholec@gmail.com

References:

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23336-maladaptive-daydreaming

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810016300460

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9091653