Maladaptive Daydreaming - What’s the Harm?
Daydreams can be a regular part of daily life—fleeting flights of fancy that come and go, often lasting no more than a few minutes at a time. However, sometimes daydreams can begin to get out of hand. They can stretch out for hours at a time, and become so detailed and realistic that a person feels intense, authentic emotions in response to them.[1] These daydreams can become so overly involved that they bring the person to unconsciously speak or act out things that are occurring in their daydreams, and start to absorb more of a person’s attention and time than their real lives do.[2] At face value, maladaptive daydreaming may seem harmless. It’s easy to dismiss it as simply an “overactive imagination,” to expect the individual to simply control their wandering mind, and to undercut the potential consequences it carries. If daydreaming is common and natural - when does it become maladaptive?
The short, simple answer is that daydreams begin to become maladaptive when they begin to have a strong, negative impact on a person’s daily life. Poerio (2023) explains that those who experience maladaptive daydreaming cannot just turn off their daydreams, or shift their focus; the need to actively engage in, and be consumed by, their daydreams is a compulsion. As such, the act of daydreaming can overpower multiple facets of their day-to-day life. These individuals will, often entirely unintentionally, prioritize their daydreams over commitments to things such as school or work; they will let coursework, tests, and projects go undone in favor of focusing on their fantasies.[3] A study performed by Jayne Bigelsen and her colleagues (2015) reported that some maladaptive daydreamers spend at least half of their waking hours daydreaming and honing the intensely detailed plots they create.[4]
Similarly, social lives of maladaptive daydreamers can also suffer as a result of this condition. They will fail to respond to their friends, be present in relationships or go on outings purely because they are so focused on their daydreams, which can take up several consecutive hours of their day.[5] The effect that maladaptive daydreaming has on an individual’s life is so great that, Soffer-Dudek (2022) concluded in a study that nearly half of the sample of maladaptive daydreamers were unemployed, and more than a fourth had attempted suicide at least once in their life.[6]
WHAT CAUSES MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING?
While one, definitive cause of maladaptive daydreaming has not been discovered, multiple factors may influence whether or not a person will develop this disorder. Some theories suggest that maladaptive daydreaming is a coping mechanism. If an individual’s life or experiences are intensely traumatic, they can develop the capability to create a different, safer, more preferable world to escape into—only to have that coping strategy get out of hand and become a dominant fixture in their life.[7] The appeal of their daydreams lies in just how rewarding they are compared to their daily lives. However, many without traumatic histories experience maladaptive daydreaming, with some reporting that their daydreams are actually more intense or stressful than their real lives are.[8]
Others point at the link between maladaptive daydreaming and other disorders, namely OCD, depression, and anxiety. Somer and his colleagues (2017) reported that over half of the participants who experienced maladaptive daydreaming also exhibited symptoms of OCD (though it’s not stated whether or not those participants were actually diagnosed with OCD).[9] As such, the same mechanisms in our brains that result in OCD may also influence the development of maladaptive daydreaming. With anxiety and depression, on the other hand, maladaptive daydreaming is viewed more as a reaction to the already existing disorders. Because the daydreams supposedly provide “an escape from intolerable feelings and conflicts, emptiness, stressful external conditions, and/or unresolved trauma,” the presence of depression and anxiety can spur a person into developing maladaptive daydreaming. However, while these daydreams may provide temporary relief, they are not a functional long-term solution; that brief comfort provided via daydreaming leads to feeling even more discomfort when the daydream ends—often driving the individual to daydream even more frequently in an effort to cognitively escape.[10]
At the present time, maladaptive daydreaming is not an officially recognized disorder, and thus, a person can’t technically be “diagnosed” with it. However, a physician or licensed, qualified mental health professional can still assess if a person is engaging in maladaptive daydreaming. One diagnostic tool, the Structured Clinical Interview for maladaptive daydreaming (SCIMD), is a 16-item test that asks an individual questions about their daydream triggers, how they feel while daydreaming, and how their daydreams affect their daily life.[11]
THE DAYDREAMERS’ PERSPECTIVE
Maladaptive daydreams can range from wild, fantastical storylines, to personal renditions of popular media, to stories that seem entirely grounded in reality. One individual might daydream about a world with hyper-advanced space travel, and all that entails.[12] Another might daydream about their own life, with only minor tweaks here and there. Another might daydream about being involved in an existing foreign conflict.[13]
While maladaptive daydreaming can negatively impact a person’s life in a variety of ways, many people who experience it have a positive relationship with their condition, and would not sacrifice it if given the opportunity.
Lee (2019) describes a Canadian teenager named Maddie. By her own account, Maddie has been maladaptively daydreaming since she was a young child; as a little girl, she often paced in her driveway while daydreaming. She did this often enough and for long enough periods to wear through the grass and leave a strip of exposed dirt in her wake.[14] These vivid, consuming daydreams continued to be regular parts of her day through her teen years; by her estimate, she spends about four hours every single day daydreaming.[15] The time that her daydreams command has affected her schoolwork, social life, and her perception of her own identity, since she feels she knows the Maddie that exists in her daydreams better than the one that exists in real life. The extent of her daydreams even caused her to question her sanity in her early teen years, before learning about the concept of maladaptive daydreaming. But despite the confusion and distress it has caused her, and the impact it has on her outside life, Maddie considers her maladaptive daydreaming to be a part of her, and enjoys many parts of it.[16]
Karina Lopez, another individual who experiences maladaptive daydreaming, shares a similar fondness for her condition. That’s not to say that maladaptive daydreaming doesn’t complicate aspects of her life. Many times in the past, her daydreams have taken priority over necessary tasks, such as grocery shopping or studying for important exams.[17] In her college years, she would spend up to six hours a day daydreaming; she has since brought that number down to three. Much like Maddie, though, regardless of the negative impacts, Karina does (to some degree) love her condition. She enjoys the process of fine-tuning the daydreams, and looks forward to engaging with them, stating, “As soon as I wake up, I want to daydream.”[18]
However, this welcoming perspective isn’t universal. Unlike Maddie and Karina, both of whom report having experienced maladaptive daydreaming since their youth, Carol didn’t begin maladaptive daydreaming until she reached middle adulthood, and believes the daydreams were brought about by the hormonal shift that came with menopause.[19] While Maddie and Karina both view their daydreams as fascinating stories to explore and retreat into, Carol describes her daydreaming as being similar to, “being tied to a chair and forced to watch a film.” She also feels that her maladaptive daydreaming negatively impacts her creativity, since all of her creative energy is being funneled into her daydreams, whether she wants it to be or not.[20]
TREATMENT OPTIONS
Proposed treatment options for maladaptive daydreaming are limited, for two reasons. The first reason is maladaptive daydreaming is still a relatively new term and concept, having only been coined by Dr. Eli Somer in 2002.[21] Therefore, in the grand scheme, there has been limited time to research the condition or test the effectiveness of varying treatment options. Secondly, while maladaptive daydreaming is gaining more recognition among the medical and mental health communities, it is not yet recognized in the DSM-5 as a psychological disorder at this point in time.
Currently, the most recommended form of treatment for maladaptive daydreaming is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).[22] The goal of treatment with CBT is to help the individual understand why they have developed the tendency to daydream to such an excessive extent, and how best to manage their symptoms and ground themselves in reality.[23] Because of its believed link to conditions like anxiety, OCD and depression, therapies and treatment methods employed for those disorders may also be beneficial for those experiencing maladaptive daydreaming.[24]
If you think you may be experiencing maladaptive daydreaming, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional for guidance and treatment options.
Contributed by: Jordan Rich
Editor: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D.
1 Jay, S. (2023). Maladaptive Daydreaming. Sleep Foundation.
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health/maladaptive-daydreaming
2 Ibid.
3 Poerio, G. (2023). When too much daydreaming becomes a disorder. CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/health/maladaptive-daydreaming-disorder-wellness-partner/index.html
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Soffer-Dudek, N. (2022). Why We Should Take “Maladaptive Daydreaming” Seriously.
Psychology Today.
7 Poerio (2023)
8 Robson, D. (2022). ‘I just go into my head and enjoy it’: the people who can’t stop
9 Poerio (2023)
10 Laderer, A. (2022). Here’s What Maladaptive Daydreaming Really Feels Like. Wonder Mind. https://www.wondermind.com/article/maladaptive-daydreaming/
11 Cirino, E. (2021). Maladaptive Daydreaming. Health Line.
https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/maladaptive-daydreaming
12 Robson (2022)
13 Lee, J. (2019). Maladaptive Daydreaming — How this psychiatric condition can impact creativity. We Present. https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/stories/maladaptive-daydreaming
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Robson (2022)
18 Ibid.
19 Lee (2019)
20 Ibid.
21 Laderer (2022)
22 Cleveland Clinic. (2022). Maladaptive Daydreaming.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23336-maladaptive-daydreaming
23 Ibid.
24 Laderer (2022)