What Is Maladaptive Daydreaming?
Maladaptive daydreaming is when you spend so much time daydreaming that it interferes with your daily life. This behavior is a way for people to deal with trauma or mental health conditions such as anxiety. The term “maladaptive” means that this form of daydreaming can be a harmful way to deal with a problem. It can get in the way of your work, relationships, and hobbies.
Experts aren’t sure exactly how many people do this. One study in Israel found that 2.5% of adults and just over 4% of students had maladaptive daydreaming.
Is maladaptive daydreaming bad?
Maladaptive dreaming isn't bad for your health, but it could harm your mental health. An intense focus on your daydreams could become addictive, interfering with your job and relationships and preventing you from getting the treatment you need. Maladaptive dreaming can happen together with other conditions such as depression that increase the risk of dying from suicide.
Maladaptive Daydreaming Causes
Experts don’t consider maladaptive daydreaming a condition. However, this behavior can overlap with certain mental health conditions, including:
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Dissociative disorders
- Anxiety disorders
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Some forms of depression
Some research suggests that maladaptive daydreaming is different from other disorders and should be defined as a distinct condition.
Maladaptive daydreaming is also related to age. Some studies have found that it’s more common in younger people, especially young adults and teenagers. More research is needed to understand the link between this behavior and age.
Maladaptive daydreaming vs. dissociation
Dissociation is a way for the mind to deal with extreme stress or trauma. When you dissociate, you separate yourself from upsetting feelings. It's almost as if you were outside your own body or not connected to the world around you. These feelings can last from a few hours to months.
Maladaptive daydreaming and dissociation often overlap. Daydreaming can be a type of dissociation if it helps you escape from life. When you daydream, you may lose sight of the world around you. Some people with dissociative disorders have maladaptive daydreams.
Maladaptive daydreaming and trauma
Maladaptive daydreaming is sometimes a coping response to trauma. In one study, more than half of people with maladaptive daydreaming had experienced abuse, neglect, or a stressful family life in childhood. Daydreams offer an escape from the pain of the real world. In daydreams, people who have experienced trauma can create the safe and loving relationships they may not have in their real lives.
Maladaptive daydreaming and OCD
OCD causes uncontrollable repeated thoughts or behaviors. You might lock the door many times for fear that someone could break in. Or you may wash your hands over and over because you're afraid of germs. These repeated actions help ease your anxiety and distress.
Maladaptive daydreaming and OCD often happen together. One theory about why these two conditions are related is that OCD might help people regain control over their minds or confirm they're in the real world after a daydream. Maladaptive daydreaming and OCD can become a cycle where one of these behaviors triggers the other. If experts can understand the link between OCD and maladaptive daydreaming, they may be able to find better treatments for both types of behavior.
Maladaptive Dreaming Symptoms
Maladaptive daydreaming causes intense and vivid daydreams that can last hours and disconnect you from the world around you.
What are maladaptive dreams like?
If you have maladaptive dreaming, your daydreams will usually have detailed plots with characters that pop up over and over, like in a TV show. Maladaptive daydreams are a lot more colorful and stronger than regular dreams. These daydreams can last for a long time, sometimes for hours at a time.
What do maladaptive dreams feel like?
Maladaptive daydreams may feel so intense that you disconnect from everything around you and stop noticing things happening near you. In time, you can become dependent on these experiences and start to daydream on purpose.
What can maladaptive daydreaming cause?
You may have negative feelings about your maladaptive daydreaming. These emotions could lead to:
- Shame or guilt. You might feel bad about daydreaming, especially if it messes with other parts of your life.
- Trouble with your job, hobbies, or other activities. These daydreams can interfere with work, school, and any other daily tasks.
- Issues with social activities. You may daydream more than you spend time with other people.
- Compulsively daydreaming. You can start to feel an intense need to daydream. Some studies show that this need can be similar to an addiction. If you’re unable to daydream, you may feel upset.
- An attempt to stop or reduce the daydreams. Even if you try, it may be hard to daydream less or stop completely.
Maladaptive Daydreaming Diagnosis
Since maladaptive daydreaming isn’t an official condition, it's hard for doctors to test for it directly. No lab tests can confirm if you have it, but a few questionnaires can help your mental health provider make the diagnosis.
Maladaptive daydreaming test
Doctors can look for signs of maladaptive daydreaming with the same questionnaires and other tools they use to diagnose ADHD, OCD, anxiety, depression, and dissociative disorders. There is also a specific test called the Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale-16 (MDS-16). It includes 16 questions in four areas:
- You feel a strong urge to daydream.
- Daydreaming has a negative effect on your daily tasks or long-term goals.
- You make movements with your face, mouth words, rock, or pace while you daydream.
- Music helps you daydream.
For each question, you rate your distress level on a scale from 0% (no distress at all) to 100% (extreme distress). The MDS-16 can show whether you could have maladaptive daydreaming. Then your mental health provider can do an evaluation to confirm the diagnosis.
Maladaptive Daydreaming Treatment
There’s also no standard treatment for maladaptive daydreaming. But treatments for similar conditions can help you overcome this problem.
How to stop maladaptive daydreaming
Talk therapy, or psychotherapy, is the main treatment for maladaptive daydreaming. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of talk therapy where the therapist helps you identify the thoughts and behaviors that are causing maladaptive daydreaming. Then you learn healthier ways to deal with those thoughts. CBT is also a treatment for OCD, anxiety, depression, and dissociative disorders.
Conditions such as OCD and ADHD often happen along with maladaptive dreaming. It can be helpful to also treat these conditions with therapy and possibly medication.
Each person with maladaptive daydreaming is different. Your doctor will review your medical history, related conditions, and other factors to create a treatment plan that’s best for you.
Takeaways
Maladaptive daydreaming is an intense and sometimes uncontrollable form of daydreaming. It's a way to deal with past traumas and current problems. People with mental health conditions such as ADHD, OCD, and dissociative disorder are more likely to have maladaptive daydreaming. These conditions can lead to more maladaptive daydreaming, and vice versa. Therapy can help you stop this behavior by teaching you healthier ways to deal with negative emotions.
Maladaptive Daydreaming FAQs
What triggers maladaptive daydreaming?
Often maladaptive daydreaming happens after a trauma like childhood sexual assault or neglect. It's a way of dealing with pain and anxiety from the experience. Many people with maladaptive daydreaming also have a condition like ADHD, OCD, or a dissociative disorder.
At what age does maladaptive daydreaming start?
This behavior seems to be more common in teens and young adults. It also affects children.
