Kyla goes to a fictional universe with advanced space travel. It is not real, but a vivid daydream about a person with a history. She says the book covers the life of her main character. I know how the whole thing plays out and I can drop into it at any time.
She limits this habit to one hour a day. She says it's like watching a show on a streaming service. I just enjoy it. She used to feel that her fantasies had become too much. There was a time when it was like an addictions.
There is a similar story being told by another person. She daydreams about talking to different characters. She likes the process of replaying the same scenario. I would like to daydream as soon as I wake up.
She would forget to study for her exams or run her errand when she was lost in these imagined scenarios. She puts off many things, but in the moment it feels great. She spends about three hours a day in daydreams, but on bad days she could spend as much as six hours locked in her inner world.
The reports are of increasing interest to psychologists, who have begun to identify a subset of the population marked for their atypical daydreams. These vivid and compulsive fantasies can be a source of pleasure and comfort, but they can also be a serious cause of Procrastination and distraction, and can prevent people from maintaining their social connections.
With research showing that as many as 40 people may experience these problems, it's likely thatmaladaptive daydreaming will soon be recognised as a mental health problem. What is this thing? What can it be done to treat it?
Eli Somer was the first to identify the phenomenon. Six patients in his practice said they entered vivid fantasies to soothe their psychological pain.
In the aftermath of a romantic break-up, one patient simply continued the relationship in his head, while the other would imagine the conversations he wished he could have. Three patients told him that it was an escape from what was happening in the area. There are a lot of things that frighten me. I don't feel the fear when I daydream.
The phenomenon of maladaptive dreaming was described in a paper by Somer in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy.
For many maladaptive daydreamers, the fantasies are so rewarding that they take precedence over real life experiences
The kind of mind-wandering the average person would experience was very different from the intense fantasies. A psychologist at Linnaeus University in Vxj, Sweden, says mind-wandering can be fleeting. You could be reading a book and thinking of a friend. The people with maladaptive daydreaming are prone to distraction.
Consider what it was like to be a maladaptive daydreamer. She has daydreamed about international travel, working as a reporter at a disaster zone and researching Covid. She can spend hours on the internet looking for details to fuel her fantasy stories. As if I was imagining what I did yesterday, I see it in my head.
Many maladaptive daydreamers report being prompted by regular movements, and may even use rocking motions or pacing to get into the right mental zone.
Immersive daydreamers don't confuse their dreams with reality, and they don't come out of nowhere. Somer says that it's not intrusive. It is different from psychosis in that someone has less awareness of their mental state and the daydreaming is not harmful for someone's mental health.
When it's taken to too much, there are problems. Many people use their daydreams to escape from negative emotions. The person can't confront the issues that may be at the source of their distress if this is their only option. Participants were asked to keep a daily record of their feelings and behaviors for two weeks. Negative emotions rose after a day of excessive daydreaming.
Prof Musetti studied people's reactions to the early stages of the Covid-19 epidemic. It was found that daydreamers who were maladaptive were more likely to experience higher levels of depression and anxiety.
The fantasies are so rewarding that they take precedence over real life experiences. Consider the words of Pietra, who said that nothing else felt as enjoyable. She says she couldn't go 10 minutes without thinking. I would go into them even if I wasn't doing anything. She couldn't eat regular meals because of this. She said she would delay her meals by two or three hours. Food was available to be eaten.
Some psychologists see maladaptive daydreaming as an addiction similar to gambling or alcoholism. It could be like drinking a glass of wine. It's not a good idea to down a bottle of alcohol every day.
Intriguingly, maladaptive daydreaming seems to be far more common among people who have been diagnosed with ADHD
Many maladaptive daydreamers find it difficult to share their experiences with the people around them despite the difficulties they are facing. Three people had the same reaction, they looked as if they wanted to laugh. The issues can appear trivial from the outside. She says that it looks like something that you could control. Trust me, I've tried. She says that it has been difficult to talk about her mental illnesses because of the stigma associated with them.
These experiences are common despite our lack of knowledge. About 2.5% of the population in Israel met the criteria for maladaptive daydreaming according to a survey. It is thought that the condition is more common than obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalised anxiety disorder. It is likely that at least one of your acquaintances will struggle with an urge to escape into their fantasy world.
A recent paper shows that maladaptive daydreaming is more common in people with attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder. The majority of people with maladaptive daydreaming have been diagnosed with a mental health problem. The group with the constant desire to slip into daydreams may need different forms of treatment from other people with attention deficit disorder.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association. He says that there is a body of evidence to show that the construct is reliable, and that it can't be better explained by any other mental health condition.
Musetti agrees that health professionals need to be more aware of their surroundings. There is a growing number of people online describing maladaptive daydreaming, but they are often unable to get professional help. He says that they often won't find a suitable treatment.
There are promising signs that people can learn to control their daydreaming habit, but exactly how that should be done is an open question. Somer published a case study of a 25-year-old undergrad named Ben who spent three hours a day in his fantasies. Ritalin increased Ben's tendency to daydream after he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.
Somer worked with Ben to find a solution. To reduce the temptation, Ben would note down the circumstances that seemed to be associated with his maladaptive daydreaming, and prepare a plan for each day. He tried to interrupt the daydreams' plots when he fell into them. He reduced his habit by half by the end of the six months.
Somer has since conducted a trial with hundreds of people. The results are very encouraging even though the study hasn't been published.
Musetti and Somer agree that it may not be possible for people to eliminate their daydreams completely; instead, the aim should be to enable them to regulate their habit, and to find alternative ways to process their negative emotions. Somer thinks they could confine it to certain times of the day.
Kyla wouldn't want to lose her mind completely. She no longer dominates her life because of her fantasies. She says she can use conversations with her characters to gain perspective on the problems. She thinks that this saved her life during a mental health crisis. She thinks it would be difficult to suppress the daydreams. You can't just turn it off.
They asked the Observer not to publish their names to protect their privacy.
The Expectation Effect: How your mindset can transform your life is a book by David Robson. Go to guardianbookshop.com to order your copy. Delivery charges can be applied.
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