- Hi, I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist
and I make mental health education videos.
Today I'm talking about maladaptive daydreaming
in response to several requests to talk about it.
Maladaptive daydreaming is a psychological construct
that explains a behavior,
but it's not an official diagnosis or disorder.
There's not a lot known about it,
but it is being researched more
so that we can better understand the prevalence,
the characteristics of it and how to treat it.
Everyone daydreams to some extent
and this is when you think about something
that's unrelated to what you're involved in
and this is different from nocturnal dreams
when you're asleep
and you don't have conscious control over your thoughts.
Daydreaming is a product of the default mode network
which I've spoken about before
and this is a network of brain regions
that are engaged in mental activities
that run in the background.
This network is suppressed
when you're purposely thinking about something,
but when you let your mind wander from a task
or an intentional thought,
the default mode network takes over.
The usual mind-wandering is unintentional and spontaneous.
You can slip into it when you're inactive.
But you can also engage in purposeful thinking
about something like imagining your next vacation
or picturing yourself getting a job promotion,
but normally this level of fantasizing
doesn't interfere with your normal activities
or cause you distress.
Maladaptive daydreaming is a state
of deliberate mind-wandering on steroids.
The fantasies are intentionally generated
and are usually complex narratives
with multiple characters and multiple storylines.
You can become absorbed in them for hours.
Unlike a dissociative state where you may not be able
to distinguish reality from fantasy,
with maladaptive daydreaming you are fully aware
that you're absorbed in your inner world.
Your thoughts keep you occupied,
but you don't get so lost in them
that you lose touch with reality.
To maintain focus on the fantasies,
people will use gestures like rocking or humming
to keep themselves on track with the thoughts.
You may even find yourself mouthing the words of the story
or whispering to yourself.
There's a compulsive nature to it
which has made some consider it on the addictive spectrum.
It's like you have to escape into your world
and play out your fantasies.
Some people can go stretches of time without the dreaming,
but then be triggered by a song or a situation
that prompts them to escape into the dreaming.
This kind of daydreaming interferes
with your social and your work functioning
because of the time that you spend doing it
and the need to be isolated.
It can also cause a lot of distress
when you feel like you don't have control
over the urge to dream
or the amount of time that you spend doing it.
A 2013 movie called, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,"
depicted a man who escapes into these fantasies.
In the movie, he's often caught daydreaming by others.
He could be talking with someone
and then start daydreaming and become unresponsive.
Then you see the person snapping their fingers
to get his attention.
This is an entertaining way to see it on screen,
but it's not usually how it looks.
For one thing, slipping into fantasy
and having to be shaken back to attention
suggests that it's something completely involuntary,
but it's not.
That depiction is more characteristic
of spontaneous mind-wandering.
Typically with maladaptive daydreaming,
if something triggers you to want to dream,
you go off and isolate yourself to dream uninterrupted.
We don't know enough about this
to have a good sense of what makes it happen.
Some studies have shown an association
with depression, anxiety, ADHD and dissociative disorders.
It's proposed that some people with these disorders
may use this as a coping mechanism.
Some have suggested that people with a history of trauma
use maladaptive daydreaming as an escape.
We don't have a set treatment protocol.
One thing that may help is recognizing your triggers
and minimizing or eliminating them.
Given the compulsive nature of it,
exposure therapy may prove helpful.
This is a behavior therapy that involves
exposing you to a trigger for your daydreaming
and then helping you respond to the trigger differently
without dreaming.
If you have another disorder like depression or anxiety,
it may be that improving the symptoms
associated with one of those disorders
has the trickle-down effect of reducing your dreaming.
One of the studies in the description
found that people with dissociative identity disorder
were found to have high levels of maladaptive daydreaming.
With DID, your core personality gets split off
into these separate entities called alters.
Even though these alters represent different aspects
of your own personality,
you experience them as real separate people.
By contrast, with maladaptive daydreaming,
you can experience some of the emotions
of multiple characters in your dream,
but you realize that the characters are a conscious fantasy.
You don't confuse them for real people.
I talk about dissociative identity disorder
in this video right here. Go watch it.
See you next time.