daydreaming/staring off into space

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Speaking of being lost and doing stuff without being aware of it, I had a teacher in elementary school who claimed she had been vacuuming and got lost in thought. When she 'came to' she found herself trying to put the vacuum cleaner into the fridge. I found that story hilarious.

I'm aware enough to not get into trouble if I'm out walking, but when I for instance am on a bus or car, I can get so lost that I don't notice anything, and I can find myself passing the stop I was supposed to get off at. It's happened three times, once I was reading, the other two I was daydreaming.

have passed my exit driving a few times and ended up miles up the road. I was aware but still zoned out enough to miss it.

I do this too - I seem to spend an awful lot of time just lost in my thoughts. I don't seem to do it when there are people around who might try and talk to me, though - then I'm more likely to be hyper-alert. So I don't remember it happening much in school or at work. But when I'm on my own, and especially when I'm at home, which I am most of the time, things just slip away... or rather, my mind slips away into itself.

I never thought of it as daydreaming. But a few years ago I would drive to my grandma's house after school, and would regularly zone out, apparently. I didn't even notice until one time when I "came back" in the middle of driving. I was going the way I always went, but I didn't remember anything I saw or did, and I had to look at the street names to figure out where I was. It was scary, because my grandma's house is like a 25 minute drive. I still do it, but for shorter time periods. I'll look in the mirror and confusedly say, "There was a stop sign there? Did I stop for it?"

I have no idea if it happens at home or when I'm at the store or wherever, but I caught myself doing it once at work. I never told anyone that it happened while I was driving, but when I was taking a typing class, I mentioned being able to copy the paper very quick and accurate, but not think about what I was doing at all. My uncle's girlfriend/now-wife was majoring in psychology and had a name and explanation for it, but I can't remember now. Helpful, lol.

Sidelines, you mentioned that you seem to need the zoning out. As much as I find myself doing it or talking to myself, I wonder if this is actually a need for me as well more than just something I do. I wonder if it has to do with over processing or processing things more slowly than NTs or both.

Yesterday we were at the Ren Faire and I was a little zoned out and my husband told me I walked right in between another couple that was walking towards us and separated them. I had no idea they were even there. I was completely oblivious to what was directly in front of me but I was very aware of all my other surroundings.

This is definately something called Maladaptive Daydreaming. I have it too, I started pacing back and forth daydreaming very much in kindergarten, and it's actually one of the biggest reasons I was diagnosed with Asperger's to begin with. I usually cannot concentrate on doing my homework without starting to daydream, it can be kind of bad sometimes, but it is a very big part of who I am, and I'm definately gonna have to learn to live with it. It has it's good features as well. I have a very livid imagination because of this, and if someone tells me to imagine a house or room, I instantly do it, and the funny thing is that I don't have to have seen this room to have imagined it, it just forms itself in my mind. The very good part of this is that I can write awesome books because of this. If it wasn't for my Maladaptive Daydreaming, I wouldn't have gotten the highest possible grade in my English class.

-Simon

Please do, it was a real eye opener when I found out about it. It doesn't have to be bad, remember that!

About Maladaptive daydreaming. I looked it up and was wondering if it is really the same thing. I was not talking about daydreaming, I just space out, and can't remember what I might have thought about, or if I even was thinking about something in particular. I don't have visions or hallucinations or movie-like daydreams like they describe. I did daydream once in a while (not often) but it was intentional and I was conscious of my surroundings, contrary to when I space out.

I spend most of my life daydreaming. Some days I do more daydreaming then actual living :/

I cannot seem to control it either. It just happens