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Lampipe
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27 Aug 2024, 9:23 pm

I spend a great deal of my life daydreaming. I do it while I'm working, as well as while engaged in recreational activities. I often find myself falling into the daydreaming state when I'm trying to do something else, including reading, watching TV, even when I'm talking to someone.

What do I daydream about? Various sorts of things. Very often the daydreams take the form of me imagining myself telling something to someone else. It's essentially a form of conversation practice, if "conversation" is defined as me monologuing. This very post, for example, was formed partly through one of these monologuing daydreams. I've used it to practice things I want to write, things I plan to say to people, and sometimes even rewriting earlier conversations in my head. It's not all bad--it's partly a practical technique I use to put my thoughts together for future reference. But I do it way more than is remotely practical--literally hundreds of times during the day, over and over again, often about the same topics.

I get so absorbed in these daydreams that people tell me I look as if I'm silently talking to myself--something I am definitely not conscious of when I do it, and which I work hard to avoid in the presence of people.

I have not gotten a satisfactory answer as to why I do this from therapists or mental health professionals I've spoken with, or from things I've read. But I recently participated in a study on something called "maladaptive daydreaming," and it does fit certain elements of what I'm describing. Here's a description of some of its features on the site NOCD:

* A strong urge to engage in daydreams
* Trouble concentrating on things in the real world
* Loss of time spent daydreaming
* Dissociation from reality
* Trouble focusing or getting work done
* Acting out behaviors in daydream, repetitive movements, whispering or talking to oneself
* Becoming irritated if a daydream is interrupted
* Urges to “finish the story” in the daydream
* Using MD as an escape from anxiety, distress, or trauma

The problem is that maladaptive daydreaming is currently not recognized by the mental health field as a distinct disorder, or even a disorder subtype. Most of the material I've come across describe it as essentially an experimental construct (it was first described in 2002), something that might one day be the basis for a diagnosis but which still is in need of a lot more research. The symptoms tend to be incorporated into more commonly recognized disorders, such as ADHD and OCD (which is what my therapist believes is going on with me). I also suffer from persistent intrusive thoughts, and sometimes these turn into nightmare fantasies coursing through my mind--scenarios of terrible things happening to myself or others. My normal daydreaming is done more as a form of relaxation or escape from the stresses of daily life--so there is a compulsive element to it. But what's striking to me is how involuntary it feels; I have a lot of difficulty preventing myself from falling into this daydreaming state during the day, even when I try hard to stay focused on the present.



IsabellaLinton
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27 Aug 2024, 9:38 pm

When I'm doing things I'm also imagining how I'd write the scene as a narrative. I try to think of descriptive verbs and adjectives for what's happening, and I try to articulate my thoughts into words as if I'm presenting them to an audience. I don't actually write these passages but there's always an internal monologue as if I'm an author, and everything around me is part of the story.

There's a thread here somewhere on MD. I'll take a poke around. I know it's very normal though, especially for people on the spectrum. My daughter does it all the time.


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Edna3362
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27 Aug 2024, 10:43 pm

I can distinguish between full blown disruptive MD from just this repetitive mental loop and tunneled focus towards specific things of related to autism does from time to time.


I had both at some point; the former is just this coping mechanism from unprocessed emotions, which I solved overnight.

The former had affected my executive function really hard. It's not that I even want those stories in my head -- it doesn't matter whether I like it or not, it's just my head that wanted it; so it just kept coming.
Like a true addiction, it draws me away from the present and dissociate with it.

The latter is a habit and a tendency.
But it's more manageable than the former in my case; I can dismiss it easily if it even comes.
It doesn't draw me out of the present nor cause me to dissociate; it can be persistent, but it doesn't drag me in like any addictions do.


Both can be triggered by certain associations.
Both can end up getting me engage with it for hours on end...

However...
Full blown MD for me is like the means of my brain subconsciously dissociate by avoiding this constant irritation in the background which is my unwanted and unprocessed emotions.
It's just... Endless consumption and endless reaffirming of what I already knew and it's not very useful in my case. It's not even like anxiety full of what ifs.
Even if I'm overwhelmed and tired, it gets worse and it just refuses to stop until I'm drained out.

The typical daydreaming I get from autism is drawn from wanting, fancying, curiosity or just control and predictability.
I can pursue it until the end or that I'd suddenly get bored with it. Usually I repeatedly do when I find something really funny... :lol: And laugh out loud because of it.
Most at the time, it's drawn from emotions, boredom most of all -- but less like coping mechanism and more like whatever stood out I wanna try and do it or just engage with it to kill time.


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MagicKnight
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01 Sep 2024, 9:26 am

I do that all the time and I'm not positive as to whether it's related to ASD. I think it's not. Often I'll stop paying any attention to what's right in front of me and simply imagine some scene inside my head, or replay a situation and picture a different aftermath, or make up stuff that could be either hilarious or depressing, and it's all just inside my mind. Things that never happened, never will happen, and are mostly useless.



Lampipe
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01 Sep 2024, 10:32 am

MagicKnight wrote:
I do that all the time and I'm not positive as to whether it's related to ASD.

It's been linked to several disorders, which really speaks to how little understood it is.

One psychologist I went to thought it had to do with my ASD. It should be noted, though, that my habit of monologue-daydreams is peculiar to me, it's not part of the general description of MD, and it may be related to ASD insofar as my social deficits lead me to over-practice conversation in my head.

My current therapist, as I mentioned, thinks that in my case it's a combination of ADHD and OCD. The site I quoted from above, NOCD, also thinks it may sometimes be a part of OCD, albeit not for everyone who experiences MD. There are several reasons to think it's OCD-related in my case: I regularly experience intrusive thoughts; I use MD as a relief from stress and anxiety; and I return to the same daydreams over and over, in a way that resembles a compulsion.

That said, it speaks to the lack of research into this condition. Even the mental health field's understanding of OCD is continually evolving, as evidenced by their separation of hoarding into its own disorder, when it was previously considered an OCD subtype.



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01 Sep 2024, 11:01 pm

MagicKnight wrote:
I do that all the time and I'm not positive as to whether it's related to ASD. I think it's not. Often I'll stop paying any attention to what's right in front of me and simply imagine some scene inside my head, or replay a situation and picture a different aftermath, or make up stuff that could be either hilarious or depressing, and it's all just inside my mind. Things that never happened, never will happen, and are mostly useless.

I agree it isn't.

Actual maladaptive daydreaming is way, way more disruptive and intrusive than just 'stop paying attention what's in front of me'.
It's mostly all about coping via dissociation -- avoiding sources of internal and external stress.

It's different from executive dysfunctions related to ADHD's attention and focus dysregulation -- or even the time blindness and overall emotional dysregulation associated with it.
Maladaptive daydreams can cause ADHD-like symptoms by itself (or make ADHD itself worse).
The difference is that Maladaptive Daydreams can be fixed and managed in ways ADHD is not.
Though with ADHD, it's just harder since they also have emotional dysregulation; whether due to the addiction or bombardment of unwanted emotions and situations.

It's different than OCD's intrusive anxieties and triggers because most of which are based on beliefs.
Maladaptive daydreams are not based on beliefs, they're based on unwanted emotions and addictions.
Sure, the OCD's routines and action and the Maladaptive Daydream itself quells whatever anxieties, but the management of either is also different.

And it's different from ASD's obsessions and special interests. Or the habitual mental button spinning in one's head like some sort of imaginative stimming.
Because with ASD's, it's not as intense unless one also has either or both ADHD and OCD.
I think one distinction is that relaxation does not stop Maladaptive Daydreams -- and may overlap along with special interests.

A distinction I found between the addiction based Maladaptive Daydreams from the compulsive nature of ASD's super focused area of topic is that Maladaptive Daydreams are limited to imagination of scenarios that are imagined or reimagined.
ASD's can be through repetitive recall, countless explorations and possibilities of what-ifs; but it can apply in real life in ways Maladaptive Daydreams don't.

Another is that even special interests ends in ways Maladaptive Daydreams don't or vise versa. Burnouts can lose years of intense special interests and obsessions -- yet Maladaptive Daydreaming can persists even during an acute burnout or even during bouts of depression.
Special interests and obsessions can fade away on it's own, Maladaptive Daydreaming doesn't.



I've dealt with maladaptive daydreaming myself for practically over 20 years.

Mine happened to be this 'my mind likes this, I don't. It makes no sense -- my intent and intent alone is to interact on the outside world and learn. Even abstaining from 'triggers' it still happens. Why do I kept dissociating this way? Why can't I outgrow this'?
I can see how some would overlap one with the other, or confuse one with another.

I thought it was because certain themes and stories appealed to me a little too much, I thought it was because my ego is way needier and more sensitive.
And that it doesn't make sense because my life is objectively alright -- I don't have anything to escape or avoid in life.

I cannot relate to the stories of others who dealt the same symptoms but their common remarks is to 'escape real life' when I consciously don't.

That maybe I have ADHD, maybe I also have BPD or whatever emotional issue I've been dealing long before puberty. And I can't manage it. I kept pulling it off.
Sure they're my guilty pleasures but it's gone out of hand especially then when I need to work.

Turns out it's just my stupid subconscious, "keeping me safe" from some trapped emotions due to some daddy issues of a 5 year old. :roll:

Suddenly, I lost several symptoms after some impromptu therapy session with myself.
This includes that background emotion that kept me chronically angry for years. And whatever kept distorting my perspectives and making me way more emotionally reactive.

It's still gave me a stupid ingrained habit I need to unlearn, though.
And since it took like 20+ years, it did affected my development; like since I barely had a space to learn many subtle skills all because of that stupid trapped emotions.

In a sense now understood my fricking mind spent decades avoiding or running away from internal stressors when I found nothing in the physical world.


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10 Sep 2024, 5:18 am

I don't usually do it when I'm going about my day, more at idle moments or when I'm in bed trying and failing to sleep, but I have ongoing stories with characters that I create in my head, a bit like a long-running TV series. When I tried to search whether other people do this, I only found sources about maladaptive daydreaming, which is not what I do, since it doesn't interfere with my life.