Maladaptive Daydreaming
- J. Michael Mcgee
- Mar 10
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 11
What a day for a daydream,
What a day for a daydreamin’ boy,
Now I’m lost in a daydream…dreamin bout my…..,
so sang John Sebastian of the Lovin Spoonful in the 1966 classic hit DayDream. For persons who sang and hummed the tune those decades ago, Daydream carried special meaning, unknowingly so.
While not connecting the song to any mental health malady, today, chat rooms abound with a nascent (coming into existence) disorder called Maladaptive Daydreaming, (MD).
Defined by The Cleveland Clinic, Maladaptive Daydreaming is “a mental health issue where a person daydreams excessively, sometimes hours at a time. It is seen as an unhealthy or negative attempt to cope with or adapt to a problem.” These daydreams often have elaborate stories and characters. And hamper one’s life in other areas.
MD shows up with clients who have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), ADHD, and Autism. It is important to differentiate mind- wandering and common daydreaming from that of MD.
According to Eli Somer, an Israeli psychologist, who first coined the term in 2002, mind wandering or common daydreaming is when the brain is in kind of an idle mode, thinking of mundane items. This is not maladaptive daydreaming. All people day dream. Persons who are script writers or those paid to create fantasy, while seemingly creating elaborate stories, don’t have classic MD.
MD sufferers, however, often have dreams of grandiosity, but do very little to achieve what their dreams wish for. As the above definition notes, persons who have MD can spend hours in their dreams and do so to escape past traumas. In some cases Somer notes, people have a predisposition to MD.
It is important to be aware of the continuum when the dream crosses over from being useful in creativity to maladaptive.
“I daydream more when I am out,” a person in a chat group said. ”I might be walking on the city’s trail system and a stranger would pass me and I would immediately start creating this story about him attacking me and me beating him up. And the story would have all sorts of intricate scenes and this would carry me through almost until my walk is done.”
A key is to ask a person who questions their day dreaming is how much their day-to-day activities are impacted by the dream.
To get an assessment about the degree of whether one has MD, the Somer, 2016 16-item Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale (MDS- 16) can be administered. The self-report assessment can be downloaded from the internet.
A first question asks about the propensity for daydreaming to be triggered by music, because music is seen as a common prompt. Music engenders emotions, thus also memories. People who are so poised to daydream can go off into their world from a song.
As a counselor treating persons with anxiety and OCD, I have seen an increase in the number of clients who come to my office expressing mental activity consistent with MD. I don’t jump into any diagnosis.
While movies, news accounts and other stimuli can set off day dreams, an older client I treated who allowed me to change his name, but use his experience with MD, said music very much sends him off.
“In particular, when I hear the Temptations, Marvin Gaye or to some extent any male singer who I grew up with that gets me going,” Ryan said. “If I listen to a whole soundtrack or sometimes just one or two songs, I’ll dream that I am in front of my high school audience. And I am singing the songs I am hearing. I am the leader of a group and I am wearing sunglasses and all the girls are looking at me, of course falling in love with me.” Chuckles.
Ryan said once the music is over he doesn’t continue with the dream. But he finds himself listening to song tracks often just so he can go to his dream. “It’s always me, and my group, Paula, David and Donald.”
A National Library of Medicine research entry about MD notes MD sufferers have elaborate narratives and fantastical stories in their dreams. As with Ryan, sufferers often come back to their daydreams and pick up where they left off. There are references to persons with full blown MD, engaging in it 60 percent of the day.
MDers can have more difficulty with emotional regulation and could be prone to dissociative disorders; some researchers believe they have higher rates of unemployment, suicidal ideations and sleep disorders.
OCD and MD are similar in engaging what is called lost-in-the-ritual loop, but differ in the content their mind goes to. Maladaptive Daydreaming can be seen more as a malady where the sufferer takes a pleasant journey into Walter Mitty land when stress occurs. The person self regulates with the dream from anxiety, gets relief, but then the process begins over again when a trigger occurs. In fact, MDers often quite enjoy their dreams.
When considering treatment for MD, Susan Meindl, a Canadian psychologist, offers some thoughts. It is useful, she says, for the person with MD to consider the emotions which are prevalent in their dreams.
The dreamer, AKA the protagonist, often has power and is admired by many in their dreams. But being admired and having power isn’t what the protagonist is after, Meindl says. “They want to be beloved.”
My client Ryan likely isn’t looking to be a rock star, but he does appear to have an unmet need for approval from his high school classmates; those years and persons long gone, or simple validation that he is a credible man.
The dreamer needs to ask, “What am I really feeling?” When a MDer realizes their dream is about unmet emotional needs that insight sheds light on what really the sufferer is wanting. Persons escape to their day dream for soothing purposes from the anxiety, Meindl says.
Somer says, in light of the fact MD is addictive, treatment should relate to that used for addictive behaviors. Because the MD sufferer often likes their dream, therefore, they aren't told to give up their day dream, as someone who drinks alcohol might be. The first step is to limit time spent on their dreams. Mindfulness training is also useful because it trains one to stay in the present.
It is unlikely that Lovin Spoonful creator Sebastian, now in his 80’s, who gave the world the gift of this most prescient piece of music, Daydream, had a mental disorder in mind when writing the lyrics back in 1966. But, his classic work, in part, lays out what it's like to have this disorder, which is certain to be introduced into the sixth edition of Diagnostic Statistical Manual, (DSM).
A daydream can last long into the night….
or you can be daydreaming for a thousand years….
These resources offer an understanding of MD:
Somer Clinic
Solving Maladaptive Daydreaming, a booklet
Kati Morton, YouTube
Parallel Lives, YouTube
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