Daydreaming/Imagination/Memory and relation to environment

[Persej]

I think that the next two articles are also a very good description of MD.

Escaping the fantasy
By Terry James Clark

Do you have an imaginary world inside your head ? As youngsters most of us had imaginary friends but naturally this stops once you grow up right ? Wrong! – The reality of most people’s lives is slow, difficult and painful the truth is, and it doesn’t matter whether you are a struggling laborer or a Billionaire tycoon, there is a void that exists in all of us. Some try fill this void with drugs and alcohol, some with sex, some with video games; however there is a growing percentage of the population who fill this void with imaginary worlds. The official name for this phenomenon is called Maladaptive – daydreaming and if you don’t learn to get control of it, it can ruin your life, here is the Wikipedia explanation…

“Maladaptive daydreaming or excessive daydreaming is a psychological concept used to describe an extensive fantasy activity that replaces human interaction and/or interferes with academic, interpersonal, or vocational functioning” Everybody daydreams, usually just for a few moments ,, however there are some people who create elaborate fantasy worlds inside their heads and can spend hours simply daydreaming. These fantasies are often comparable to a complete novel or movie. Many have more than one fantasy in their mind, each with its own characters, setting, plots, etc. Maladaptive daydreamers may become emotionally attached to their characters as well, though they know the characters are not real”

From what I have seen these escapist fantasies manifest in different ways, for some it is a recurring fantasy about a particular situation this may be riding a motorcycle, going to war, being involved in some particular line of work, fighting an enemy – verbally or physically or living somewhere different. For others it is a full and expansive fantasy world with heroes, villains, love interests, full time characters, part time characters, tragedies, celebrations and so on, for some it even goes as far as creating extensive “back stories” that may go back several decades to the time that a character was born or some incident that happened in their lives. Others illustrate their fantasy worlds in artwork or by writing stories or both, and they will often go to great lengths to keep these illustrations hidden. However the fantasy may manifest itself it almost always provides comfort and relief and for this reason retreating into these fantasies can become very, very, very addictive, so much so that it can stop you from actually having a life for real.

This is particularly the case if you are someone who has created an actual world inside your head rather that just a casual daydreamer. It probably started with a subject, a person, a location or a situation that you took an interest in- am I right ? Then it became something that consumed much of your thought process, you more than likely then went through a period of depression, I sure did, but then as time went by you learned to arrange these thoughts into a cogent and functional mental landscape, this landscape brought order, comfort and even a superficial happiness, however it is also exhausting, massively time consuming and ultimately you know full well that it is only making you weaker.

As your fantasy world grows bigger and more powerful, you only grow weaker, I cannot stress this enough, I know it’s painful to read this but I beg of you to keep reading because I want to help set you free from this prison that is keeping you from experiencing life. I lived in a large fantasy world for over fifteen years, I started tailoring everything to fit in with it, one by one I lost many of my friends because I would prefer to stay home in my fantasy land rather than actually go out and have real experiences, good or bad. It didn’t take much to trigger it, a piece of music, a film, a childhood memory, a photograph almost anything. Sometimes I would be trying to revise for a test and then suddenly the urge to retreat would come on very strongly, id tell myself Ok just a couple of minutes in fantasy land and then back to work, before I knew what had happened six hours had passed and I had wasted my day!

What you must understand is that the urge to retreat into your fantasy world generally does not diminish over time quite the opposite in fact, it becomes more powerful, more pervasive, harder to resist and as time goes by you only get more dependent on it as it starts to become a part of who you are and you simply can’t imagine life without it.

If you have seen the movie “Drop dead Fred”, then you will understand the thinking behind this. The people within our fantasy worlds often become close friends they may even be people that you feel love for because they are always there for you, you wouldn’t kill your friends would you? Well in this instance you need to kill off your friends or they are going to kill you! They are going to consume endless amounts of your time because no matter how much attention you give them they will only demand more, they are completely insatiable. As you waste dozens of hours a week and hundreds of hours a year within your world, nothing is actually accomplished what you are doing is no different than what a Heroin addict or an alcoholic does when they consume their products, the only difference is that your drug of choice is mental self pacification, procrastination and an addiction to nostalgia and comfort.

You need to start seeing this for the threat to your long term wellbeing and happiness that it really is, a well developed fantasy landscape will consume most of your time, energy and creativity it has to be maintained, improved and constantly added to and so consciously or un; much of your best efforts and the biggest chunk of your time will generally go towards this.

Now there are those who will staunchly defend their fantasy worlds, they will say so what, life sucks just turn on the news for proof, better to live in fantasy land where there is no risk of being hurt, well you’ll get no argument from me that the world is seriously screwed up right now but that’s all the more reason to get in there and start trying to make things better- is it difficult ? You bet! Is there danger and uncertainty ? Around every corner! But just remember this, NO RISK – NO REWARD! It may very well feel safe and comforting to live in a fantasy world but you are actually dying a slow and miserable death, you are not learning anything, you are not getting stronger, you are simply fortifying an illusion in order to forget about the emptiness inside, it’s like that Bruce Willis movie “Surrogates” where people are sat in chairs wearing virtual reality headsets believing that they are rock stars or astronauts.

Fantasy land has held you for long enough, it’s time to leave this hopeless and self defeating place, a place where you cannot have any real adventures, where you can’t form any real memories, or friendships, a place where you ultimately only get weaker and more unhappy every day.

I’m going to show you how to take back and control of your life, I want to convince you once and for all that real life is so much better and more empowering than make believe, and with it encourage you to take the first steps towards your reemergence back into the world, are ready ? Then let’s get back out there!

Why it’s a terrible idea to live in a make believe world

When you live in a make believe fantasy world, you are a spectator, a commentator that’s all you can be; you watch other people, real or not, have adventures, you watch other people have revelations, and learn and grow – YOU accomplish nothing. You might have created this world and even control it, but as badly as you might want to you can’t take part in it, so it doesn’t matter how perfect it is all you can do is watch and pretend. Over time this will create immense frustration and dissatisfaction, there is no closure, there is no contact, there is no access, there is no payoff and there is no reciprocation, it’s just an endless daydream that contributes nothing even remotely tangible to your life.

After enough time all you will see is the bad in the world and this will only reinforce your mistaken belief that you are better off living make believe, this will only make you even more ill equipped to handle life in the real world, it then becomes a vicious circle, the worse things get the deeper you retreat, the deeper you retreat the worse things get. Bear in mind the longer this goes on the harder it’s going to be to break out of.

There may be times when you almost convince yourself that your fantasies are true and you go to bed feeling relatively happy, but when you wake up the next day you must start the “convincing process” all over again and this is where much of your efforts for the day will go, often to the detriment of doing anything that might actually help you genuinely improve your situation.

Go outside, look up at the sky, smell the flowers, listen to the sound of the rain, see the stars, listen to the birds singing, take up a hobby, get a girlfriend, or a boyfriend if you’re a woman, study the bible, study the cosmos, build up a large music collection, save up and take a holiday to someplace you’ve always wanted to go, paint a portrait, go and visit the seaside, yes it is true that there is untold ugliness in the world but there is also breathtaking beauty and its time that you started becoming a part of the world, it’s not going to come to you, you must seek it and when you do you will soon discover that fantasy simply cannot compete with reality!

The damage that it can do

Look at it like this, let’s say that you spend an average of four hours a day in “LA-LA land”, which is actually a fairly conservative estimate most daydreamers spend much more time than this, that’s 28 hours a week, over a month that’s 112 hours lost, and over the course of a year that’s 1344 hours lost! Let’s say that you live another 50 years and you are unable to break the habit, that’s 67,200 hours or seven and a half years lost – seven years spent daydreaming, and for what! Just think how good you could have gotten at Karate, or portrait painting, or playing a musical instrument or some other constructive thing that you could have put your mind to during that time instead of wasting it propping up a fantasy.

Now the catch is that these things take discipline, struggle, strife and dedication but in return you will receive genuine satisfaction and fulfillment and with it your soul will be fed and you will begin to feel much, much better within yourself, you will then look to expand to new horizons and this will empower you even more and over time you will find that you no longer need your fantasy world, you have found life, you have escaped your miserable and oppressive cage and you are not going back!

Why people run from reality

Reality is slow, difficult and at times painful. Success is often a slow and progressive transition rather than a sudden and glorious event; there are occasional moments of happiness but most of the time its grind and struggle and persistence that gets things done. Turn on the mainstream media however and all you will hear about are “overnight success stories” Rock star’s, millionaires, billionaires, rap stars, sports stars, now as it turns out these “overnight success” stories are often some of the unhappiest and most angst ridden people out there, many of them had to do terrible things in order to achieve their fame and fortune, and even those who did it honestly are constantly living in fear that one day it may all be taken away, just look at the amount of Satanism in Hollywood and you will see what I mean. Spending all day watching this kind of thing is enough to make even the happiest person feel, inadequate, inferior and out of their league. That is precisely what this stuff is tailor made to do, it’s real simple, if you feel terrible about yourself then you can be sold a solution, whether it’s a product, a lifestyle or a political ideology. Your first step to recovery is to unplug from the mainstream media matrix, the movies, the television, the advertisements don’t walk – RUN. Breaking free from the programming is a critical part of you getting better, I cannot stress this enough, your life is in danger if you don’t start the breakaway process now, you will only get sicker until eventually you will get so sick that you will die, or have a nervous breakdown and end up in a psychiatric hospital.

Look at the amount of famous people who end up in drug clinics or are addicted to anti depressants or shopping or any one of a thousand other addictions. The truth is most people simply don’t know how to live with themselves, what I mean by that is they can’t function without some kind of distraction, whether its drugs, television, internet, computer games, shopping, food, sex, movies, travel or in your case retreating to a fantasy world! Standing tall and facing reality takes nerves of steel and a will of iron, most people can’t do it, that’s why there is so much misery and failure in the world, I’m not saying that you should never, ever, ever have any distractions, a bit of time out every now and then to do something frivolous and silly is essential to keep ones peace of mind. However, you must learn to recognize when your “frivolous time outs are becoming so frequent that they become a threat to you actually doing anything productive” because once this happens it’s no longer a frivolous hobby but a dangerous addiction that will eat into all aspects of your life and will eventually take you down! Stop running from reality, I know exactly how you feel! Fantasy beckons you, the television beckons you, computer games beckon you, drugs, alcohol, sex, porn, cigarettes and an almost countless array of possible addictions whisper in your ears constantly, they make you promises of contentment, empowerment and protection from the “cold hard world”. However in the long run your world only becomes colder and more lonely and it only gets more and more difficult to gain satisfaction from your addiction until eventually your fix no longer works at all and you are left powerless, lost and without hope once people fall into this state it usually goes one of two ways, they either look for another addiction to fill the void and then stick with that until they hit the wall and then the cycle starts all over again, or they will put a rope around their neck and jump from the highest tree they can find! I’m not going to let that happen to you!

Beginning the transition

So you have an out of control fantasy world in your head that beckons you at almost every turn, you listen to music, try to study or work or sit in silence for more than a minute and it starts calling your name and you just have to go to it! Well rule number one for escaping fantasy land is this; you need something to replace it with, and I’m not talking about another addiction. You must ask yourself some difficult and maybe even painful questions, the first one being what am I running from? People don’t retreat into fantasy worlds because they are happy and content with their lives, they do it because they feel powerless, frustrated and miserable and so that is why this mental escape has been conjured up it is a way to forget, to feel in control, to feel accepted or loved or empowered, one person I met with the disorder had never had a girlfriend, and never felt popular and so he created this world in which he was popular and rich and happily married and everything was perfect, and I have talked to many others with similar stories. It usually centers around one or sometimes all of the following things…

1) A desire to escape an unsatisfactory environment.
2) A need to create something that they always wanted but never had.
3) A strong desire to feel in control.
4) Frustration at not being able to do something that they desperately want to do.
5) Difficulty in interacting with the world and feeling inferior or confused.
6) An intense nostalgia and longing for the past (usually caused by one of the other factors)

What has lead you to seek fantasy over reality? Find an (honest) answer to this question and then find a way (a real way that is not based on addiction of any kind) to jump over these hurdles and you will solve your problem once and for all.

Remember what I said about reality being slow and painful and requiring strength and motivation in order to make progress well it is what it is and if you want to change things for the better you will need to go through the pain barrier and get a grip on reality. The same mindset is at work when you exercise, you do your reps it burns and hurts like you can’t believe but once you’ve finished you feel good, you have a feeling of wellbeing and achievement and bit by bit you become noticeably stronger. Apply this same process to your drive to escape fantasy land and you will be out in no time!

So let’s say that you spend an average of five hours a day in your fantasy world, I want you to really make a commitment to cut that in half over the next month, whatever the “triggers” you need to start eliminating them if its certain movies, or pieces of music you need to avoid them, particularly when you are alone. You have probably heard this already but you have got to dig deep and find the discipline to pull back when the fantasy takes hold, it really can come out of nowhere – for some reason I would often get it while watching documentaries, my imagination would come crawling out of the woodwork and start conjuring up a story that would steal hours or even days of my time.

The next thing is that you need to choose your reality carefully, reality often is hard but that doesn’t mean that you should unnecessarily put yourself in demoralizing and unpleasant situations that will only drive you back into the strangling arms of your fantasy, look for situations that are favourable to you and will build your confidence, avoid ones that put you at a great disadvantage, remember you are trying to empower yourself and become a participator instead of a spectator don’t walk into situations that reinforce your feelings of being powerless!

Start to wean yourself away from fantasy land to the point where you only go there maybe once a day and for no more than one hour, then look to cut it down to once a week, once every two weeks, once a month and before you know it you won’t even think about it anymore. I would recommend looking at testimonials about how drug addicts successfully escaped their addiction, because what you are going through is very much the same thing, you are in bondage to your mind and it’s going to be a war to break free and stay free and you need to start treating it as such.

You need to be aware that these fantasies are parasites and you are their host, they will fight for their survival, they will try to convince you that you cannot live without them and the longer you allow them to stick around the deeper their claws are going to dig into your flesh. I believe perhaps the biggest hurdle for those with this condition is finding the will to do away with and keep away this imaginary world, as stated it is not unusual for maladaptive daydreamers to feel a deep affection and admiration for the characters in their stories, often these fantasies start during teenage years or even early childhood and therefore the characters who inhabit our fantasy worlds will have grown up and evolved with us, of course the reason for this is because they are us! They are basically us as we would like to be, doing the things we would like to do, looking as we would like to look, living in whatever place, time and situation that we would ideally like to live. On top of all of this they are there for us 24/7/365 like no flesh and blood human being ever could be; they know exactly how to comfort us and pretty much what we are thinking at all times and because we have total control over them we can tweak them, in order to make them perfect.

But you see it just doesn’t matter how perfect we make them because once the day is done we realize that they are just empty holograms, just voices ringing in our heads – making us false promises of comfort, security and happiness but slowly draining our life force and day by day robbing us of our time, energy and potential. They may be there for us 24/7 but deep down we know the truth, IT’S NOT REAL! And the deeper you try to retreat into your fantasy land in order to find comfort and safety, the more painfully obvious this becomes and the more empty and depressed you begin to feel.

Living in a fantasy world is a form of unrequited love, unrequited love is desperately lusting after, longing for and ultimately worshipping something that you don’t have. Unrequited love is torture; it may offer you fleeting interludes of superficial happiness but it inevitably leads to immense frustration, depression, low self esteem, social retreat, isolation, anger, cynicism and potentially even suicide.

This unrequited love maybe for a particular person or a facsimile of a person that you admire, it may be for a particular bygone era or year that harks back to a happier time in your life, for a more exotic location or a group of close friends, or job that you wish you were doing or it may be a combination of all these things or something I have not even thought of. The reasons that people retreat are often complex, but don’t waste your life trying to figure out the answers through a fantasy, you can only find the answers by putting on your armour and joining the battle called life.

The real thing is difficult but it’s so much more rewarding and it feeds your soul, whereas as living in make believe land only drains your soul and energy. When you give up the fantasy you will also find that you have so much more time, creativity, generosity, patience, curiosity and enthusiasm. Maladaptive daydreaming by its very nature alienates you from the world, it forces you to push everyone away so that you can be alone in your daydreams, it consumes you in order to feed itself. Instead of gaining your power by reaching out into the world and grabbing it, you reach inwards, it’s like trying to get your strength, focus and enthusiasm for life by permanently staring at a photograph – desperately willing the photo to jump off the page and become real, it’s just not going to happen – you’re going to become more frustrated, more bitter, more mentally exhausted and less able to deal with life.

I have found the use of some Nootropics to be of great assistance in keeping my mind sharp and keeping my motivation levels high enough to avoid drifting off to places that are very bad for me. I believe you also need to put your faith in Jesus, he is the only one who can truly comfort and rescue you, without his help you will just keep slipping and sliding from one addiction to another.

It feels good to finally talk about this, thank you for listening.

Terry Clarke

Can Nootropics help with maladaptive daydreaming - Condor-Pacific

condor-pacific.com

 

[Persej]

The dangers of maladaptive daydreaming
By Terry James Clark

If you don’t know what maladaptive daydreaming is please see my first article “escaping the fantasy” which outlines the problem, how it often manifests and why it is a serious threat that must be vanquished at all costs and not an artistic expression to be embraced! The purpose of this article is to extol the grave long term consequences of living in a fantasy world, why it’s virtually impossible to keep it under control and most importantly how to rid yourself of this parasite once and for all!

Those who are new to M.D often see it as a pleasurable and entertaining escape from reality, but those of us who wasted years of our lives stuck in our daydreams know the extreme danger that it poses. Maladaptive daydreaming often starts as harmless escapism but will always grow into a raging and all consuming fire that will destroy your life.

Now at this point you may be saying to yourself, it’s no big deal I can keep it under control it’s just a fun hobby, I only do it when I’m alone or when I get a moment and I can leave any time I want. Yes this is how it starts; but very quickly it transitions from a frivolous escape to a complex and sprawling alternate world with dozens maybe even hundreds of characters, plots, sub plots, back stories, births, deaths, marriages, celebrations, tragedies, rivalries and what’s more you control it all!

What does that mean ? It means today you could be sunbathing on a beach, tomorrow you can go back to 1963 and put flowers in your hair and dance around a camp fire while smoking pot and the day after why not climb Everest and enjoy a glass of champagne when you reach the summit! My point being when you are engaged in these dreams your wish is your command, you can do what you want when you want, how you want. Now if you think that having that kind of control to travel not only anywhere you want on earth, but through time or even through space, to do whatever you want, to associate with whoever you want, to be friends with or be married to whoever you want, to put yourself on any concert stage or in any starring role in any movie, to have absolutely no limit on what is possible; if you seriously think that such “power” is not going to become addictive to the point of total enslavement and the ultimate flushing down the toilet of your real life, you are very much mistaken!

There is no such thing as part time maladaptive daydreaming. The very conditions that produce maladaptive daydreaming in the first place, such as frustration, loneliness, dissatisfaction, incongruity with the way you feel versus how your real life actually is, fear, shyness etc… all of these things virtually guarantee that once it gets started it will only become more powerful, more encompassing and more demanding, it is a process that is totally self reinforcing.

The more time you give to M.D the more it will demand of you; it will hijack every movie, every piece of music, every childhood memory, every journey, every photograph, every sight, every sound, every smell, every experience. These fantasies and the characters within them will become as much a part of you as the blood that runs through your veins. But it’s never enough; one fantasy just breads another fantasy and another and another, everything gets swept up in the daydream net. You will not be allowed one thought that does not in some way idolize or promote your fantasy, it’s a total hostile takeover almost like “thought cancer” if you will, invading every fibre of your being.

Your daydreams do not care one bit about you, in a way these fantasies are a living breathing thing and all it cares about is itself. It doesn’t care that you have to revise for a test, it doesn’t care that you have work to do or a business to run or people who depend on you, it doesn’t care that your house is about to be foreclosed on or that you could lose your job, it doesn’t care that you are becoming more socially isolated and less able to be around people with every passing day, it doesn’t care that you are falling further and further behind the people around you, it doesn’t care that its dragging you towards depression, bitterness and ruin, it doesn’t care that you will start having audible conversations with yourself in public, it doesn’t care that your attention span is being completely destroyed and that with enough time you won’t even be able to retain basic facts or maintain a conversation, it doesn’t care that your life is day by day going down the drain and you are not having any real experiences, you are not gaining any skills, you are not learning anything, you are not developing your talents, you are not fighting any battles or overcoming any obstacles – IT DOESNT CARE! All it cares about is that you continue to feed it until the day you die!

Let’s get something clear right now, MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING IS AN ADDICTION! – There are no if ands or buts about this, it’s an addiction and it’s as dangerous and destructive as any opiate or crack cocaine addiction, before we go any further lets quickly define what an addiction is…..

“An addiction is the repeated involvement with an activity that in the medium to long term brings negative and even detrimental consequences to the life of the addict. The activity is often done with the intent to relax, reward or escape. Despite the damage it does the addict finds him or herself powerless to cease performing this destructive activity”

In order to be classified as an addiction an activity must meet the following criteria…

• Significant time and energy habitually spent: Watching a movie once a week is not an addiction, however watching five movies a day in order to feed and/or inspire new fantasies is an addiction and will consume the lion’s share of your day. Listening to music for a couple of hours at the weekend is not an addiction but getting lost in a daydream while listening to music for five hours a day is an addiction and very counterproductive.
• Neglected or postponed activities: A Heroin addict will inject their product and zone out into what they call “peace” often for hours. As maladaptive daydreamers we don’t inject, we retreat, we board M.D airlines, take-off and land in fantasyland and we often don’t come back for several hours, however what we often don’t realize is that while we are gone time did not stand still, things that need to be done are postponed, deadlines get missed, goals fall by the wayside, opportunities pass us by, motivation disappears, things that we could do that may actually help us improve our lives don’t get done.
• Negative consequences: Addictions always end in first the degradation and then the total destruction of the addict. Addictions do not improve people, they surround, enslave and then kill them. An addiction keeps a person from achieving their true potential and holds them in a permanent child like state in which they have to keep going back to the destructive activity in order just to function; all the while the addict is becoming weaker, unhappier and less able to cope with life.

I have utter contempt for people who encourage maladaptive daydreamers to continue on in this very harmful cycle. M.D is deadly; it is not (I repeat, IT IS NOT) something to be embraced. It’s very, very dangerous because it is so extremely addictive and it doesn’t go away with time, quite the opposite – its stranglehold around your life only gets tighter and tighter with every passing day. It infects everything and it becomes a vicious circle, the more miserable your life gets the deeper you retreat and the deeper you retreat the more miserable your life gets, it’s a downward spiral of self destruction!

As is the case with all addictions the addict initially believes that they have it under control, that they can quit any time they want and that it’s not a big deal but as the addiction progresses it only becomes more difficult to escape long term, as the very thing that is killing you becomes a part of who you are. The characters in our fantasies become close and personal friends, they become our advisors, our therapists, our drinking buddies, we may even start to feel would could loosely be described as love for these characters. We come to depend on them and after enough time we despise being around real people and just want to live in our fantasies 24/7. Even when we really need to pay attention, like in a meeting or when we are receiving some important information we start drifting off. Suddenly you don’t want to be a part of the world anymore, you stop having goals, you lose all motivation and now you just want to sit in your pyjamas all day everyday living in make believe land!

Also because the human mind tends to be much more active at night M.D plays havoc with your sleeping patterns, we often stay up all night long just to fantasize, which makes it very difficult to get up at a sensible time, which could put your job at risk. Even if you are existing on a large trust fund and don’t need to work another day in your life, living in this way will still make you lethargic, irritable, depressed, intolerant, lazy, entitled, stupid, soft, risk averse and generally very unhappy.

We must also take into account just how big of a part nostalgia can play in your daydreams, I have spoken to a lot of people with this condition whose fantasies are set in the past, sometimes just a few years back sometimes many decades. Nostalgia is all about wistful longing for the good old days, that in truth were probably never that good. If you are looking back to a time in which you were still a child then what you are looking back at was a time when you had no responsibilities’ when everything was taken care of and nothing was expected of you and all you remember were the sunny days and the jelly and ice cream! If there really was a way for you to go back to that time as a grown up in which you had to pay bills and manage problems and deal with all of life’s burdens I promise you it would feel no different than it does here today. Don’t waste your time wallowing in nostalgia, it’s a fools mirage, it’s a sure fire sign that you are deeply unhappy with where you are in life and so now choose to reminisce about a past that almost certainly never existed in the way you remember it or imagine that it would have been.

You see our fantasies will often pick up on nostalgia because it’s a very convenient way to fuse a longing for the past, which exists in all people to one degree or another, with the daydreams. When nostalgia teams up with maladaptive daydreaming the results are lethal, suddenly there are all of the addictive qualities of M.D now crossed with the lies and fake comfort of nostalgia to create a kind of mental self pacification that is easily as addictive as any chemical substance.

It’s very important to note that these daydreams often speak to the very worst parts of us; they do not improve us or encourage us to work harder, on the contrary they inspire carnal lust which can easily lead to an additional pornography addiction, they encourage indulgence, narcissism, some daydreamers fantasize about killing, torturing or raping people. These daydreams also bring about extreme procrastination, indifference to others, living in the past, inflexibility in your routine (you don’t want to go anywhere or do anything that may get in the way of your daydreams) Some daydreamers take drugs or consume alcohol in order to enhance their fantasies and make them feel more real (again putting them at risk of further addictions)

You cannot sweep this condition under the carpet; you cannot lock it in a closet and pretend it doesn’t exist you have to destroy it; you have to burn it to the ground! There is no other solution; you cannot compromise with maladaptive daydreams, if you give them an inch, or even a nano- meter they will take everything you’ve got. These fantasies are not here to peacefully coexist with you and only occasionally chime in when they are requested, they are here to dominate, they are here to carry out “scorched earth”. Scorched earth is a military term that describes the total destruction of an enemies resources’ this includes burning down their crops, blowing up their dams, poisoning the water, destroying their power stations and reducing their homes to rubble, basically the complete decimation of an enemy so that the only thing they can do is give up and acquiesce to the demands of the invading force.

What are the demands of your daydreams ? – It’s simple; – “feed us” – give us all of your time, all of your energy, all of your hopes, all of your dreams, every thought you have, everything you see, every tune you listen to now belongs to us” Your life stops here, you will have no ambitions and no alternatives, everything will now be experienced through pictures in your head and imaginary conversations and that’s the way it is so get used to it! If these daydreams had a personality that is what they would say to you.

This is not something that you can play with, it’s like lighting a fire in a petrol refinery, all that is needed is the tiniest spark and the explosion and raging inferno that follows is inevitable. I used to think that I could keep it under control; I really believed that if I just daydreamed on a limited basis, kept my characters to a minimum and didn’t get carried away then I would be ok. What a foolish and naive assumption! You must get your head around this, once these daydreams are initiated they become a living, breathing entity and their first requirement is to procreate, to start putting down roots in order to make themselves more difficult to remove. After this comes reinforcements, more characters are needed, more stories and more plots. As our characters wonder through their world they will encounter other characters, make new friends, overcome challenges and evolve and we get to take “the journey” with them and this is what causes us to develop deep emotional bonds with these characters thus making it even harder to get rid of them.

Once the foundations have been established, your fantasy will continue to try and ensure its long term survival with themes, twists, subplots, flashbacks and it really is shocking just how well developed some of these characters can become – it’s almost like they are real people with fears, vulnerabilities and complex personalities! The fantasy will then dig in even deeper, music and movies often get their meaning by being associated with a memory, your fantasy will claim every movie and piece of music for itself thus creating an almost operant conditioned response, in other words when you hear that music or watch that movie it acts as an instant trigger and drags you straight into your daydream.

A maladaptive daydream is a constantly evolving soap opera, it doesn’t sit still, it can’t afford to – its survival is dependent on constant expansion and the total conquering of your mind. Compromise, moderation and reciprocity are not on the agenda, its food is your imagination, its triggers are your passions and its water is your time, your energy and ultimately your life. To all intents and purposes it’s a parasite and you are the host!

You need to start understanding just how powerful what you are dealing with really is, these fantasy’s will not allow you just to walk away, once they sink their teeth into you it can be very difficult to get free, so much so that a number of movies have been made on this subject. Drop dead Fred (1991) Vanilla sky (2001) Fight Club (1999) Surrogates (2009) The secret life of Walter Mitty (2013). The characters in all of these movies suffered from maladaptive daydreaming in one form or another, their imaginary worlds initially offered them comfort, companionship and escape but soon became a punishing and oppressive burden that stood in the way of them living a real life and finding any genuine satisfaction, however when they tried to put a stop to it their imaginary friends would not let them go without a fight! Eventually they all reached the same conclusion which was this – Even though real life is hard, in the long run it is so much better and more rewarding to live for real then to live in a make believe fantasy world.

Now the problem is whereas an alcoholic can simply throw out their liquor and go cold turkey for a week your problem exists in the space between your ears, it follows you everywhere and there is no escape, it’s like that alcoholic being locked in a basement full of booze and told “Ok, if you wanna quit, then quit!”

This is a war and if you want to escape your M.D shackles it’s time to start treating it as such. You want to reclaim your freedom and productivity and finally start living the life that you know you are capable of, your daydreams on the other hand want to keep you right where you are and eventually to reduce you to a homeless drifter wondering the streets mumbling to him/herself, just keep that in mind because that is the eventual destination if your fantasies have their way!

So what have we established so far ? Well; we have seen that maladaptive daydreaming provides the daydreamer with very vivid and immersive fantasies and that these fantasies allow the user to escape into a world where anything is possible and construct their lives exactly as they would like them to be. We have seen that because of this these daydreams become very, very, very (to the tenth power) addictive, so addictive in fact that real life (the one that counts) becomes an inconvenient chore and is essentially abandoned so that the daydreamer may live full time in a make believe world. As a consequence of this the daydreamer begins to fail miserably at everything, they lose friends, they are not able to make money, friendships or relationships that might have otherwise occurred are lost, motivation is destroyed, weakness and total acceptance of defeat and failure sets in and the only thing that exists is chasing and fulfilling the next fantasy.

At this point the daydreamer essentially becomes no different than a Heroin addict, ruined, resigned, completely broken and without hope, a total slave to their addiction. We have also seen that maladaptive daydreaming makes people more vulnerable to other addictions such as drugs and/or pornography as the daydreamer may use these things in order to enhance their fantasy. Addictions to music, movies, video games and television can also result as these things tend to make the fantasies more exciting when used in conjunction with our daydreams.

If all of that isn’t enough to convince you that M.D is very bad for you there is also this little ditty, Maladaptive daydreaming completely destroys your self esteem! Think about it; you are living in a make believe world with make believe friends, you are not having any real experiences, you are not acquiring any useful knowledge, you are not gaining any skills or having your personality tested in any way and as a side effect of these things your memory is getting worse and worse, your ability to be around real people is waning by the hour, your fantasy may consist of the entire universe but your real world is the four walls that you are stuck in and its getting smaller every day.

When you live through imaginary puppets, they are basically heightened versions of ourselves, these characters are us as we would like to be, they look how we would like to look, living in the way we would like to live and doing the things we would like to do, this being the case you will inevitably start hating yourself! Why? Because these characters will be placed on a pedestal, they will be given god like status, all of your best efforts go towards making them as brilliant and powerful and glorious as possible and now every time you look in the mirror you will be reminded of just how far you fall short! This in turn only causes you to run back to your fantasy, since this is now the only way you can get any validation, joy, self respect or control, but as you continue to drink the salty water of your daydreams it only causes you to become more thirsty and leaves you feeling even worse about yourself.

It’s what scientists refer to as an “inverse relationship”, the more powerful your fantasies become the weaker you get, the less you believe in yourself and the more you need to hide away from the world. A daydreamer friend of mine finally realized he needed help when his condition became so bad that he would not go out during the day anymore, for he had become terrified of actual human interactions, he would go to the 24 hour supermarket at midnight and just so he did not have to risk talking to a cashier he would use the automated checkout service.

M.D kills your ability to hold a conversation, for a number of reasons the primary one being that your brain is pretty much consumed with managing and maintaining fantasies, these fantasies don’t have to be logical or even cohesive and so the part of the brain that is responsible for adding numbers, or making witty and intelligent conversation or even following a conversation goes to sleep, which makes it very difficult to do these things even when you want to.

Another reason it becomes difficult to hold a conversion is because when you have your imaginary world to attend to you are not going to be interested in the real one! You are not going to be keeping abreast of current events or trends and this will make it exponentially harder to join in on discussions. Again this only drives you back to your fantasy under the mistaken belief that your characters are the only ones who understand you, which further alienates you from the world and as you may be figuring out by now, it’s a vicious circle!

So; I hope that so far I have clearly made the case to you that maladaptive daydreaming is not some beautiful artistic expression, as some very naive people claim, it’s not a cathartic coping mechanism, and it’s not a pacifistic form of mental self medication. What it is -, is an extremely dangerous and potentially life ending addiction that will usurp every area of your life and give you absolutely no quarter. It will destroy your self confidence, your time, your energy and pretty much any chance you have of actually doing anything that might genuinely improve your life, it will isolate you from your friends, your family and the world at large and reduce you to sitting in a room on your own talking to yourself, not a desirable situation! I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of being locked up in this prison, it’s time to go Shawshank Redemption, it’s time to escape!

Escape plan

You are in prison right now, a psychological maximum security prison with guards, cameras, dogs, walls 40 feet high, electrified fences, razor wire, armed sentries, helicopters and just to make it a bit more fun let’s say that this prison is surrounded by a minefield. Surely escape is impossible?

I have used this prison analogy because this is how you need to start treating these daydreams, they have you locked in a mental prison and until you escape you can forget about ever being able to live the life you want! There is no parole; if you don’t find a way to escape you are going to die in this prison, your jailors don’t want you to escape they are determined to keep you here for the rest of your life and they have considerable resources’ in order to do this therefore our escape plan requires precision. Even once we get over those walls and through that minefield, that’s just phase 1, our captors are going to mount an extensive operation to try and recapture us and bring us straight back. Once free we need to know where we are going to go and how we intend to stay free, we then need to go about completely changing our ways and altering our identity so that our pursuers will never find us and will simply give up, at that point we can consider ourselves free! As we have already clarified your fantasy is not simply going to get bored and leave you alone, you have to fight your way out.

It seems expression and communication is the only way to get rid of M.D this condition thrives because its victims often have a great deal of trouble expressing themselves in real life, they are either not as bold or confident as they would like to be, not as successful as they would like to be, not as good looking, not as clever, not as fill in the blank as they would like to be, this leads them to live in a world of their own choosing, where they can be exactly who they want to be. It seems the only way out of this conundrum is to let your frustrations be known, tell people how you feel, write it down, keep a diary of your struggles against M.D, write down all of the things that it keeps you from doing during an average day.

It’s imperative that you identify all of the triggers, the things that allow your fantasy to come on strong and get its arms around your throat, they must be clearly labelled and attacked, find alternatives, common triggers include the following things…

Music

Movies

Television

Childhood Memories

Photographs

Too much time alone

Stress

Loneliness

Boredom

Those are just some of the triggers that I am aware of, I’m sure there are many more but what consistently comes up again and again is Music. Listening to certain types of music alone is a big No, No! Make no mistake music brings about very potent feelings like few other things, music on its own can sweep you away to another world even when no daydreams are involved, so just imagine how powerful that effect becomes when it teams up with your fantasies! Don’t give it a chance!

Another common issue is spending too much time alone and this can be a tricky one to solve, but it can be done. Start asking yourself some serious questions, what interests me, how can I do it and involve other people in it? Remember you can be around other people and still be lonely; so don’t just get lost in the crowd as this is the fastest way to end up demoralized, and you can bet that your fantasy will be banging down the door trying to get in.

How can you put yourself in a situation in which you are in control, in the presence of others, feel respected, feel like you are making progress, are confident within your abilities and within yourself and feel optimistic about the future? I cannot answer these questions for you but if you are willing to take the time and effort to figure them out, you will render and this is a promise, you will render your daydreams irrelevant!

Escaping from “maladaptive prison” is a process; first you need to make the decision that you are sick and tired of living like this and you want a life, a real life! Second you need to really commit to that decision! You may have decided that you are walking away from your daydreams but rest assured, as sure as the sun will set, they are going to come after you! You will still have all of the triggers, all of the memories all of the feelings, your characters nagging you 24/7 – saying things like this… “just come back” “who are you trying to kid ?” “you need us” “we’ll never leave you alone, you might as well just give in” “think of all the good times we had” “nobody will ever love you, we are all you’ve got! And on and on it goes. The bad news is its going to be like this for up to 6 months, possibly more, you’ve got to find a way to hang on!

The first eight weeks will be horrendous, for us this is essentially our cold turkey or withdrawal phase. You can expect a very piercing sense of loneliness, temporary depression and emptiness. All the music, movies, memories and other things that used to turbo-charge your daydreams will now be nothing more than painful reminders of something that you still have feelings for but can no longer trust! Also when you return to reality you will quickly be confronted by just how far the world has moved on since you started daydreaming and how much catching up you have to do.

The characters that we had come to love so intensely will now become our enemies, they will still call out your name and tell you to come back but you know that to go back to them is to run into the arms of failure, misery, frustration, hopelessness, the total destruction of your potential and ultimately death, because this friends is the inevitable conclusion of long-term M.D. You are going to have to weather the storm, there is no easy way around these first months, what really helped me, besides trusting in Jesus, was watching documentaries about people battling drug addiction, it gave me something to relate to and when I felt depressed and tempted to let my mind go back to that deadly place I would log on to YouTube and pull up these documentaries.

Our daydreams are not unbeatable; we can reclaim our lives back from this debilitating disorder and there are many who have done it successfully and you can too. However you have to really want this because rest assured when you try to leave, your resolve will be tested and then some! These fantasies are extremely powerful; they occupy both the heart and the mind and they will not relinquish their grip easily. You cannot fight maladaptive daydreaming with brute force or willpower alone; you have to have an “escape plan” which involves something to replace it with.

If you want to feel like you are a part of the world, you must get involved in it, the world is not going to come to you, if you hide away it will have been like you were never even here. In the 1985 movie Back to the future the central Character “Marty Mcfly” finds himself stuck in 1955 with “Doc Brown”, his friend and mentor, he tells Doc that he is happy to spend a week in 1955, he will hang out, he will mingle and make friends, to which Doc petulantly responds “Marty, that is absolutely out of the question, you must not leave this house, you must not see anyone or talk to anyone, anything you do could have disastrous consequences on future events” – The obvious implication being that by hiding away he is invisible and has no effect on the world around him and it will be like he never even existed.

The same thing happens to you when you hide away here in 2019 or whatever date it happens to be when you discover this article, the world passes you by, nobody knows you exist and you only get older, weaker, more stupid, more bitter and less able to fix your life.

The very fact that you have sought out and are reading this article is an important step in the right direction, it shows that you have acknowledged that you have a serious problem and you want help. You can give yourself a pat on the back just for reading this far, but I’m afraid reading this article and not acting on it will do you no good, you must step back and take stock how your life is being methodically wrecked by your addiction.

A fantasy cannot bring you any real happiness or long term contentment, it cannot keep you warm at night, it isn’t going to put money in your pocket it’s not going to make you more intelligent or improve you in any way spiritually. The only things your daydreams have to offer are forced loneliness, building frustration from endless salivations and longings that will never be realized, social isolation, unrequited love, the total sapping of all hope for a better future, wasted time, decimated self esteem, poverty, ignorance, weakness, bitterness, a total inability to live in the now, dwelling on matters of little or no significance, countless missed opportunities, absolute enslavement to your mind, short-sightedness, loss of all ambition and motivation, a dependence on nostalgia and comfort that will destroy your ability to ever be present and happy in the real world, the idolization of people who may be evil, manipulative or morally reprehensible, further addictions, self hatred, anger, laziness, selfishness, compulsive behaviours, poor memory, destruction of your attention span, depression, self pity, entitlement, apathy and an inability to concentrate on even basic tasks. Now given that rather comprehensive list, I think it’s safe to say that it’s just not worth it!

Whether you have been enslaved by M.D for a year or for 20 years it’s not too late, you can turn this around but the longer it goes on the harder it’s going to be to break free. Now is the time; don’t put it off, everyday lost to M.D is another grain of sand in the hourglass of your time and potential. You are not garbage, God put you here for a reason and you have something to offer the world and we want it! So stop hiding and come out into the sun, you’ve been in the darkness for long enough!

The dangers of maladaptive daydreaming - Condor-Pacific

condor-pacific.com

 

[Adaryn]

Hi Persej, is maladaptive daydreaming something you're stuggling with personally?

 

[Persej]

Hi Persej, is maladaptive daydreaming something you're stuggling with personally?

Yes. I've read about dissociation in many places, but it was never described like this. This is how daydreaming really works. I know it because I was doing it since I was a child. I don't know why I started doing it, but I know that it was my way of making life more interesting. In the beginning I could have stopped it easily, but over time it became more and more addictive. And it destroyed my life, just like those articles say it will, if people continue doing it.

I was aware for several years about self-remembering, but that sounded too vague. What I actually needed to hear is what NOT to do, and that is what I finally found about now. Now it all makes sense. I was doing the anti-Work all my life!

I finally made some progress in reducing it last year, and then at one point I became aware of all the consequences of doing it, which devastates me. Reading the forum about MD I see that I am not the only one who experienced such catharsis. People are shocked because until recently nobody was even talking about this, so nobody was aware that it is a major problem. Hopefully the knowledge about this will spread and the younger generations will be warned about it and not fall into this trap.

 

[Persej]

Here is another personal account of MD:

I Lost Decades In A Daydream
Clara Casaflores

The term "maladaptive daydreaming" (often shortened to "MD") was coined by clinical psychologist Eli Somer, PhD. He was working closely with a group of child abuse survivors, and began noticing a pattern of obsessive dissociative daydreaming among several of his patients. They reported being intensely attracted to — even obsessed with — their vivid and engrossing dream worlds. Somer published these early findings in 2002, only to find himself gradually inundated with emails from people the world over, all claiming to suffer the same addiction. Since then, the term has slowly been gaining some traction, but MD still doesn't officially appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the go-to book the American Psychiatric Association uses to classify and diagnose mental disorders. Until last year — despite countless deep, dark Googling sessions — I’d never heard mention of it. As far as I knew, this habit was mine and mine alone.

My earliest memory of daydreaming obsessively and immersively is from when I was about 4 years old, an age when imagination is often a healthy playmate. In those days, I could regularly be seen racing around the wooden table in our dining room. I circled it endlessly, pausing every so often to grasp one of the four chairs and gaze out the window at nothing in particular. If you’d managed to catch a glimpse of me in action — a tall order, as even then I was highly secretive about my daydreaming — you’d have occasionally seen me dip into a corner and mouth one side of a mysterious conversation with the wall. Moments later, I’d be back at it — first walking, then running, as the record player blasted LPs loaned from the local library. The Motels. The Top Gun soundtrack. Chris de Burgh.

One day around that time, lost in a particularly engrossing fantasy, I slipped on the Saxony carpeting and smashed face-first into a brutally solid credenza. The inside of my left cheek split open, and I had to be rushed off to the hospital for some unwelcome stitching. There, the doctor on call asked me what I’d been doing that led to me having such a high-speed collision.

"Exercising," I’d answered.

I’ll always remember the nurse who presented me with a lollipop, knowing full well I couldn’t eat it. Still, I accepted the treat and went home with my parents, neither of whom knew the truth about what I’d been doing.

They couldn’t have known that I’d been interacting with a deep, intense, and all-encompassing fantasy world; one that provided me stability and a sense of connection; one within which I was immediately valued; one that would go on to define my life for decades to come. They couldn’t have known that when I looked at the paisley wallpaper, I could instantly conjure the faces of my favorite cartoon characters or actors and happily interact with them, or perform for them. As far as any adult observer could tell, I just liked running frantic laps to upbeat tunes.

Exercise was the excuse I continued to use until leaving home for university. For me, as for many MDers, pacing back and forth has always helped me disconnect from reality and sink more deeply into my imagination. But in order to keep my MD secret from those around me, I had to come up with an alternative explanation for that type of repetitive movement. As a teenager, while my parents watched television, I’d announce that I was going upstairs to work out. Once alone in my darkened bedroom, I’d pace between the walls, adding the occasional extra toe tap to give the impression of light aerobic activity on the floor below. Back and forth I’d go, keeping one eye on the staircase for any hint of a shadow from the first floor. Catching the outline of an approaching figure before they reached the landing gave me the control to manage what that person saw when they arrived on the second floor.

With earphones pressed firmly against my ears, I’d blast portions of two or three key trigger songs on repeat. These songs weren’t necessarily ones that I liked, but they featured particular chord progressions or crescendos that I’d use like film scores to sink further into my fictional reality.

In these scenarios, my bedroom had multiple levels, balconies, and access points. The story changed from day to day, but similar scenarios often repeated themselves. There might be a hostage situation, an awards show being prepped, or a high-intensity judo competition. Whatever the conjured moments, I always played a central role. All it took was privacy, darkness, and music for me to miraculously transform into a martial arts expert, to know precisely how to take down a perp, or to be surprised with an award for my outstanding cinematic achievements.

Sometimes, my fantasies tiptoed into bizarre territory, and I’d immerse myself in a storyline where I was being publicly tortured or humiliated while a few key people looked on, remarking at my bravery. I fantasized about being left at the altar in order to be comforted by more relevant characters. And so it went.

Recounting these private storylines here is only vaguely liberating. More than anything, I find it embarrassing. As with most addictive behaviors, maladaptive daydreaming highlights the basest and neediest parts of one’s character, and the fact that I’ve spent so many hours engaging in it makes me feel uneasy and ashamed. By this point, I’ve far surpassed Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours. If there’s grand master status in daydreaming, I’ve earned it. I’m a triple black belt in this shit.

So, why did I feel such a fierce need to escape my reality as a child? Unlike many other MDers, there’s no physical or sexual abuse in my past. And even though everything would have looked beautiful to an outsider — Laura Ashley dresses, ballet lessons — my private experience was one of internal conflict. In our house, love was directly tied to success, vulnerability was an embarrassment, and I regularly found myself playing the role of mediator between my fighting parents. As a child with a vibrant imagination, I must have first craved, then created my own world: one of automatic acceptance and the freedom to fail.

Growing older, I expected my little habit to taper off, to be replaced by real relationships, real excitement, real successes. Once I had freedom and control, I thought, my conjured dramas would pale in comparison to my daily activities. Alas, I was wrong. Time rolled on, and my daydreaming didn’t taper off. Rather, it became more personal, more hidden, and more intense. Every apartment I moved to — every bedroom, every empty hotel room, every car seat — was a place ripe with the opportunity to escape.

In my university years, I’d stay up late, just like any other student. Sometimes it was because I was drinking with friends, or studying for an exam, or chasing some oblivious boy — but more often than not, it was because I was in my room, letting my mind take me elsewhere, to a place where I’d already achieved the things I was just beginning to think about creating. After all, if you have access to a place in which you’ve accomplished your goals, why bother pursuing them in the real world?

In my gut, I knew all along that something was wrong with my behavior. I knew it wasn’t right for a young woman to willingly lock herself away, deadening her senses in favor of fabricated realities. More than anything, I knew it wasn’t healthy to blast my ears out with full-volume music for hours a day. (I needed the volume to be at its maximum, as any indication of outside noise could ruin my illusion.)

With the advent of the internet, I would occasionally search for something — anything — that could describe or explain my condition. Any search for "intense fantasizing," "daydream escapism," or "pacing with music" came up cold, which seemingly confirmed my little habit as a private quirk. I never came across the research that Dr. Somer had already begun, so I began to accept the fact that if I ever wanted to be done with fantasy, I’d have to go it alone. Too many journal pages were filled, hailing the beginning of a given week, month, or year as being the date I would stop daydreaming once and for all. But I could never keep my promise. I’m now 34 years old, and I’ve never really kicked the habit.

In 2016, I ventured to search online again. This time, though, something had changed. In a few quiet corners of the internet, a discussion had begun. References were being made to a condition — as yet unrecognized by the powers that be, but reported by thousands upon thousands of individuals. That condition was MD. I read first-person accounts of sufferers who reported being drawn to their alternate realities like a drug, with intricate daydreams taking up hours a day, every day. Everyone’s approach was different: Some got lost in soap opera storylines, some performed in front of famous Hollywood actors, some had successful alternative careers. Some could manage their lives despite the daydreaming, and others were completely lost inside it.

Reading other people’s accounts felt like slipping into subzero water. My limbs whirred with the combined emotions of relief, shame, and concern. Over the years, I’d wondered about the origin and seriousness of my problem, but the nectar of daily escape had been so sweet, and the addiction so comfortable, that I’d never truly wanted to peer into its darkest corners. After decades, all it took was a few paragraphs of external confirmation for me to recognize that my harmless little habit was likely a disorder shared by thousands worldwide. And as I saw my exact symptoms buzzing repeatedly across the screen before me, I had an instant longing to overcome it.

Tears welled up as, suddenly, I could feel the impact of the hours I’d lost. All at once, I felt the stark realization of every friendship and opportunity I’d missed out on by being trapped in my room, accessing false bliss. I began to recognize the pattern of loose connections and avoidant behavior that had governed my life up to that point: shunning deep relationships, bailing on professional opportunities, moving from town to town, and country to country, in search of some reality that might live up to the one I imagined. I’ve bailed early on fantastic parties to walk home in the snow, playing out the rest of the party in my mind instead living it. I’ve worn out 40-plus pairs of earphones, broken countless audio devices, and — in the days before the mp3 player and iPod — bought hundreds, even thousands, of dollars worth of batteries.

And yet, just as I might blame MD for holding me back, I must also credit it with giving me unnatural strength. This little trick of the mind offers me the ability to disconnect completely from the real world and return refreshed. I can slip on my earphones and create a false sense of connection, no matter how isolated I may be. As a result, I’ve been able to move to locations where I know nobody, can’t speak the language, and have no social network — and I’ve survived, in part, because of my access to a space of release and constructed connection. I’ve survived because, from a very young age, my worried mind figured out a way to soothe itself. As dysfunctional as this may be, and as much as I want to let this habit go, I have to give it some credit. Resilience has many faces.

After my online discovery, I made a promise to myself to tell certain friends what I’d been experiencing, and to quietly begin spreading word about an addictive behavior that my own experience convinces me is real. When trying to explain it, though, I continue to be met with misunderstanding.

"I do that!" some say gleefully. "I love to just zone out with a good song!"

I try to assure them, with a long, cold stare, that they probably don’t "do that." I try to tell them softly and carefully that that's akin to saying someone who enjoys a nice dinner understands compulsive eating disorders, or someone who likes the occasional vodka soda understands chronic alcoholism. Just because everybody daydreams, doesn’t mean that everyone has the experience of obsessive daydreaming. Unfortunately, as has already been reported, the attitude in the mental health community still seems to be: How can something that everybody does every day be disordered?

With positive voices like Dr. Somer's, and the online communities that are building around the condition, I'm feeling pretty optimistic that the mental health community will soon recognize MD as a disorder and list it in the DSM. And this would be such an important move, validating the experience of hundreds of thousands of MDers and motivating researchers to dive in and explore the world of obsessive daydreaming. For now, though, many MDers who seek treatment are still being told that their addiction to fantasy is just that — a fantasy.

As MDers, what we lose as a result of this activity is often invisible. We lose connections, motivation, and the drive to make things happen in the real world. Though many, like myself, are high-functioning addicts, our real-life ambitions nonetheless become dampened, and our dreams end up pulling us further and further away from our real aspirations. What happened to my bakery? What happened to my film career? What happened to my memoirs? These were all real-life ambitions that got sucked up into the ether of fantasy, never to return.

For now, I’m still an MDer, although I’m consciously trying to cut down. I don’t have access to counseling services where I live, so I’m using all the techniques I can to make myself accountable to reality. Sometimes, the tension gets too high, and I feel compelled to disappear, but when it happens, I try to keep notes of how much time I’ve lost. When I’m craving escape, I’ve found that smelling strong natural oils can sometimes help ground me; and I’m also trying to make unbreakable plans with people, and commit to solid deadlines. In this way, I hope to start achieving the things I want to achieve, before MD butts in to neutralize them. Lastly, I ended up with a brand new rescue dog, who is the ultimate antidote to the imaginary. A dog is always right there with you, keeping you in the room with a frank, contented stare.

It wasn’t until I heard others talking about their experiences that I really began dealing with my own problem, confronting my demons, and making real daily strides to improve. So, here and now, I’m trying to pass on the favor, so that some vibrant teenager, trapped in their bedroom, doesn’t waste as many hours as I did, and so that when they search online or seek help, there’s a big community waiting to catch them.

I Lost Decades In A Daydream

All it took was privacy, darkness, and music for me to miraculously transport to a deep, intense, and all-encompassing fantasy world. Until last year, I thought this habit was mine and mine alone.

www.buzzfeed.com

 

[Persej]

4 Ways Maladaptive Daydreaming Is Destructive
There’s daydreaming, and then there’s abandoning reality.
By Haley Cohen, Quinnipiac University

Everyone daydreams. You could be on a long car ride listening to music and pretending you’re in a music video or bored in class wishing you were with the squad on a beach. Usually these kinds of daydreams aren’t a problem, but what if they start interfering with daily life? What if you prefer to stay in your daydreams more often than you participate in reality? That’s where maladaptive daydreaming comes in.

Maladaptive daydreaming is a psychiatric condition that causes intense daydreaming and distracts those who have it from their real life. The daydreams stemming from this condition are often vivid and can last for hours or even days. There is no universal method for diagnosing maladaptive daydreaming and the condition is not listed in the DSM-5. Despite not being officially included in the list of mental disorders, maladaptive daydreaming is still very real and can have destructive effects. These are just four.

1. Difficulty Sleeping

One way that maladaptive daydreaming interferes with daily life is that it takes over your every thought so you can’t shut your brain down to sleep. Daydreams a lot of times have their own characters, plot, setting and other detailed, storylike features. A person’s ability to control their compulsion to daydream will determine how much the daydream interferes with essential functions, like sleeping, but maladaptive daydreamers have a hard time stopping themselves.

Maladaptive daydreamers can get so deep into a daydream they don’t realize they’ve wasted a whole day, and then by the time night falls, it’s not like they can just shut the dreaming off. Even if the people who are afflicted try to sleep, it’s almost too easy to put off a good night’s rest in exchange for continuing an ongoing daydream or coming up with a new one. It’s one scenario if you imagine situations you’d like to happen before you go to sleep, but entirely another if you physically cannot fall asleep because your daydreams are all-encompassing.

It’s a little ironic maladaptive daydreamers trade actual dreams that come from an REM sleep cycle for daydreams, but the desire for this swap makes more sense when you consider that daydreams can be controlled while regular dreams can’t. One of the reasons maladaptive daydreaming is quite addictive is that you can daydream about anything you want and control whatever happens. Living inside your own head seems appealing when you essentially create an entire world of your choosing.

Maladaptive daydreaming was once thought to be a form of schizophrenia or psychosis, but maladaptive daydreamers know what they’re imagining isn’t reality, so the condition isn’t consistent with psychosis. The condition is still damaging, however, because people with maladaptive daydreaming lose out on important activities, like sleeping, that we need to function properly.

2. Low Productivity Levels

People who have maladaptive daydreaming will spend hours and even days inside their daydreams, which makes for an unproductive lifestyle. They’ll readily abandon their real life responsibilities and activities to daydream. It’s easier than one might think to get caught up in a daydream and lose hours to days without realizing how much time is really going by.

In pretty much every work situation, whether it’s college or a day job, deadlines are a big part of life, and maladaptive daydreamers have a hard time meeting them. In order to meet deadlines, you need to be productive and to work every day or you’ll fall behind. Maladaptive daydreaming makes it extremely difficult to be productive in an ongoing way, so people with this condition will struggle in deadline-driven environments.

In extreme cases, they could lose their job or fall exponentially behind in school because of their inability to stop daydreaming. Maladaptive daydreaming is an escape from reality that feels incredible during the moment, but as soon as you return to reality all your responsibilities hit like a freight train.

Maladaptive daydreaming can be a vicious cycle; someone daydreams excessively to escape reality and the obligations that come with it, they spend days daydreaming, then they inevitably return to reality and find they’ve accomplished nothing in days. Dirty laundry piles up, deadlines aren’t met, etc. Being unproductive once in a while is no big deal, but if you’re constantly not handling your responsibilities and ignoring them to daydream, then there’s a problem.

3. Neglecting Interpersonal Relationships

Daydreaming doesn’t really work if anyone is directly interacting with you, so maladaptive daydreamers often prefer to be alone so they can daydream uninterrupted. There’s nothing wrong with needing some alone time, but with maladaptive daydreamers, being in solitude becomes all they want to do, and they isolate themselves a lot to do it.

Many make hand movements and facial expressions and might even whisper or talk during their daydreams, which gives them all the more reason to daydream alone. When daydreaming becomes the only activity you want to do, however, it can end up damaging interpersonal relationships with real people. People won’t understand why a maladaptive daydreamer always wants to be alone or why they seem uninterested in interacting.

Because maladaptive daydreamers often make up characters or use individuals they already know in their daydreams, it can replace face to face interaction and sever ties with real people. They can feel like they don’t need to see their friends or family in real life because they exist in their daydreams and those are more fulfilling anyway.

Being able to control interactions in their head might appeal to maladaptive daydreamers more than dealing with people in real life. The problem is that then they spend more time daydreaming than having conversations with anyone in reality and lose interpersonal connections as a result.

4. Neglecting Health

Not only will maladaptive daydreamers neglect sleep, their responsibilities and interpersonal relationships, but they also neglect their health. When all you’re doing is daydreaming all the time, it’s easy to forget to eat or move in a way that’s not just pacing around your room. I personally have maladaptive daydreaming, and there are plenty of days where I’ve completely forgotten to eat, only to end up binging at night when I finally stop daydreaming.

Sometimes it seems like pacing is all the exercise you need when daydreaming, but spending days on end in a daydream without any exercise is really unhealthy. Spending all your time inside your head makes you forget that you actually have a physical body.

Maladaptive daydreamers put almost every ounce of their energy and time into daydreaming, so taking care of their physical health is an afterthought. It’s also not mentally healthy to only think about fantasies instead of trying to strategize or make plans for your real life.

What To Do

It’s unclear what exactly causes maladaptive daydreaming, but it could be a result of comorbid mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, OCD and ADHD. Maladaptive daydreaming relieves anxiety caused by reality at least temporarily, so it makes sense that people with the condition may have anxiety as well.

As far as treatment goes, even though maladaptive daydreaming isn’t recognized as an official mental condition in the DSM-5, you can still get treatment for it if you talk to a psychiatrist. Most psychiatrists have most likely heard of the condition and can recommend medication or types of therapy to limit it.

It’s unlikely maladaptive daydreamers can get rid of their daydreams altogether because they are probably a deeply embedded coping mechanism, but by limiting maladaptive daydreaming, you can lead a much more productive and healthier lifestyle. I’ve learned to be more aware of when I daydream. I think of maladaptive daydreaming as a blessing and a curse because, while it means I have a vivid and especially creative imagination, it also interferes with real life. Looking at it this way has caused my condition to be much less destructive.

4 Ways Maladaptive Daydreaming is Destructive

There’s daydreaming, and then there’s abandoning reality.

studybreaks.com

 

[Kay Kim]

When I catch myself daydreaming, C's warnings helps me to stop that habit.

Session Date: July 16th 2016

A: Those who live in dreams give off the STS signature and allow anchoring of 4D negative energies.

Q: (L) Well, I suppose we know that "living in dreams" is dissociating... Is that correct?

A: Yes

Q: (Joe) It's not just dissociating. "Living in dreams" would also be believing in lies, not taking stock of the facts, and preferring instead an imaginary world.

A: Yes

Q: (Galatea) Not seeing yourself clearly. And others.

(L) Not seeing yourself and others clearly...
.......

(Joe) I would say you can notice it when you find yourself suddenly thinking in a particularly negative way or whatever... a kind of unusual thought pattern that is invasive and persistent...

A: Negative thoughts can be "dreams" too.

Q: (Joe) What they said before was that this kind of fantasyland dreaming about something that isn't objectively true, that seems to allow or anchor some other actual negative energy. So, your dream doesn't necessarily have to be negative.

A: It allows the insertion of what amounts to a feeding tube.

Q: (Andromeda) So basically it's like a wrong use of imagination, whether positive or negative, if you're not anchored in reality. It leaves an opening for something to attach.

(L) Okay, so somebody's dreaming and sending out the STS signal since they're living in la-la land. Then there's the insertion of this feeding tube, and what then happens? What is the mechanism?

A: It can activate subconscious programs and also utilize the connection to enhance physiological processes that excite those in the environment to interact in ways that enhance feeding.

Q: (Joe) Sounds like a feedback loop.

(L) So, say I'm in wishful thinking of some sort. I'm dreaming. Say I'm dreaming about winning the lottery. Or I could be thinking negative thoughts toward somebody. Either way, it's a drain. So I'm in this condition, and that allows an STS feeding tube to be anchored in me, which means basically there's an energetic connection between me and some kind of 4D STS forces. Then if I'm just dreaming or dissociating a little bit, the connection can accelerate that, make it worse. I can feel worse, or believe it harder or stronger. And then that can enhance physiological processes like brain chemistry, hormones, etc. And usually we get triggered to think things because of stuff we're not even always aware of. In the Wave, I used the example of a blue hat. A kid gets exposed to somebody abusive who's wearing a blue hat. They then always go into a state of fear when they see a person in a blue hat, but they don't even realize what's going on. They get triggered and have negative feelings toward that person and the person may be totally innocent and benevolent. But because of the blue-hat programming, the dissociated person acts negatively toward them and thus begins a negative dynamic. The other way would be somebody whose favorite relative always wore checkered shirts. So when they see checkered shirts, they always feel warm and fuzzy and are naturally attracted to the person wearing the checkered shirt, but they don't know why. They may feel very favorable toward a psychopath in a checkered shirt who takes them for everything they have or destroys them emotionally. In both cases, the initial beliefs about the other person or situation has no basis in reality. That could be a subconscious trigger for just the beginning - the opening - of the whole process. And then it will snowball...

(Joe) It's very similar to mind programming and the way people are going off all over the world today.

(L) Yes. People can be programmed to be antagonistic toward each other without even any secret government involvement. So basically, any person here in our community, this could happen to that person if they have such programs. And it is almost certain that everyone has programs of this sort that incline them to favor this thing and not favor that thing, all based on experiences of the past, most of which they cannot remember and which don’t apply at all to current experiences. That could then lead them into either la-la land, or very dark thoughts, very negative thoughts. That in itself creates an opening that allows this 4D STS energy in. The basic energy generated by the program is then souped up, accelerated and made ten times worse and the person falls into a pit of thinking that is out of control. And it can be negative thinking or it can be apparently positive, like thinking you are in love with the psychopath in the checkered shirt, or at least, the wrong person. A person might then automatically run programs that manipulate other people and set off their programs – either positively or negatively. Like if they think they are in love because a program has been triggered, they’ll send out “mating signals” which then trigger responses. And then they all start falling like dominoes. Or, they start thinking negative thoughts and act negatively in a more active way and cause all sorts of issues to develop. That's really creepy when you think about it.

(Data) That's what the C's said last October: be aware of invitations to express dissatisfaction.

(Joe) It sounds a lot like crowd mentality in a certain sense.

(Chu) Limbic resonance.

.......
(Galatea) I wanted to ask something. Since they mentioned dissociation and living in la-la land, where does that leave imagination and creativity? Or is that a whole different animal?

A: Whole different animal!

Q: (Galatea) So being imaginative is fine?

A: Yes

Session Date: August 14th 2016

A: Realizing one's blindness and ignorance can be shattering but with the breaking of the shell of illusion and delusion, one can be born into the light!

Q: (L) I noticed you used the words "illusion" and "delusion". What's the difference between an illusion and a delusion, aside from our normal dictionary definitions?

A: Illusion is mostly self-generated; delusion is mostly induced from without.

Q: (L) So, if you create fantasies in your own head and believe in them, you're living in an illusion. If you're programmed to believe wrong things or induced into something by life circumstances or other people's words or actions, that would be a delusion. Well, that's a little bit different I think than the dictionary definition. It's interesting to get their view of why they use different words.

 

[Persej]

(L) Okay, so somebody's dreaming and sending out the STS signal since they're living in la-la land. Then there's the insertion of this feeding tube, and what then happens? What is the mechanism?

A: It can activate subconscious programs and also utilize the connection to enhance physiological processes that excite those in the environment to interact in ways that enhance feeding.

Q: (Joe) Sounds like a feedback loop.

A very bizarre feedback loop! So a child could have some kind of trauma in his life, which makes him start dissociating. And that then creates the connection with the 4D STS which can "activate subconscious programs and also utilize the connection to enhance physiological processes that excite those in the environment to interact in ways that enhance feeding", which makes things even more miserable for the child, which then goes even more into the dissociation, which then creates even stronger connection with 4D STS energies, an so on...

And the only way out is to consciously stop dissociating. But the child will probably not do it because it is not aware of the consequences of his mental actions. In his mind that is only a play which makes him feel better. And the parents are probably not aware that the child is doing that so they will not say anything, even if they are aware of this phenomena, and most of them are not because nobody is talking about it.

 

[3DStudent]

Thanks for bumping this thread, Persej. I've been wondering to what extent this affects me. I thought initially it's not so bad, because I don't do it all the time, and it's more while doing other things. But I found that it's more than is healthy, because when doing menial tasks at work I will stop for some seconds and daydream. I think it helps to get sleep. When low on sleep, you are micro-dozing, and sort of dreaming in and out, anyways.

I guess you could make it a sort of game to catch yourself drifting away. Like the "Whack a Mole" game, you try to find the energy leak and then smash it. I find that daydreams can be of a sexual nature. I guess you could use a mantra like, "All you need is Love." to help with that.

It was something I did more in adolescence, where I'd take time to do nothing but daydream while lying in bed. But maybe I wasn't so creative, as I didn't really have too many characters, and video games sort of took the main force of dissociation for me.

I think it helps to pay attention to your breathing and feel your body. Make sure you're belly breathing. Thanks for the session Kay Kim, I recall that one now. I'm wondering what is the difference or where is the line between imagination and daydreaming?

 

[Persej]

I guess you could make it a sort of game to catch yourself drifting away. Like the "Whack a Mole" game, you try to find the energy leak and then smash it.

Yes. You can also call it "thinking with a hammer".
That is what I do now. Every time I catch myself drifting away I pull myself out. I look at it as an exercise. And when I do it actively during the day, I also become aware of it during my sleep. It may sound funny, but I feel like I also daydream during my sleep. So I would agree that daydreaming also affects the sleep.

I'm wondering what is the difference or where is the line between imagination and daydreaming?

I think that you use imagination to create something, but daydreaming lacks that creative aspect. You daydream because it just feels good.

BTW, I saw a clip today about Midway movie, where it is presented how the movie is just a shallow spectacle, offering no emotional connection with the main characters. And while watching it, I realized that that is what my daydreams consisted off. Instead of having the real world experiences, I just had shallow spectacles in my head that entertained basic centers in my mind that released dopamine or whatever.

 

[3DStudent]

I think that you use imagination to create something, but daydreaming lacks that creative aspect. You daydream because it just feels good.

Thanks, I think I get it. Imagination has a goal and is sort of the brainstorming phase, where daydreams are just draining mental and emotional energy.

 

[Persej]

I grabbed a couple of Laura's quotes about dissociation from another thread:

For me, the important thing about this book was the fact that, even though the discussion was framed in terms of extremes, there were many clues as to how the ordinary, healthy person can be completely off in their thinking because one or another part of the brain is allowed to hold sway over the rest. I think the most important take-home message in this book is the extreme importance of the good functioning of the frontal cortex and ATTENTION to reality. Various issues that interfere with this process, or conversely, can enhance it, are also discussed.

There is one thing that comes up repeatedly in Samenow that bears mentioning and that is the danger of dissociating into thinking errors. This comes up again and again in another book I just finished: "Whoever Fights Monsters" by Robert K. Ressler, the famous FBI criminal profiler. It seems that "fantasizing" can be deadly in more ways than we can imagine and highlights the Cs statement that the achilles heel of STS is "Wishful Thinking."

Never before has this been so clear to me, and exactly how it works. So anybody who has problems with dissociation into wishful thinking about ANYTHING should read Samenow and Ressler.

It's not that imagination is the bad thing but it's the "taking of the self into a fantasy world" that is damaging to the psyche. This is also discussed in some detail in Stout's "The Myth of Sanity".

There is so much in there that is applicable and helpful to everyone. And one of the major take-home messages is that dissociation and addiction to ANYTHING is not about being a victim, it's about power and control. Understanding that, naming it, is the first step to dealing with it. Once you understand that, if you want to continue to think you are a good person, you have to eliminate those behaviors. They are harmful and unsavory for very different reasons than system 2 has rationalized them to be.

The extent to which those thinking errors can grow, especially when they involve sexual fantasies, is laid bare in Ressler's "Whoever Fights Monsters". I think this one is pretty important too because it shows where things can end up if the brakes are not applied and the person changes their thinking and stops dissociating.

I guess that, in a sense, we all have somewhat "criminal minds" until we wake up and understand our machine and take charge of it. These books enable us to become the master of the coach instead of just allowing it to be driven willy nilly by a drunk driver and a poorly disciplined horse!

And that is one of the reasons I wanted everyone to read these books: we all need to really SEE ourselves, past, present, future, and learn just how far some of those thought patterns can go if we don't see them for what they are and nip them in the bud. More than that, to see how our own thinking betrays us and contributes to our own unhappiness and alienation.

I must say that I was one of those people who couldn't quite get it until I found those descriptions of maladaptive daydreaming. Only now I can see the true "terror of the situation" in myself.

 

[Persej]

When people talk about dissociation, they usually talk about visual fantasies, but in the book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, the author talks about two types of dissociation, left-brain and right-brain dissociation:

Left-Brain Dissociation

When the obsessive/compulsive flight type is not doing, she is worrying and planning about doing. She becomes what John Bradshaw calls a Human Doing [as opposed to a Human Being.] Obsessiveness is left-brain dissociation, as opposed to the classic right-brain dissociation of the freeze type described below.

Left-brain dissociation is using constant thinking to distract yourself from underlying abandonment pain. When thinking is worrying, it is as if underlying fear wafts up and taints the thinking process. Moreover, if compulsivity is hurrying to stay one step ahead of your repressed pain, obsessing is worrying to stay one level above underlying pain.

Flight types are also prone to becoming addicted to their own adrenalin. Some recklessly and regularly pursue risky and dangerous activities to jumpstart an adrenalin-high. Flight types are also susceptible to the process addictions of workaholism and busy-holism. To keep these processes humming, they can deteriorate into stimulating substance addictions.

(...)

Left-brain dissociation is obsessiveness. Commonly, this ranges in severity from dwelling on a singular worry… to repetitively cycling through a list of worries… to panicky drasticizing and catastrophizing. This type of dissociation from internal pain strands the survivor in unhelpful ruminations about issues that are unrelated or minimally related to the true nature of her suffering.

Left-brain dissociation can also be a process of trivialization. This occurs when the survivor over-focuses on superficial external concerns to distract himself from upsetting inner experience. Becoming overly preoccupied with sports statistics or the lives of Hollywood celebrities are common examples of this. This is not, of course, to say that such interests are not worthwhile when they are pursued with moderation.

Finally, left-brain dissociation can also be seen in intellectualization. This is what the novelist, Ian McEwan, called the “high-walled fortress of focused thinking”. Some survivors over-rely on reasoning and lofty dialogue to protect themselves from the potentially messy and painful world of feeling. Even the highest levels of creative thinking can deteriorate into an obsessive defense when they are excessively engaged.

Right-Brain Dissociation

It is often the scapegoat or the most profoundly abandoned child, “the lost child”, who is forced to habituate to the freeze response. Not allowed to successfully employ fight, flight or fawn responses, the freeze type’s defenses develop around classical or right-brain dissociation. Dissociation allows the freeze type to disconnect from experiencing his abandonment pain, and protects him from risky social interactions - any of which might trigger feelings of being retraumatized.

If you are a freeze type, you may seek refuge and comfort by dissociating in prolonged bouts of sleep, daydreaming, wishing and right-brain-dominant activities like TV, online browsing and video games.

Freeze types sometimes have or appear to have Attention Deficit Disorder [ADD]. They often master the art of changing the internal channel whenever inner experience becomes uncomfortable. When they are especially traumatized or triggered, they may exhibit a schizoid-like detachment from ordinary reality. And in worst case scenarios, they can decompensate into a schizophrenic experience like the main character in the book, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.

(...)

Some freeze types that I have worked with seem to have significant periods of contentment with their isolation. I think they may be able to self-medicate by releasing the internal opioids that the animal brain is programmed to release when danger is so great that death seems imminent.

Internal opioid release is more accessible to freeze types because the freeze response has its own continuum that culminates with the collapse response. The collapse response is an extreme abandonment of consciousness. It appears to be an out-of-body experience that is the ultimate dissociation. It can sometimes be seen in prey animals that are about to be killed. I have seen nature films of small animals in the jaws of a predator that show it letting go so thoroughly that its death appears to be painless.

However, the opioid production that some freeze types have access to, only takes the survivor so far before its analgesic properties no longer function. Numbed out contentment then morphs into serious depression. This in turn can lead to addictive self-medicating with substances like alcohol, marijuana and narcotics. Alternatively, the freeze type can gravitate toward ever escalating regimens of anti-depressants and anxiolytics. I also suspect that some schizophrenics are extremely traumatized freeze types who dissociate so thoroughly that they cannot find their way back to reality.

I have used both types of dissociation, right-brain for visual type of dissociation and left-brain for analytical type of dissociation.

 

[duyunne]

I think I've had experience with MD as well. What I did however to break out of it was I started to illustrate and write scenes from the make belief world and I turned it into a concept for a movie or novel. I made it a tangible peace of my reality instead of some idea that continued to take space in my memory hard drive so to speak.

I also had a friend who was mired in MD too and what we did was we collaborated our ideas and essentially built the framework for an on going series. So this bizarre, kinda personal, kinda embarrassing little fantasyscape we both harboured, turned into some weird freak of nature that we could both identify as being wildly entertaining in the form of a web comic or cartoon. We even went as far as drawing the characters and some of the scenes and also went into great detail explaining various legends, mythos, histories, and even AI programmes and corporations.

What was funny was that once we meshed out a rough outline and summary, established the image of the characters etc, we both lost interest over time and the project just floats in limbo on Google Drive. These days we're both too busy with our day to day lives.

At the time, I didn't know anything about MD. It's interesting that we each found a method of basically dismantling the world and putting it on paper to move our personal energies into our waking lives.

 

[Maat]

Thanks, I think I get it. Imagination has a goal and is sort of the brainstorming phase, where daydreams are just draining mental and emotional energy.

However, here is what Aleta Edwards says about fantasy/daydreaming in Fear of the Abyss :

Well, fantasy is very important, and PCS types of people often have difficulty fantasizing. Fantasies can help us resolve difficulties, can inspire us, and can help us learn from generalized information without going through the exact experience. Fantasy also provides us with comfort, motivation, and inspiration.

It is a significant deprivation in life to have little or no fantasy life, as it helps us know ourselves better and gives us a safe time and place for real feelings without acting them out. Perhaps most importantly, fantasies let us know things about ourselves and our preferences, without having to change anything to gain this knowledge.


People who cannot generalize their experience and use fantasy often say that they can only learn by doing something or being in a specific situation. We are not around that long! It is important to know yourself well enough not to have to go through each experience to learn things. People who hide from aspects of themselves, and fear disliking who they are, tend to avoid fantasy. Some immediately judge the fantasy, and some feel too shamed to even let themselves want something, even in fantasy.



What do you fantasize or want to fantasize? Were you told daydreaming was a waste of time? I am telling you the opposite. Nothing besides remembering and paying attention to your dreams puts you more in touch with yourself, your wishes, and your fears like a good fantasy. Do you fantasize about getting an apology from people who were unkind? From your parents? This is not a waste of time - far from it. These fantasies can then lead us to some good, strong decisions in reality. You might not ever get that apology, but maybe the fantasy will lead you to conclude it is time to start healing and living the life you want.


Some people feel a deep sense of shame over their fantasies. Really, why shouldn’t you fantasize being President? Being an Olympic star? Being the boss of a large organization? I am not saying you should get stuck in fantasy, but that you should make friends with yours - with humor, compassion, strength, and insight.

Fantasy is helpful because it gives you the chance to look at both the good and not-so-good aspects of your traits, and lets you think about where the more negative traits might be appropriate.

I strongly encourage you to let your fantasies develop. They are so very important - to your goals, to your sense of humor, to so very many things. Sometimes we can fantasize something we really wish we could do, leave the fantasy, make the goal a bit more realistic, and then set out to do it. But in any case, don’t think that all of your thoughts have to be practical. What value is there in a human life without reflection, without wondering where we have been and where we wish to go? No matter what anyone has told you, I do hope you will become friends with your fantasies. You can then ask yourself why you might have those fantasies and use them to face your fears.