Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, Wherever you are in
Speaker 1: the world, it is so great to have you here.
Speaker 1: Back for another episode, as we, of course break down
Speaker 1: the psychology of your twenties. Today's episode was inspired by
Speaker 1: a listener who emailed me a few weeks back with
Speaker 1: a conundrum, and I'm going to start the episode by
Speaker 1: reading what they said. Hi, g Emma, I have a
Speaker 1: more rare but personal episode request that I would love
Speaker 1: for you to consider. Basically, my situation is that it
Speaker 1: feels like I've spent my whole life daydreaming about a
Speaker 1: better life rather than just living the one I have.
Speaker 1: I can get lost in these big dreams whilst I'm
Speaker 1: still awake, minutes passing by without me even realizing. I've
Speaker 1: created imaginary friends, imaginary enemies, pets, careers, scenarios, and I
Speaker 1: play them over and over again anytime I get the chance,
Speaker 1: I daydream. And it's getting to the point where I've
Speaker 1: lost too many hours in my life to count, probably
Speaker 1: more than four hours a day. What can you tell
Speaker 1: me about this? And am I the only one? As
Speaker 1: soon as I read this email, I knew I had
Speaker 1: to do an episode on maladaptive daydreaming because this listener
Speaker 1: is by no means alone. There are thousands millions of
Speaker 1: people going through the same thing, finding comfort in their
Speaker 1: imagination and their daydreams that you know, they can't find
Speaker 1: that comfort in the real world, spending hours thinking about
Speaker 1: their dream life and picturing it so intensely, but also
Speaker 1: struggling to make real life progress towards it or to
Speaker 1: be fully present in their day to day existence. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's surprising to say that this has become
Speaker 1: a lot more common, especially for people in their twenties,
Speaker 1: because of how uncertain this decade is, how uncertain the
Speaker 1: world is. Daydreaming offers a temporary release from the stress
Speaker 1: and from the choice overload, and from the confusion. As
Speaker 1: we'll get into, you know, the more lost, confused, anxious, disappointed,
Speaker 1: heartbroken maybe you feel, the more likely you are to daydream.
Speaker 1: And it's no surprise that this is common amongst this
Speaker 1: generation because we are so overwhelmed by getting it right,
Speaker 1: we are facing such intense pressure to be exceptional. Everything
Speaker 1: just feels so much harder for our age group as well.
Speaker 1: You know, who doesn't want to feel like they have
Speaker 1: an escape, and we all find a way to escape
Speaker 1: somehow through drinking, through I don't know, maybe drugs, through addiction,
Speaker 1: and daydreaming is also one of those ways. So let's
Speaker 1: talk our way through why that is. What are the
Speaker 1: basics of maladaptive daydreaming that you should probably know but
Speaker 1: maybe don't, How does it differ from just having a
Speaker 1: really immersive creative imagination or being a visual thinker, and
Speaker 1: what are the signs to look out for. I also
Speaker 1: to talk about the link between loneliness trauma over city anxiety,
Speaker 1: because daydreaming is actually a lot more complex than we think.
Speaker 1: There is this whole cycle that can explain what draws
Speaker 1: people into maladaptive daydreaming as a coping mechanism. But because
Speaker 1: it is such a private experience, it's so hard to
Speaker 1: actually get answers and to talk about it openly, and
Speaker 1: it's not really part of the discussion, but of course
Speaker 1: it really should be. I also want to talk about
Speaker 1: a really interesting theory that I came across that explains
Speaker 1: how we actually can turn daydreaming into a method to
Speaker 1: motivate and energize ourselves rather rather than as this form
Speaker 1: of escapism. How we can shift our imagination towards intentional visualization.
Speaker 1: When I came across this theory, I was like, this
Speaker 1: is incredible. This is remarkable. It's like scientific manifestation. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: So I really hope that you take something away from
Speaker 1: this episode. I hope you learn something about yourself. I
Speaker 1: hope you learn something about how to be a more
Speaker 1: kind of like powerful cognitive and mental being, taking that
Speaker 1: daydreaming element that sometimes you can be so negative, and
Speaker 1: turning it into something really positive. So I'm gonna stop
Speaker 1: rambling without further ado, Let's get into the psychology of
Speaker 1: maladaptive daydreaming. If you want to know whether you have
Speaker 1: a problem with maladaptive daydreaming, it is probably firstly best
Speaker 1: to know what it is and what distinguishes it from
Speaker 1: kind of aimlessly losing track of your thoughts from time
Speaker 1: to time. Well. Maladaptive daydreaming occurs when we spend a
Speaker 1: lot of our time during our days, weeks, and months
Speaker 1: daydreaming about the past, the future, making up these really
Speaker 1: vivid and complex plots that completely engulf us. The key
Speaker 1: word here is maladaptive. There is such a thing. It
Speaker 1: is healthy daydreaming. You know, some people would call it
Speaker 1: immersive daydreaming, where we zone out for a few minutes
Speaker 1: here and there, our brain kind of switches off and
Speaker 1: we get to like pop into our warm gewey imagination.
Speaker 1: That is totally healthy, it's totally normal. It's part of
Speaker 1: how our brain works. But the distinction is that those
Speaker 1: instances are quite brief, and they are often something that
Speaker 1: we can control. It is not as well where we
Speaker 1: spend most of our days. So there are a few
Speaker 1: components that really make maladaptive daydreaming stand out, and they
Speaker 1: put it in a league of its own. First of all,
Speaker 1: it interrupts your daily life and it pulls you away
Speaker 1: from everyday activities. You know, you could be doing your dishes,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly you are like absorbed by a daydream
Speaker 1: for like ten twenty minutes or even longer before you
Speaker 1: like come back down to earth and you're like, wait,
Speaker 1: twenty minutes has passed and I'm still kind of just
Speaker 1: aimlessly standing at the sink. The daydreaming also almost feels
Speaker 1: preferable to your real life. It's addictive in a way,
Speaker 1: so it pulls you back in again and again and again.
Speaker 1: Some people have actually described to me as almost being
Speaker 1: like a hobby like there, it's something that they prioritize
Speaker 1: that they're like, you know, I'm not gonna go see
Speaker 1: my friends. I'm gonna deliberately stay up later. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get up from the couch because I
Speaker 1: just kind of want to sit here and daydream. I
Speaker 1: want to sit here and fantasize, like that's something that
Speaker 1: I plan for. The daydreams, as I said before, are
Speaker 1: often really vivid and compelling. It is like a whole
Speaker 1: almost movie series is happening in your brain. There are characters,
Speaker 1: there are plot lines, multiple plot lines, there are different
Speaker 1: settings that you could almost describe in detail. It's such
Speaker 1: a personal, private experience that it's really hard to get
Speaker 1: specific examples of what this looks like. But some people
Speaker 1: have really reported creating entire lives in their imagination where
Speaker 1: they run multiple successful businesses, they have homes in three states.
Speaker 1: They can describe this the love of their life that
Speaker 1: they have in their imagination. Then they can almost go
Speaker 1: into these like subplots, like they could tell you when
Speaker 1: they met that partner, what's inside their homes, what these
Speaker 1: homes look like. Because they spend so much time building
Speaker 1: out this world some people also, you know, they daydream
Speaker 1: about all the ways they could go back and change
Speaker 1: something in the past. They may also think about what
Speaker 1: it would be like to be famous, what it would
Speaker 1: be like to do something really heroic, and they have
Speaker 1: this like one instance, that they replay very intimate moments
Speaker 1: with a partner, shared ventures with a partner. What it
Speaker 1: would be like to have someone like that. You know,
Speaker 1: you could tell me almost like the smells, the sensations,
Speaker 1: the sounds of what this feels like, and all the
Speaker 1: while you could be sitting in front of me and
Speaker 1: have this entire highly different world playing out in your head.
Speaker 1: If you are actually someone who experiences, I really want
Speaker 1: to hear from you because it sounds so intriguing. Like
Speaker 1: all the reports that I was receiving in all the
Speaker 1: different case studies that I read and the people that
Speaker 1: I heard of, it was completely different for basically every
Speaker 1: single person. So please DM me if you have stories
Speaker 1: about this or what it feels like for you to
Speaker 1: kind of switch into your maladaptive daydreaming state. It's because
Speaker 1: of this very aspect actually how amazing it feels, and
Speaker 1: how personal and private and intimate, how specific an individual
Speaker 1: it is that it can be really easy to form
Speaker 1: an emotional attachment to our daydreams, even having like our
Speaker 1: favorites that we repeat over and over again like a
Speaker 1: favorite movie. With time, though we kind of realize that
Speaker 1: they aren't true, they may never be true, and because
Speaker 1: of how invested we've become, we feel we all really
Speaker 1: really disappointed. We feel crushed. We also start to feel
Speaker 1: like we have wasted all of this time. As that
Speaker 1: person said at the beginning, that we could have spent
Speaker 1: creating that reality. We've wasted all this time, that we
Speaker 1: could have spent being present, doing something about our dreams,
Speaker 1: but instead we have been stuck in this thought loop.
Speaker 1: Nothing has come from it. That time feels wasted. Even
Speaker 1: though it felt so nice, things are still the same,
Speaker 1: and that can make us really stressed and really desperate
Speaker 1: to find a way to stop, to just be present,
Speaker 1: to make our reality be just as good, even if,
Speaker 1: like specifically, we don't know how. And that is the
Speaker 1: curse of maladaptive daydreaming. It's like, here is our brain,
Speaker 1: and it's going to serve us up something that is
Speaker 1: so delicious and desirable and believable and perfect for us
Speaker 1: that we forget it's not real, and then when do
Speaker 1: there is this very long fall back to reality. It's
Speaker 1: something quite a few people report, like a day dreaming
Speaker 1: hangover or daydreaming guilt, kind of like when you, you know,
Speaker 1: you wake up from a really good dream and you
Speaker 1: try to like fall back asleep or you try to
Speaker 1: like relive it as soon as you wake up, but
Speaker 1: you know, eventually it just feels like it's moving further
Speaker 1: and further away. I remember being like twenty and I
Speaker 1: had this amazing dream about being on a holiday increase
Speaker 1: and I met this man and this amazing guy, and
Speaker 1: in my dream we had this like crazy well wind
Speaker 1: romance and we fell in love and it felt so amazing,
Speaker 1: and then we woke and then I woke up. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, did you just hear? I said, how? I said?
Speaker 1: We look? Yeah? I woke up. He's not real and
Speaker 1: it wasn't real. And the aftermath though, of trying to
Speaker 1: hold on to how real it did feel and longing
Speaker 1: in this sadness that is a dream hangover. And I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine feeling like that all the time from a
Speaker 1: day dream. So hopefully you kind of get the picture.
Speaker 1: It's a lot more complex than just you know, occasionally
Speaker 1: zoning out. But now for you know, more clinical perspectives
Speaker 1: and of the science attached to why this kind of happens.
Speaker 1: You know, researchers used to think that it was a
Speaker 1: type of like dissociative disorder where there was like a
Speaker 1: loss of connection between who we are, our thoughts, our feelings,
Speaker 1: and our surroundings and this pattern of I don't know,
Speaker 1: fantasy that was happening in our brain. There's also been
Speaker 1: like a real push actually in recent years, and it
Speaker 1: was just in the news last week to get maladaptive
Speaker 1: daydreaming listed as its own mental health disorder in the DSM,
Speaker 1: mainly because people are like, well, this is just so
Speaker 1: complex and destructive. We need really great minds on this.
Speaker 1: I need a diagnosis. But of course, if you know,
Speaker 1: like the clinical psychology community in the DSM, it is
Speaker 1: so hard to get new disorders considered. So as of
Speaker 1: right now, validaptive daydreaming is not a mental health disorder.
Speaker 1: It's still seen as quite rare or niche. But most
Speaker 1: professionals would actually say that that's because maladaptive daydreaming isn't
Speaker 1: so much a condition. It's a coping strategy, so it
Speaker 1: is not the root of our so called problem. It
Speaker 1: is a symptom of that, and it comes as a
Speaker 1: result of things like loneliness, trauma, general depression. It's a
Speaker 1: product of those previous experiences. But because it's seen as
Speaker 1: a symptom rather than as the origin or a condition,
Speaker 1: it actually means that no one is systematically measuring the
Speaker 1: prevalence in society. There's not many people doing in depth research.
Speaker 1: There is a group that is very dedicated to this,
Speaker 1: and I did find some studies from them over the
Speaker 1: past two years that really wanted to look at the
Speaker 1: prevalence of maladaptive daydreaming. So there was one study in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two that said about two point five percent
Speaker 1: of people experience this. There was a twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: study that said thirty four point three percent of their
Speaker 1: participants identified as being maladaptive daydreamers. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: caveat that and say that's really quite high. That was
Speaker 1: a group of university students though, and as we know,
Speaker 1: it is more common in younger population groups. But still
Speaker 1: thirty five percent, you know, just that's mind blowing. The
Speaker 1: most trusted source in my mind, though, for how many
Speaker 1: people are experiencing this came from a study that observed
Speaker 1: around three thousand American adults and it concluded that about
Speaker 1: four percent of us would meet the clinical cutoff for
Speaker 1: maladaptive daydreaming. That's about one in twenty five, which I
Speaker 1: think is quite believable. Now, when we say clinical cutoff,
Speaker 1: what they're really referring to is actually this measure of
Speaker 1: whether you are a maladaptive daydreamer or not. And it
Speaker 1: is called the sixteen item Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale. Super simple name.
Speaker 1: There are sixteen questions. Something that had me shocked, though,
Speaker 1: have a guess when it was developed. So maladaptive daydreaming
Speaker 1: has been around for years and years and years centuries.
Speaker 1: Only eight years ago, eight years ago was when they
Speaker 1: had the first screening tool implemented that could tell they
Speaker 1: could kind of, I don't know, not diagnose, but had
Speaker 1: a clinical cutoff for what we could count as maladaptive daydreaming.
Speaker 1: That's like yesterday in my mind, like only eight years ago,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. That's wild. So there are sixteen questions on
Speaker 1: this list. Some of them include like when you know
Speaker 1: that you have something important or challenging to pay attention
Speaker 1: to or finish, how difficult was it for you to
Speaker 1: stay on task and complete the goal without daydreaming? Another question,
Speaker 1: when the real world interrupts one of your daydreams, how
Speaker 1: annoyed do you feel? How much does your daydreaming interfere
Speaker 1: with your academic or occupational success? To what extent is
Speaker 1: your daydreaming dependent on listening to music? These are just
Speaker 1: some examples. I'll leave a full link to the measure.
Speaker 1: It's actually publicly accessible. I'll leave it below. Just a
Speaker 1: quick reminder if you're going to go and look at
Speaker 1: it with all self reporting scores, try and be honest,
Speaker 1: score yourself accurately, and just remember that it's not the
Speaker 1: only confirmation you know. It is important to talk to
Speaker 1: a professional. But it's an interesting resource, definitely something really
Speaker 1: really fascinating. The individuals who actually developed this scale, they
Speaker 1: make up a group called the International Concertorium. You saying no,
Speaker 1: is it International Concertorium Formal Adaptive Daydreaming Research. This is
Speaker 1: an entire body of researchers and psychologists who are primarily
Speaker 1: interested in in why we get so wrapped up in
Speaker 1: these fantasies, and they've had a lot of really cool
Speaker 1: discoveries over recent years. What was really fascinating was one
Speaker 1: of their recent papers that found people who are maladaptive
Speaker 1: daydreamers as adults were often very creative children. They often
Speaker 1: had make believe imaginary friends. They were more likely to
Speaker 1: be scolded for daydreaming in class when they were younger.
Speaker 1: So that kind of pattern of creativity and imagination follows
Speaker 1: us into adulthood, but also and maybe less pleasant. There
Speaker 1: is a really known relationship between adverse childhood experiences and
Speaker 1: becoming a maladaptive daydreamer. So when your circumstances as a
Speaker 1: child are very bleak and hard and stressful, and you
Speaker 1: don't have the autonomy or the independence to leave to
Speaker 1: walk away, you find a private internal escape, and that
Speaker 1: sanctuary is often your mind and your thoughts and your dreams.
Speaker 1: I actually used to work in this space. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've spoken about this much on the show,
Speaker 1: but before I started the podcast, I would interview people
Speaker 1: about child maltreatment and child abuse. And one of the
Speaker 1: biggest misconceptions is that adverse childhood experiences only refer to
Speaker 1: abuse or neglect or physical violence. But if you also
Speaker 1: include being a child in an angry household, or being
Speaker 1: a child with absent parents who worked a lot, being
Speaker 1: a child in a house with a lot of conflict,
Speaker 1: in yelling, having narcissistic or emotionally abusive parents, living through
Speaker 1: a tragedy, or being bullied. Those are also experiences that
Speaker 1: can make you find an escape through daydreaming. You know
Speaker 1: how many of us have been in those circumstances when
Speaker 1: you are being bullied as a kid, or your parents
Speaker 1: are yelling at each other, or they're dealing with like
Speaker 1: financial problems, and the only place that you can go
Speaker 1: that is your own is your mind. So daydreaming it
Speaker 1: does become an escape. And I want to talk about
Speaker 1: that a little bit more. Why we find ourselves so
Speaker 1: invested in these visions and our imagination after this short break.
Speaker 1: The most prominent explanation in like the psychological community for
Speaker 1: why maladaptive daydreaming occurs is that it is a form
Speaker 1: of escapism. Like we've alluded to, escapism basically means finding
Speaker 1: a way to distract ourselves from real life problems deliberately
Speaker 1: or by accident, and either just for a moment when
Speaker 1: things get stressful temporarily or for a prolonged period of time.
Speaker 1: It's a really incredible survival instinct. Is survival urge in
Speaker 1: our brain that is basically like, Okay, there is nothing
Speaker 1: more I can do, but I can maybe minimize the
Speaker 1: trauma of this experience if I just completely clock out,
Speaker 1: if I just leave this behind all of us. I
Speaker 1: think do need that kind of escape sometimes from what's
Speaker 1: going on around us. That's actually perfectly natural. It's hardwired
Speaker 1: into our minds, but it's not meant to last forever.
Speaker 1: It's meant to temporarily, you know, prevent us from being
Speaker 1: emotionally and cognitively overloaded, kind of like blowing off of steam.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you get home from work, putting
Speaker 1: on music or switching off in front of the TV.
Speaker 1: Those are other forms of like that kind of mental
Speaker 1: escapism or mental switch off that is important for our brain,
Speaker 1: but excesses escapism of any kind, whether it's getting incredibly
Speaker 1: invested in video games or social media or shopping or
Speaker 1: substance use. It becomes a problem when we rely on
Speaker 1: this habit to regulate our emotional lives, and that's our
Speaker 1: only skin. You know, we don't feel okay without it.
Speaker 1: It's our only way to cope, and it's getting in
Speaker 1: the way of everyday life. I read this one person's
Speaker 1: really compelling story on Reddit actually that I wanted to
Speaker 1: share to explain why maladaptive daydreaming is kind of up
Speaker 1: there with a lot of other forms of escabism and
Speaker 1: how complex it is. I've actually been doing a lot
Speaker 1: of deep diving into Reddit recently when I'm researching things
Speaker 1: for the show, because there are just like so many
Speaker 1: communities of people online, and there are communities for every
Speaker 1: single issue or problem you can think of, and people
Speaker 1: are so vulnerable and open, but it's anonymous and they
Speaker 1: give each other advice. It's like being a fly on
Speaker 1: the wall for these like deeply personal twelve hour online
Speaker 1: discussions and just getting to observe. And when I went
Speaker 1: searching for people's personal experiences with maladaptive daydreaming, I found
Speaker 1: this support group that had like one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: thousand members, and this one person's testimony, which they had
Speaker 1: only posted maybe like a day before, it really stood out.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I belong in this world, so
Speaker 1: I created my own at this point, my pyrocosm, which
Speaker 1: which is basically a fancy word for imaginary world. My
Speaker 1: paracosm feels more real than my actual life. I don't
Speaker 1: escape into my daydreams. That is my home. What other
Speaker 1: people call real life is just a place that I
Speaker 1: visit from time to time. This is an extreme example
Speaker 1: of excessive escapism that has probably come from a really
Speaker 1: prolonged habit of maladaptive daydreaming. But what it really articulates
Speaker 1: to me is that those of us who daydream quite excessively,
Speaker 1: there is a definite split between imaginary world and the
Speaker 1: real world. And this person is basically saying, like, I'm
Speaker 1: choosing to stay in the imaginary world because it's safer. Normally,
Speaker 1: this really intricuate, you know, internal life. It has been
Speaker 1: developed because there's something about our real life that we
Speaker 1: want to avoid. But you know, unlike escapism through physical
Speaker 1: external activities like gambling or impulse spending or drugs or
Speaker 1: video games from the outside, no one would not, like,
Speaker 1: there's no obvious warning signs of excessive maladaptive daydreaming because
Speaker 1: by nature, like, it's so private, and so I think
Speaker 1: there is a lot of people who get away with
Speaker 1: this being a real advice for them and no one
Speaker 1: really being able to tell because there's no symptoms. There
Speaker 1: was a twenty twenty two study conducted in Finland that
Speaker 1: also found that there is quite a strong correlation between
Speaker 1: how bad we think things are going in the world
Speaker 1: and how often we find ourselves mentally escaping through these distractions,
Speaker 1: and as our stress levels rise, as did the hours
Speaker 1: spent daydreaming by participants. Another correlation by two researchers in
Speaker 1: India back in twenty twenty one found that people who
Speaker 1: are lonely, they spend what hours maladaptive daydreaming between like
Speaker 1: four to seven hours a day was their estimate. That's
Speaker 1: like more than my screen time for the day in
Speaker 1: my own thoughts, being quite disconnected, and it makes sense
Speaker 1: to me why now and in the last ten years,
Speaker 1: rates of daydreaming and other forms of escapism have really
Speaker 1: increased and become such a buzz topic because a lot
Speaker 1: of us, in this younger generation, we are more pessimistic
Speaker 1: than ever, We are lonelier than ever. The real world
Speaker 1: feels very gloomy, but fantasy can be whatever we want
Speaker 1: it to be. Our dreams can be whatever we want
Speaker 1: them to be, and they really do feel quite real.
Speaker 1: There is also, I'm going to say, like quite an
Speaker 1: important relationship between maladaptive daydreaming and anxiety, because it can
Speaker 1: be so soothing in the moment when everything around us
Speaker 1: feels stressful and is really heightened and intense. You know,
Speaker 1: maladaptive daydreaming is like this place where we can go
Speaker 1: to retreat. But there's also a component of it that
Speaker 1: is emotional avoidance. You know, if we can always just
Speaker 1: retreat to this place in our mind and we use
Speaker 1: this unconscious protective mechanism, it means that we never actually
Speaker 1: confront what it is about our environment, our circumstances, our
Speaker 1: real life that is so upsetting. The most significant link
Speaker 1: as well, it's not to do with anxiety, it's not
Speaker 1: to do with escapism. It's actually interestingly to do with OCD,
Speaker 1: and we haven't even mentioned it yet despite being like,
Speaker 1: if you look at the literature on maladaptive daydreaming, so
Speaker 1: much of it comes back to OCD. So OCD, for
Speaker 1: a refresher, is a condition that features like recurring unwanted thoughts, ideas,
Speaker 1: or obsessions that you can't switch off. You know. One
Speaker 1: of my biggest pet paves is when people a like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, OCD is basically just like wanting things to
Speaker 1: be neat, or like germophobia or being quite type a.
Speaker 1: You know that is such a miscinception. It leads to
Speaker 1: so many people being misunderstood. You know, OCD is really
Speaker 1: about trying to control unwanted, intrusive thoughts that make us
Speaker 1: feel intense stress and anxiety. And the only way that
Speaker 1: we feel we can lessen that anxiety is by these
Speaker 1: repetitive behaviors. If we think about that, in the case
Speaker 1: of maladaptive daydreaming, something in our life is really unpleasant, uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: that is the trigger. It's not as we want, and
Speaker 1: it's bringing up a lot of really anxious thoughts that
Speaker 1: we don't want to confront. But they we just like,
Speaker 1: can't they just keep coming into our brain. We can't
Speaker 1: control this. We can't control this. This is happening, and
Speaker 1: so we have this compulsion, this compulsion towards our daydreaming
Speaker 1: that alleviates the stress and the pain. There is a
Speaker 1: real strong body of evidence that between thirty to fifty
Speaker 1: percent of people with OCD also report experiencing prolonged daydreaming,
Speaker 1: and a person with OCD might engage in this because
Speaker 1: it is literally the only time when they don't feel
Speaker 1: fearful or anxious when they're in this state. One group
Speaker 1: of researchers in Germany. They recruited seventy seven people who
Speaker 1: reported daydreaming excessively, and they asked them to keep a
Speaker 1: daily diary for just two weeks, and they wanted them
Speaker 1: to basically be like, how often do you find yourself daydreaming?
Speaker 1: And then how's your mood? How are your mental health
Speaker 1: symptoms specifically like looking at depression, anxiety and OCDA. And
Speaker 1: it was found that when participants handed back these kind
Speaker 1: of like diaries, these journals, when they were engaging in daydreaming,
Speaker 1: when it was becoming more frequent for them, their mood
Speaker 1: actually became worse. They felt more annoyed, more frustrated, they
Speaker 1: felt more anxious, and they also experienced significantly more OCD
Speaker 1: symptoms because there was a cycle. There was a cycle
Speaker 1: between maladaptive daydreaming and an initial you know, soothing, calming sensation,
Speaker 1: some fun, maybe some entertainment, but actually a long term
Speaker 1: avoidance and a long term contribution to a worsening problem.
Speaker 1: Here is what that cycle looked like. We experience a
Speaker 1: negative emotion or a negative thought, which makes us daydream more,
Speaker 1: which in turn makes us feel worse, which makes us
Speaker 1: more disconnected from reality and our daily experiences, which makes
Speaker 1: us more likely to daydream, which makes us feel worse again.
Speaker 1: So there is this whole cycle every time something bad
Speaker 1: confronts you and you're like, oh, hey, this is just
Speaker 1: too much. This assignment is too much, this friendship is
Speaker 1: too much. I don't want to think about my relationship failing.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna like settle in for a daydream, maybe
Speaker 1: not even thinking about it. The cycle and the initial
Speaker 1: feelings just become bigger. I know this is all sounding
Speaker 1: really really serious. I got quite heavy there for a second.
Speaker 1: But again, like, not all daydreaming is bad for you.
Speaker 1: We're not going to make huge generalizations here that every
Speaker 1: instance of having a nice thought, thinking about Christmas with
Speaker 1: your family, thinking about your wedding, thinking about graduating, like
Speaker 1: you're suddenly mentally unwell. You know, it's an important part
Speaker 1: of how our mind protects it itself, and it's actually
Speaker 1: probably what makes us very human, being able to fantasize
Speaker 1: and being able to dream. So please don't apply a
Speaker 1: deeper meaning, like it's not always a sign of mental illness,
Speaker 1: it's not always a sign of escapism. Sometimes it is
Speaker 1: just how we cope. And there is actually suggestions that daydreaming,
Speaker 1: when it's at a healthy level, can help us reach
Speaker 1: GOVS faster because it is a form of motivation. When
Speaker 1: you like, have a really super clear idea of what
Speaker 1: you want in the future and what that feels like
Speaker 1: and looks like, and all the sensations associated with it,
Speaker 1: and when you you know, think about that quite regularly,
Speaker 1: it can really inspire you and line of fire to
Speaker 1: work harder. It's actually like a whole motivational self improvement
Speaker 1: strategy called visualization, which we've talked about before. You know
Speaker 1: that is a healthier version of daydreaming, one that is
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful, And I want to talk about how we
Speaker 1: can turn out unhealthy, excessive daydreaming into something that is
Speaker 1: future orientated, into something that is useful quite mentally powerful
Speaker 1: as well. So we are going to discuss all of
Speaker 1: that and more and how we can get our maladaptive
Speaker 1: daydreaming under control after this short break, turning maladaptive daydreaming
Speaker 1: into something helpful like motivational visualization, where we develop a
Speaker 1: mental image of what we want to achieve and how
Speaker 1: we imagine ourselves getting there. It really involves shifting our
Speaker 1: daydreaming from being escapist to being purposeful, and I want
Speaker 1: to really hammer that home from escapist to purposeful. Essentially,
Speaker 1: we want to get to a place where we aren't
Speaker 1: trying to run anymore or find a break from reality.
Speaker 1: We actually want to take back control of our reality
Speaker 1: to make it a place we want to be, even
Speaker 1: if it is the harder decision. Some really interesting studies
Speaker 1: have found that when you intentionally spend time in your
Speaker 1: day visualizing the life that you want and the steps
Speaker 1: you're going to take to get there, rather than just
Speaker 1: having that unstructured daydreaming, you do tend to make more progress.
Speaker 1: You feel more purposeful, your actions are more in alignment
Speaker 1: with the final outcome you want because you are internally
Speaker 1: motivated by the possibility. It's actually called by some the
Speaker 1: power of the mind's eye, creating like a very vivid,
Speaker 1: detailed mental image of where you want to be as
Speaker 1: a way to clarify your desires and make more constructive progress.
Speaker 1: I guess, and I know it sounds very similar to daydreaming,
Speaker 1: but the big thing that we need to articulate here.
Speaker 1: The big difference is that visualization is deliberate, it's structured,
Speaker 1: it's realistic, so you're not fantasizing about marrying a celebrity.
Speaker 1: You're not fantasizing about saving a crashing plane. You're fantasizing
Speaker 1: about something or visualizing something that is possible. It's definitely
Speaker 1: not excessive as well, and it's used situationally to inspire.
Speaker 1: Daydreaming is unstructured, it takes up a lot of time,
Speaker 1: it's very landish, and it's more distraction than intension. And
Speaker 1: I think the really good thing about visualization in its
Speaker 1: kind of treatment of maladaptive daydreaming is that you don't
Speaker 1: have to give it all up right. It's like supplementary.
Speaker 1: It's like a replacement therapy that is healthier. I think
Speaker 1: moving away from maladaptive daydreaming can be a hard shift
Speaker 1: without that, because it does mean that you have to
Speaker 1: spend more time being present before we bring in that visualization.
Speaker 1: That is something that you have to confront that you
Speaker 1: do have to see the parts of your life that
Speaker 1: might not necessarily be as positive or as enjoyable. It
Speaker 1: also means more time feeling our feelings, feeling uncomfortable, sad, disappointed,
Speaker 1: really listening and seeing what's going on around us. But
Speaker 1: you have to stick with it. You have to, like
Speaker 1: it's acceptance. There is a real acceptance to this that
Speaker 1: life is not perfect, it is not a fantasy, but
Speaker 1: you still have to be there for it because that's
Speaker 1: what makes it so sweet. You know, the imperfections, the rollercoaster,
Speaker 1: and when you've spend a lot of time avoiding that,
Speaker 1: it can be really, really hard, but people do People
Speaker 1: do it all the time. So what we want to
Speaker 1: do is really recognize triggers and patterns, Identify when, where,
Speaker 1: why you start maladaptive daydreaming. Is it when you're in
Speaker 1: a certain environment, around certain people, after seeing certain people?
Speaker 1: Is it at the end of a hard day, is
Speaker 1: it at your job? Is it when you're alone and
Speaker 1: feeling lonely? I think, and I believe really deeply that
Speaker 1: maladaptive daydreaming is not unprompted. It might feel like it
Speaker 1: comes along spontaneously, like suddenly we're daydreaming, but actually there's
Speaker 1: normally a feeling at the root of it. There's normally stress, borttom, disappointment,
Speaker 1: loneliness that is causing us to find this safety and sanctuary.
Speaker 1: Once you know that, I think that that's the first step.
Speaker 1: I think then you're able to find alternatives to being
Speaker 1: in those situations you are able to really consciously, deliberately
Speaker 1: think if this is if my reality, if my life
Speaker 1: is creating this urge to not even be present in
Speaker 1: my life, to escape my life, is it really what
Speaker 1: I want? And that is the shift that I want
Speaker 1: us to grab onto. The possibility you can change your life,
Speaker 1: you can do something about it, rather than just you know,
Speaker 1: daydreaming about doing so or escaping. And this is where
Speaker 1: we can transition our daydreams towards visualization. What this involves
Speaker 1: is consciously assessing your daydreams for what could happen, what
Speaker 1: is basically possible versus impossible, and trying to focus more
Speaker 1: on what is real. You know, I think we mentioned
Speaker 1: it before, being more realistic about what you're thinking about.
Speaker 1: Visualize really purposefully instead of like fantasizing aimlessly. I want
Speaker 1: you to channel all that and and all the investment
Speaker 1: that you have in your day dreams to daydreaming about
Speaker 1: the goals that you really want to achieve, that you
Speaker 1: know that you can that are possible. Picture achieving things
Speaker 1: like personal milestones like career success, small wins. What will
Speaker 1: that feel like? Will you feel proud, excited, peaceful, loved?
Speaker 1: Put all the energy into a realistic vision of your future.
Speaker 1: Visualization is also action oriented thinking rather than only daydreaming
Speaker 1: about the end result this big, bright, flashy future. Visualize
Speaker 1: and fall in love with the process. Imagine yourself taking
Speaker 1: steps towards your goals, overcoming challenges, persisting through setbacks, and
Speaker 1: you can kind of use your day dreams, use this
Speaker 1: mental blackboard to rehearse your next steps, and that really
Speaker 1: helps you like clarify your path, consider possibilities, consider different strategies,
Speaker 1: and build confidence. This mental confidence that you know, if
Speaker 1: I can think it, I can do it. I've rehearsed this,
Speaker 1: I've thought about this, these are my next steps. All
Speaker 1: of my mental energy is going towards bringing about this reality.
Speaker 1: That's like the whole basis for manifestation, right. You know,
Speaker 1: it sounds very similar because it basically is. It's essentially
Speaker 1: a version of this practice that is a bit more scientific.
Speaker 1: We're going to combine that focused intension with the positive thinking,
Speaker 1: with the visualization that creates action, that creates a self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy, whereby, the more we think about something and
Speaker 1: believe that it could come true, the more confidence we
Speaker 1: have in taking actions that will make it true in
Speaker 1: confirming our expectations because we are already kind of seeing
Speaker 1: success rather than failure. You know, it's quite spiritual, but
Speaker 1: we can also make it quite actionable. After you have
Speaker 1: those moments of in or intentional visualization, I want you
Speaker 1: to finish and finish with an action that you can
Speaker 1: take now. Every time you are fantasizing, thinking, dreaming, imagining
Speaker 1: this future. When you're done, what is one thing you
Speaker 1: can do in the next ten minutes that could actually
Speaker 1: help you towards this thing that you are fantasizing about,
Speaker 1: no matter how minor. You know, if you've been visualizing
Speaker 1: about starting a business, your small step after you stop
Speaker 1: visualizing could be learning how to register a business, learning
Speaker 1: taxation law for the kind of business that you want,
Speaker 1: learning and just researching about manufacturers or supply chains, all
Speaker 1: those things. You know. I think that we have the
Speaker 1: nice feeling of being like, Wow, this is exciting, this
Speaker 1: is something that's possible. I want that we take that
Speaker 1: nice feeling and we put it into action and we
Speaker 1: use it as motivation to do, and that ties your
Speaker 1: daydreaming or in this case, your visualization, to real progress
Speaker 1: to something you can see in front of you. Remind
Speaker 1: yourself thinking about something is not doing, as much as
Speaker 1: it may feel that way. How much do you actually
Speaker 1: want the life that you are imagining? And can you
Speaker 1: afford to spend hours just fantasizing about it or is
Speaker 1: there something you could do with that time that would
Speaker 1: get you closer to that actual outcome. I also think
Speaker 1: that going back to what we said before about the
Speaker 1: links between daydreaming and OCD and anxiety and trauma, is
Speaker 1: that something that you really need to address. Is that
Speaker 1: really what could help you stop turning to this habit
Speaker 1: as a form of escapism. Is it something more mental,
Speaker 1: more psychological. I really think it's worth looking into it.
Speaker 1: It's worth finding a really great therapist who can assist
Speaker 1: you with that journey of discovery, that journey of shifting
Speaker 1: how you address and how you tackle stress and anxiety
Speaker 1: and really bad thoughts. You know. There's a really interesting
Speaker 1: article by Harvard Medical School that I read as I
Speaker 1: was researching this topic, and they say there is no
Speaker 1: single treatment for maladaptive daydreaming because it is so private
Speaker 1: and individual. But you have to find what works for you.
Speaker 1: That could be treating daydreaming like meditation that you do
Speaker 1: once a day. You only do it in a specific
Speaker 1: location or at a specific time, like in the shower
Speaker 1: or on the train, and then every other time you
Speaker 1: have to actively stop. For some people, that's keeping busy.
Speaker 1: Find what works for you. Maybe it is visualization. You
Speaker 1: can't quite let go of the habit, but at least
Speaker 1: you can make it something that helps you rather than
Speaker 1: distracts you. You can make it something that is intentional
Speaker 1: and inspiring and motivating. This was such an informative episode
Speaker 1: for me to even do with some of my prior
Speaker 1: knowledge and some of the new knowledge that I picked up.
Speaker 1: I want to thank the person and there were multiple
Speaker 1: people actually who messaged me to do this episode. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I've learned so much. I feel so enlightened. And it's
Speaker 1: crazy how you look at these things and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a maladaptive daydreaming Like I just like to daydream
Speaker 1: a lot. And when you start diving into the research
Speaker 1: and the science, it's so much more complex and nuanced
Speaker 1: and emotional and personal. So if you're struggling with this,
Speaker 1: I'll leave some resources in the description, including that measure
Speaker 1: and that method for assessing yourself, and that concertorium of
Speaker 1: people who are doing some really cool research into this.
Speaker 1: You can also DM me on Instagram with your own stories.
Speaker 1: I want to hear more about what this experience is
Speaker 1: like for you. We also, of course take episode suggestions
Speaker 1: and if you did enjoy this episode, make sure to
Speaker 1: leave us a five star review. Follow along on Spotify
Speaker 1: or on Apple podcasts, and until next time, stay safe,
Speaker 1: be kind, be gentle to yourself, and we will talk
Speaker 1: very very soon