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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: we're back with our second episode about the story of

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Speaker 1: Kirk Allen, or at least based on the story of

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Speaker 1: Kirk Allen. Yeah, the story of Kirk Allen being a

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Speaker 1: recurring element, but ultimately we're talking about, you know, imagination,

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Speaker 1: We're talking about daydreams. We're talking about how we try

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Speaker 1: to objectively understand the universe even as more subjective narratives

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Speaker 1: are presented to us, narratives like UFOs or demons, etcetera,

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Speaker 1: or traveling into the future and being a space lord exactly. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you haven't heard the last episode, you should probably

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Speaker 1: go and check that one out first, where we tell

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Speaker 1: the whole story of Kirk Allen. We're gonna be following

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Speaker 1: up on some of the threads from it and this

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Speaker 1: one and pursuing some research on the idea of malad

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Speaker 1: active day dreaming, because the idea with Kirk Allen is that, essentially,

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Speaker 1: the short version is you had a guy with a

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Speaker 1: with a very important job, like a nuclear physicist for

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Speaker 1: a government institution, that was daydreaming so much that it

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Speaker 1: became a problem that his employers said, we want you

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Speaker 1: to go talk to a professional about this. Now, the

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Speaker 1: story goes, at least as it's presented by his therapist,

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Speaker 1: who was writing later and fictionalizing elements of the story,

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Speaker 1: both to protect the identity of the patient and as

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Speaker 1: far as we know, maybe maybe not also embellishing the

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Speaker 1: story to make it a better story. We don't know,

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Speaker 1: But the story goes that kirk Allen the pseudonym for

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Speaker 1: this patient, that he was referred to Robert Linden, or

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Speaker 1: the therapist, and that Lindener became so involved in kirk

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Speaker 1: Allen's beliefs that he could travel into the future and

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Speaker 1: in his mind and be a space lord and go

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Speaker 1: from planet to planet and explore all these technologies and

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Speaker 1: galactic civilizations, that he got so involved in that that

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Speaker 1: he started to believe it himself. And then it took

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Speaker 1: kirk Allen admitting that he made the whole thing up

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Speaker 1: and didn't actually believe any of it, to snap the

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Speaker 1: therapist out of believing in the delusion. And it makes

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Speaker 1: for a great story, like it illustrates like the power

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Speaker 1: the contagious nature of of of of a compelling fiction exactly.

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Speaker 1: But today we wanted to explore this other element of it.

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Speaker 1: So if we go with the story and we assume

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Speaker 1: that Kirk Allen never did believe any of what he

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Speaker 1: was saying, He never actually believed he was a space lord.

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Speaker 1: He just spent a lot of time fantasizing about it,

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Speaker 1: though he can tell the difference between his fantasy and reality.

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Speaker 1: What would that situation be. Imagine You've got this guy,

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Speaker 1: He's doing important nuclear physics or whatever other kind of

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Speaker 1: government research, and they can't keep him on task because

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Speaker 1: he's always thinking about how he's going to finish his

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Speaker 1: paper on the hyperdrive thruster that will get him to

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Speaker 1: tow St nine or whatever. Yeah. I mean, the cool

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Speaker 1: thing about all this, and I think ultimately the fascinating

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Speaker 1: part about it, is that we I think we can

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Speaker 1: all relate on some level to the you know, the

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Speaker 1: the attractive power of daydreaming. I mean we we we

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Speaker 1: all do it, and certainly we all did it when

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Speaker 1: we were children. Uh. I mean, I I've always had

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Speaker 1: a pretty active imagination as a kid. I was I

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Speaker 1: was content to pace around the backyard. I would generally

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Speaker 1: have a red or a green rubber band in my hand,

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Speaker 1: and I would just daydream a litany of imagined worlds,

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Speaker 1: inspired you know by typical things that are going to

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Speaker 1: inspire a kid, you know, the TV shows, movies, cartoons

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Speaker 1: and action figures, that sort of thing. And uh, and

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Speaker 1: I think everybody in my family probably thought I was

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Speaker 1: a little bit weird because of it, but they, you know,

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Speaker 1: they tolerated it, even only so they could continue to

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Speaker 1: make fun of me as an adult. And uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: then to their to everyone's credit, they encouraged my creative

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Speaker 1: activities later on in life that employed much of the

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Speaker 1: same energy, just without the rubber band and all the pacing. Um,

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Speaker 1: I guess maybe I still do some of the pacing.

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Speaker 1: But you do the pacing if you're not noticed. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I you know, it's it's good for one to get up,

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Speaker 1: um all the time during work, not trying to call

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Speaker 1: you out. I paced two. Well like for well, one

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Speaker 1: thing I do now is I I do a lot

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Speaker 1: of swimming, and while I'm swimming, I am inevitably doing

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Speaker 1: some form of imaginative thoughts, some sort of daydreaming I'm

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Speaker 1: thinking about, say, uh, you know, the fiction podcast that

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Speaker 1: I'm putting together here for how stuff works and sort

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Speaker 1: of plotting that out. Uh, it's and it's all sort

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Speaker 1: of an experiment in like constructive daydreaming. Right, if I'm

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Speaker 1: lucky enough to visit a beach, that's the kind of

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Speaker 1: thing that occupies my mind on long walks, like I

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Speaker 1: I love those times in my life when I'm able

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Speaker 1: to not worry about the future, you know, or or

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Speaker 1: or you know, hang up over the past, and instead

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Speaker 1: just daydream about something uh, completely different. Well, as I've

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Speaker 1: said recently on the show, I think narrative is a

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Speaker 1: sacred retreat. But it's not just to sacred retreat when

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Speaker 1: you're reading the narratives of others. It's certainly a sacred

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Speaker 1: retreat when you're composing your own. Yeah. Now I have

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Speaker 1: to say that I'm I'm fortunate to have outlets for

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Speaker 1: my creativity and uh, and I'm also very fortunate that

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Speaker 1: daydreaming and imagination doesn't negatively impact my life and at

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Speaker 1: least currently uh and not everyone though, can make these claims. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that's a lot of what we're gonna be focusing

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Speaker 1: on today is like when when when it crosses that

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Speaker 1: line when daydreaming goes over the line and becomes something

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Speaker 1: not not so positive but more destructive to people's lives,

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Speaker 1: you know. Thinking about my own childhood, I can specifically

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Speaker 1: remember the process of trying to prolong or reinter dreams

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Speaker 1: that I had exited by waking up. Did you ever

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Speaker 1: have this experience? I remember, in particular this one dream

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Speaker 1: I had where I found a tunnel in my closet

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Speaker 1: and crawling through the tunnel, it went to a beach

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Speaker 1: where there was a girl there who was a friend

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Speaker 1: of mine, and she could turn into a fish, I think,

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Speaker 1: or a dolphin or a cat. But I could also

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Speaker 1: in this dream swing around on tree branches by using

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Speaker 1: a whip like Indiana Jones, And that was just the

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Speaker 1: coolest thing ever, because I loved Indiana Jones, and I

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Speaker 1: especially loved the swinging action. That sounds amazing. That that

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Speaker 1: reminds me of how I once had a Rocketeer dream.

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Speaker 1: Only once did I have this dream where I was

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Speaker 1: flying with the Rocketeers jet pack and it was just

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Speaker 1: so beautiful. It was just so breathtaking, and I've never

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Speaker 1: had that dream again. Yeah, I remember this just being

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Speaker 1: an overwhelmingly fun dream I had a morphin friend, and

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Speaker 1: I could swing around in tree branches like like Indiana Jones,

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Speaker 1: and for some reason it was just so fun that

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Speaker 1: when I woke up, I was like, oh, I've got

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Speaker 1: to get back there, and I tried to re enter it,

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Speaker 1: but I couldn't do it. I tried to go back

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Speaker 1: to sleep again and dream the same dream, but I

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Speaker 1: couldn't make myself And I remember trying really hard to

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Speaker 1: imagine having the same dream again while I was awake,

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Speaker 1: but I couldn't really do that either, at least not

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Speaker 1: with the same intensity. And I know this wasn't the

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Speaker 1: only time I tried to recreate a dream state while

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Speaker 1: I was awake. This is just one really vivid one

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Speaker 1: that I remember. And I think this impulse to try

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Speaker 1: so hard to imagine myself back into a dream sort

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Speaker 1: of is part of what led me to become interested

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Speaker 1: in fiction writing. Because while dreams always fade very quickly

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Speaker 1: in memory, even very vivid ones tend too if you

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Speaker 1: don't talk about them or write them down after you

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Speaker 1: wake up. Imaginary scenarios coded down in writing those are permanent,

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Speaker 1: and you can re enter them with full fidelity at

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Speaker 1: any time. You know your story reminds me a lot

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Speaker 1: of HP Lovecrafts, The dream Quest of Unknown Cats. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that it's it's a wonderful and imaginative tale,

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Speaker 1: very unlike most of his. It's one of his dream stories,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's it's more fantasy than horror, though it

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Speaker 1: has you know, the horror elements for sure. But the

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Speaker 1: basic idea is that a dream or a man dreams

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Speaker 1: a dream so beautiful that the gods, the elder beings

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Speaker 1: deny it to him, and hasked to go on a

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Speaker 1: quest to try and reclaim that dream. Whoa is it

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Speaker 1: beautiful or or sad and melancholy? That that's so much

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Speaker 1: of what life is is not not necessarily chasing a

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Speaker 1: new experience that you haven't had, but trying to recapture

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Speaker 1: a perfect experience, you remember, Yeah, it's true. It kind

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Speaker 1: of gets to the heart of the power of nostalgia, right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You know, in our previous episode, we we talked a

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Speaker 1: good a good deal about Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted

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Speaker 1: World because that was the context in which we read

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Speaker 1: this original story about Kirk Allen. Yeah, and uh and

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Speaker 1: and Sagan has a wonderful quote here just about fantasy

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Speaker 1: and reality that I wanted to read, He says, quote.

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Speaker 1: Out of all these contending propensities and child rearing practices,

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Speaker 1: some people emerge with an intact ability to fantasize and

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Speaker 1: a history extending well into adulthood of confabulation. Others grow

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Speaker 1: up believing that everyone who doesn't know the difference between

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Speaker 1: reality and fantasy is crazy. Most of us are somewhere

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Speaker 1: in between. That's a good point. I mean, I so

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Speaker 1: obviously somebody who is U two wrapped up in their

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Speaker 1: in their fantasies, in their own head, that person is

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Speaker 1: obviously going to be having trouble. And when you you

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Speaker 1: encounter somebody like that, you can often recognize it. But

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Speaker 1: I think equally, you don't trust somebody at the far

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Speaker 1: opposite end of the spectrum who just has no tolerance

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Speaker 1: for imagination. You know, you sometimes meet people like this.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I saw a guy at um It was

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Speaker 1: a tiki bar in uh in, Hawaii, and he was

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Speaker 1: ordering a drink, probably a mind hie or something, but

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Speaker 1: he had specific directions for the servery. He said, he said,

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Speaker 1: bring me one of these, but no umbrellas, no fancy

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Speaker 1: mug just makes you basically make this drink as boring

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Speaker 1: as possible, no fun for me, no umbrellas, Like I

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Speaker 1: refuse to pretend that there's a tiny man living on

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Speaker 1: the surface of my drink that needs shade from the

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Speaker 1: sun exactly. It's like, why are you even here if

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Speaker 1: you're if you're not here to engage in in funny

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Speaker 1: umbrella drinks, that's a tiki bar. Heretic right there. But

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Speaker 1: let's come back to just the subject of day dreaming

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Speaker 1: and creativity. Robert you know who had some interesting thoughts

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Speaker 1: about daydreaming and creativity, Good old Sigmund Freud, who I

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Speaker 1: bet he did dr joy So he talked about this

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Speaker 1: in a nineteen o seven essay called Creative Writers in Daydreaming,

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Speaker 1: And I just want to preempt please do not take

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Speaker 1: this discussion as an endorsement in general of Freudianism. While

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Speaker 1: Freud is of course a very important figure to read

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Speaker 1: in the history of ideas, a lot of his influence

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Speaker 1: on psychology has given way too much more rigorous, more

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Speaker 1: explicitly science based practices. I think these days Freud is

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Speaker 1: more worth reading in the vein of thinking about him

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Speaker 1: as a kind of like philosopher or something. But so

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Speaker 1: Freud starts with one of those great questions that we

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Speaker 1: might sometimes think of as too simple bowl or too

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Speaker 1: fundamental to actually ask out loud. The Robert. You might

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Speaker 1: have heard this one before. Somebody knows you write fiction,

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Speaker 1: or they read one of your stories and they ask you, Robert,

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Speaker 1: where do you get your ideas? How do you think

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Speaker 1: up what to get the characters to say and to do?

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Speaker 1: Have you ever been asked this? Yeah, I've been asked

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Speaker 1: versions of this before. I've been asked this too. I

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Speaker 1: was actually asked it fairly recently, and it's always struck

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Speaker 1: me as a bizarre question because I thought, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I would think the answer is obvious. It's like I

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Speaker 1: get ideas by using my imagination and imagining what the

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Speaker 1: character would do. But the fact that some people end

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Speaker 1: up asking this question of other people indicates that obviously,

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Speaker 1: not everybody has the same propensity for imagining fictional characters

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Speaker 1: and places and scenarios and all that. So to some

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Speaker 1: people it comes more naturally than it does to others.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm always reminded of the subject of a fantasia,

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Speaker 1: you know, the idea that not everyone can form mental images,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't directly relate to what we're talking about here,

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Speaker 1: but it's a reminder of just how different our brains

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Speaker 1: can be. So I can you know, see why someone

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Speaker 1: might not initially grasp how an imagined character uh comes

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Speaker 1: to speak or act uh, and they might find it

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Speaker 1: harder still to understand how these fictional characters that people

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Speaker 1: dream up may well think or act in ways that

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Speaker 1: the imagineer does not expect. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

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Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things I noticed in writing

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Speaker 1: is that the process of creativity, at least for me,

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Speaker 1: is very highly uh shaped by the act of recording

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Speaker 1: the creative process. So it's like writing a story is

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Speaker 1: very different than just trying to think out a story

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Speaker 1: in my head. Once once it turns into words, then

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Speaker 1: you realize, oh, all this has got to change. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I I often feel like I have two processes that

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Speaker 1: I'm working with. One is that that day dreaming while

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Speaker 1: I'm swimming laps or whatever. But then there's the process

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Speaker 1: of actually writing things, and things may change drastically, uh,

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Speaker 1: depending on the demands of that process. Just to point

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Speaker 1: out quickly, also before we move on, you mentioned the

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Speaker 1: idea that not everybody can form images in their head

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Speaker 1: as one possible uh factor affecting whether people can compose fiction.

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Speaker 1: But we've heard from people who are fiction writers who

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Speaker 1: have a fantasition. Know, yeah, I I don't. I bring

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Speaker 1: it up more as just an example of how our

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Speaker 1: brains are different. Not that it would would impact, it

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Speaker 1: would change, not it would change the way one composes fiction,

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Speaker 1: I think. But but yeah, certainly someone of the fantasia

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Speaker 1: can and and they do write fiction. They do, uh

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Speaker 1: come up with fabulous ideas. Um. But yeah, we we

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Speaker 1: we often fall into that trap of thinking that everyone

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Speaker 1: has a brain more or less like mine. Maybe it's

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's it's it's it's you know it.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's more powerful than mine, or maybe it's not

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Speaker 1: as finely tuned as mine. But all our brains are

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Speaker 1: basically the same, and an example like a fantasia just

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Speaker 1: reminds you know, this is not the at all. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're exactly right. So Freud began by observing this idea

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Speaker 1: that not all brains are the same, and that not

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Speaker 1: all brains are the same in terms of ability to

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Speaker 1: be creative, to come up with creative stories, and specifically

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Speaker 1: for the purpose of this conversation. We are talking about

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Speaker 1: creativity in terms of like making up stories, not the

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Speaker 1: more generalized idea of creativity, right, which can well and

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Speaker 1: does entail things that are not like you know, literature

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Speaker 1: major creativity. I mean, certainly there is creativity within science,

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Speaker 1: there's creativity within programming, etcetera. There's creativity and getting a

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Speaker 1: piece of meat out of a cage trap exactly. But

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Speaker 1: no way, So we're talking about like coming up with ideas,

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Speaker 1: like creative storytelling and stuff. So so, Freud says, you know,

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Speaker 1: even non creative people do have some experience with the

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Speaker 1: thinking of creative writers. Even if you're one of these

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Speaker 1: people who asks how do you come up with your ideas? Well,

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Speaker 1: how do you know what the characters should do? These people,

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Speaker 1: Freud says, do have experience with that because it's in

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Speaker 1: the imagination based play of their childhood. Think back on

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Speaker 1: your childhood, what was it like to play pretend? And

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Speaker 1: he writes, quote, might we not say that every child

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Speaker 1: at play behaves like a creative writer, and that he

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Speaker 1: creates a world of his own, or rather rearranges the

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Speaker 1: things of his world in a new way which pleases him.

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Speaker 1: It would be wrong to think he does not take

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Speaker 1: the world seriously. On the contrary, he takes his play

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Speaker 1: very seriously, and he expends large amounts of emotion on it.

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Speaker 1: The opposite of play is not what is serious, but

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Speaker 1: what is real? Might we not say that every creative

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Speaker 1: writer is a giant baby? I'm kidding, well, I I

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Speaker 1: agree with that last part of what Freud says, because

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Speaker 1: play play is a departure from constraints, not a departure

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Speaker 1: from stakes. There's nothing in the world more serious and

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Speaker 1: important than what happens in a child's game. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you know from experience. If the floor is lava, the

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Speaker 1: floor is lava. Yeah. Though, I have to say, play

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Speaker 1: is definitely a topic that demands its own episode at

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Speaker 1: some point. I mean, there's so much going on when

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Speaker 1: a child plays, even when an adult engages in play.

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Speaker 1: And then of course we have other mammals that engage

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Speaker 1: in play as well, especially when they're young. Totally true.

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Speaker 1: So Freud says that the creative writer just extends this

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Speaker 1: type of play into adulthood and then uses the help

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Speaker 1: of writing to record the play. Otherwise, the process is

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Speaker 1: very similar. The creative writer creates a world of fantasy

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Speaker 1: and then takes it very seriously by investing huge amounts

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Speaker 1: of genuine emotion into it, but keeps it separated sharply

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Speaker 1: from the constraints of reality. So what's happening here? Why

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Speaker 1: does the day dreamer or the fiction writer do this?

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Speaker 1: You know? Why does the play in the imagination happen?

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Speaker 1: And Freud notes something. He says, what's common to almost

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Speaker 1: every single work of fiction. Well, we gotta have a hero,

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Speaker 1: right exactly the song says we need a hero, right.

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Speaker 1: I'm holding out for a hero for Freudian reasons. There

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Speaker 1: now this. Obviously, there's all kinds of fiction out there

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Speaker 1: in the world today. There's experimental fiction and fiction that

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Speaker 1: breaks every rule in the book, right, but most fiction

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Speaker 1: still does abide by this. You've gotta have a hero

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Speaker 1: around which the interest of the story is centered and

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Speaker 1: to which the author wishes to engender the audience's sympathies.

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Speaker 1: And another thing he points out is that the hero is,

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Speaker 1: by necessity of the plot invulnerable. The reader can always

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Speaker 1: trust that the hero will not be killed in chapter two,

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Speaker 1: or else there would be no story, or at least

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Speaker 1: that's what it's like as an adult. I feel like

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Speaker 1: any time I get my son to watch any time

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Speaker 1: we introduce him to a new film. Um, he does

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Speaker 1: not realize that the main character is going to make

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Speaker 1: it to the end of a children's film. Man, Like,

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Speaker 1: I wish I could go back to that. That's amazing.

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Speaker 1: I know it's it's at once uh amazing and frustrating,

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Speaker 1: because on one hand it's like, wow, he is experiencing

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Speaker 1: this film with such raw uh you know, vulnerability and

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Speaker 1: the other and then on the other side, it's like,

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Speaker 1: I just want you to be able to watch Muana

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Speaker 1: and uh and with the with the family. We just

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Speaker 1: want to make it to the end of this movie.

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Speaker 1: It's just a Disney princess movie. We should be able

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Speaker 1: to handle it, don't you dare take that magic away

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Speaker 1: from him? That No, that's a beautiful thing. Oh my god,

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Speaker 1: I can't believe it. I remember what that was like

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Speaker 1: back before I understood all of the like cliches of

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Speaker 1: story structure, when every when, every narrative was a radical

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Speaker 1: surprise to me. Things aren't quite like that anymore, and

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Speaker 1: I and I wish I could return to that mind state.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, Sorry, going back to Freud, so Freud notices

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Speaker 1: that the hero is always invulnerable by necessity of the plot,

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Speaker 1: and also the hero enjoys unrealistic good fortune in like

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Speaker 1: love and romance. So Freud writes, quote, through this revealing

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Speaker 1: characteristic of invulnerability, we can immediately recognize his majesty, the ego,

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Speaker 1: the hero alike of every day dream and every story.

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Speaker 1: It's probably telling about the kind of fiction I read.

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Speaker 1: But I can't remember the last time I read something

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Speaker 1: where the protagonist had great fortune in love in romance,

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Speaker 1: I feel like, I feel like they're mostly having a

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Speaker 1: pretty bad time. Well, I think if you take the

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Speaker 1: long view, okay, when the stories resolve, there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of stories where people go through a lot of

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Speaker 1: tragedy and then in the end that everything comes out right.

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Speaker 1: All right, I'll get back to you on that. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna do a full cataloging of of recent reads for that.

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Speaker 1: What's your Freudian analysis of the ar Scott Baker books

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Speaker 1: that everybody has a pretty tough time with relationships. For

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Speaker 1: starters is something about death drive maybe maybe anyway, So

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Speaker 1: ultimately Freud gets Freudian right. He says that both the

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Speaker 1: daydream and the act of creative writing, which are really

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Speaker 1: sort of one and the same, thing realized through different means.

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Speaker 1: He says these are the result of unconscious memories which

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Speaker 1: give rise to an unfulfilled wish, and the wishes then

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Speaker 1: fulfilled through the daydream or the act of creative writing,

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Speaker 1: but in a way that is tempered about the social

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Speaker 1: and moral restraints imposed by society. This obviously is you know,

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Speaker 1: classic Freudian kind of stuff. But you don't have to

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Speaker 1: give any credence to this repressed childhood memory part, which

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Speaker 1: is probably nonsense to appreciate. There may be some insight

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Speaker 1: in the earlier parts about drawing this connection between the

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Speaker 1: creative process and what's going on in daydreaming. Oh, by

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Speaker 1: the way, if anyone would want, anyone wants like a

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Speaker 1: deeper exploration of like early childhood trauma and Freudian ideas. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's an older episode of stuff to blow your mind

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Speaker 1: about the work work of hr Geiger and some Freudian

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Speaker 1: explanations for his His visual style was Gieger or Freudian. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it was quite a Freudian, but at

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Speaker 1: least one major commentator on his work was and pointed

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Speaker 1: to a lot and basically the the death and birth imagery. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That that that weird. Uh, you know, bio mechanical synthesis

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Speaker 1: of things that are both the vibrantly alive and just

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Speaker 1: unredeemably dead. Interesting. You know, I can actually see a

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Speaker 1: redemptive arc of of Freudiani is um maybe not so

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Speaker 1: much as a as the best tool for for psychology,

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Speaker 1: but maybe as like a literary and artistic criticism school. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like it comes back to what you said earlier about

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Speaker 1: Freud being perhaps more useful today if you think of

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Speaker 1: him as a philosopher and I and I do think

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Speaker 1: there's something to his insight here, like drawing this connection

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Speaker 1: between daydreaming and the creative impulse in order and and

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Speaker 1: and appreciating that the story spinning impulse, whether it's in

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Speaker 1: creative writing or simple daydreaming, is psychologically important, and it

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Speaker 1: does in many cases fill some psychological need and provide

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Speaker 1: some psychological benefit. But as we're exploring today, can spill

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Speaker 1: over into territory that's clearly not beneficial, such as in

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Speaker 1: the case of Kirk Allen, like we were talking about earlier,

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Speaker 1: where it was interfering with his work enough that his

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Speaker 1: superior has got in touch with Lindner, or in many

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Speaker 1: cases of what has come to be known as maladaptive

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Speaker 1: day dreaming. And we will explore that more when we

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Speaker 1: come back from break. Thank thank alright, we're back. So

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Speaker 1: now adaptive now adaptive daydreaming. It seems pretty obvious, right,

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Speaker 1: daydreaming that is uh, that is that is maladaptive. That

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Speaker 1: is that is probably not having a good influence on

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Speaker 1: your life. Things are out of balance because of your daydreaming. Right.

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Speaker 1: It's a term coined by the Israeli clinical psychologist Elie Summer,

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Speaker 1: and Summer defines the term to mean quote, extensive fantasy

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Speaker 1: activity that replaces human interaction and or interferes with academic, interpersonal,

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Speaker 1: or vocational functioning. So essentially, it is fantasizing that interferes

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Speaker 1: with your life. And there's actually been kind of a

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Speaker 1: renaissance of attention to this subject just in the past

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Speaker 1: couple of years. Yeah, there's in particular, there's a there's

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Speaker 1: an excellent episode of the MPR podcast Invisibility. Uh have

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Speaker 1: you listened to in Visibilia? No? I haven't. Well, I

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Speaker 1: listened to a little clip from this episode, but that's all.

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Speaker 1: It's a wonderful series, and there's one episode in particular

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Speaker 1: that discusses the story of a forty nine year old

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Speaker 1: suburban mother who they referred to as em who's rich

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Speaker 1: in her world, becomes a secret addiction that she keeps

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Speaker 1: from her family. So she So it's not just that

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Speaker 1: she's escaping into her her day dreams, you know, while

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Speaker 1: she's driving to work, or while she's swimming laps or

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Speaker 1: what have you. Uh No, she's making up excuses and

428
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 1: cover stories to go off and dream in this world. Right. So,

429
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:40,280
Speaker 1: so this is an adult living a mostly normal life,

430
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: but she engages in elaborate fantasies about space adventures and

431
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:47,960
Speaker 1: saving the Earth and getting sucked into a black hole

432
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 1: and all this. And she's got fictional companions who are

433
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 1: her her fictional friends, and she sometimes does this for

434
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,359
Speaker 1: multiple hours a day. And there's one part that I

435
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:02,160
Speaker 1: found very moving where she mentions, one thing about these

436
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 1: fantasy worlds is that you know you're going to be

437
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:09,160
Speaker 1: understood in them because all the characters are you. On

438
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: one hand, that's beautiful, but then I also I think

439
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:13,439
Speaker 1: of like characters that I've created, and I feel like

440
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:15,200
Speaker 1: most of them probably would not tolerate me. So I

441
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:17,880
Speaker 1: don't know if they really would understand me or not.

442
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: You need to create more sympathetic characters. Probably so, probably so.

443
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:23,719
Speaker 1: So you can hear just from that that you know

444
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: that she she can go to this place to be understood.

445
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: So it obviously serves some purpose for her. You know,

446
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:32,120
Speaker 1: it helps her cope and it helps her feel better

447
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 1: in a way. But it also you know, she wonders

448
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 1: if this is doing more harm than good in her life, right,

449
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,719
Speaker 1: because if if you have to spend all this time

450
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: in secret doing this thing that you keep secret from

451
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:45,919
Speaker 1: your family, I mean this, this is generally not healthy

452
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,479
Speaker 1: behavior and it's going to lead to a lot of

453
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 1: negative effects. So what does it mean for daydreaming to

454
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: become a problem, a real problem, on the level of

455
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 1: a disorder that people would want to seek professional help

456
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: to cure. Rob And I don't know if you share

457
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: this bias, but I feel like in reading about the subject,

458
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:05,719
Speaker 1: one of the things that's been really hard for me

459
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 1: to get around is a bias I have to think

460
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:13,919
Speaker 1: about day dreaming as a just inherently very good and

461
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 1: admirable thing. Yeah, I agree, because I, for one am

462
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: a daydream believer, so I'm gonna always side with the

463
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 1: daydream I was just looking at a meme on the

464
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: Internet that was like has a unicorn on it and

465
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: it says, don't quit your daydream I mean, and that's

466
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:34,239
Speaker 1: supposed to be a whimsical but encouraging thing to say. Like,

467
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: I associate daydreaming with the character trait of imagination, which

468
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 1: most of us view is a good thing. I certainly do.

469
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: And think about this, Robert. Imagine you're picking up a

470
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,159
Speaker 1: new novel and there's a young character in the story

471
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: who's introduced as always daydreaming, daydreaming through classes in school

472
00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:55,360
Speaker 1: or something. Do you expect this character to turn out

473
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 1: to be a hero or a villain. I'd say they

474
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:00,399
Speaker 1: are either the hero, or they are going about to

475
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: be tragically transformed into the villain, or they're just an

476
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: introductory character that's going to be killed by a villainous

477
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: force before we move on to the actual protagonists. Well,

478
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: no matter what you're they're sympathetic at this. Yes, definitely,

479
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 1: day day dream nous is an inherently sympathetic trait. But

480
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: I think this is because we usually think about it

481
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 1: in several contexts. Number One, it's primarily an activity of

482
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: children and the young. Would you agree with that, Yes,

483
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: If nothing else, that is often seen as you know,

484
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: it's sort of a childlike quality, right Yeah. Number two,

485
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 1: I'd say it's usually done in a positive sense of

486
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: aspiration and ambition. Like in fictional narratives, daydreaming about a

487
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 1: different kind of life is often foreshadowing that that character

488
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: will actually later get to do those things that they

489
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 1: day dreamed about. Number three. At least in fiction, it's

490
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: usually grounded within an otherwise functional set of relationships and

491
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: behavior patterns. It's not usually presented as something that keeps

492
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: people from doing what's right or having relationships right there,

493
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 1: daydreaming is their escape from there, from from their daily troubles. Yeah,

494
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: and that's the fourth part. The fourth part is that

495
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:10,639
Speaker 1: it's usually brought about by unfair external constraints, Like a

496
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: child is in an intellectually deadening grammar class and it

497
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: and it causes that child to say, it's our young

498
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: heroine to sit there dreaming about, you know, shooting a

499
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: bow off the back of a horse or about space

500
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: adventures because she's in this horribly boring, mind numbing scenario.

501
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: I certainly feel all of this in general, and so

502
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: this is this episode is certainly not to cast a

503
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: negative light on all forms of daydreaming, because there are

504
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: clearly lots of cases where daydreaming is great, but there

505
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: are also plenty of cases we've come to understand where

506
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: daydreaming goes beyond a harmless exercise of imagination and it

507
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: becomes a destructive obsession, causing harm to the dreamer and

508
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 1: to the people around them. Yeah. I mean, I'd say

509
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 1: if daydreaming prevents one from being present when one should

510
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: be present, or when one wishes to be present, then

511
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,119
Speaker 1: could certainly be seen as a problem. You know, I

512
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 1: think it's one of those, Uh, it could be viewed

513
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 1: as one of those chains of iron, chains of gold situations, Right, Like,

514
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 1: if you're not present with a loved one due to

515
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: worries over past or future events. That's one thing, But

516
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:15,120
Speaker 1: isn't it still just as bad as you if you're

517
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: half zoning out during a conversation with a loved one

518
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: because there's a space battle going on in your head.

519
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: It's a fantasy, much in the same way that many

520
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 1: of our worries are ultimately fantasies about things going wrong. Yeah,

521
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: that's a that's a form of daydreaming as well. Yeah,

522
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,640
Speaker 1: coupled with say, fantasy is about say winning the lottery

523
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: or finding This is when I still do all the time.

524
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: I think it's from from watching various like kidnapping movies.

525
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: But I'll think, what if I happened upon a garbage

526
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: can and there's like a like a drop off of

527
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: money in the garbage and then I get to take

528
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: off with the money and not of course I won't

529
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: be killed by the hitmen or the kidnappers or what

530
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: have you. Uh, surely I'll get away with the money

531
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 1: I just found in the trash can. But it's a

532
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: stupid fantasy that's still like, uh, you know, I don't

533
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: dwell on it, but it still flies through my head

534
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: every now and then two or three times a week tops.

535
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: You find yourself checking garbage can sometimes. I mean I

536
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: don't actually dig in them, but I you know, I

537
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: don't go looking for the money. But for some reason

538
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: lean and peak in a in a sense like this,

539
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 1: just this stupid fantasy will will will rear its head

540
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: for just a moment, uh, without me even you know,

541
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: really thinking about it. One thing I find is obviously

542
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: media influences what kinds of things we daydream about. Uh,

543
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: did you notice a lot of people, including yourself during

544
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 1: say the late two thousands, when zombie movies were everywhere,

545
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: constantly thinking about the best place to get to defend

546
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: from a zombie attack. Oh yeah, I mean that just

547
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: that falls into sort of h worst case disaster fantasizing. Yeah,

548
00:29:57,720 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I'd want to be on top of

549
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: that building right there, and here's what I'd want to

550
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: have with me, And mercifully the zombie craze has has

551
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: somewhat died down. I think people are thinking about that

552
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Less, I'm still wondering Freudian explanations to

553
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: the side, like why do we do that? What's going

554
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,719
Speaker 1: on in our brains when we day dream? Like, so

555
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: you're just hanging out, maybe waiting to meet a friend

556
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: or something like that, and then you start thinking, like,

557
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 1: what would be the best building around here to defend

558
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: from a zombie attack? What's what's going on in your brain?

559
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: Then well, this actually brings us back to something we've

560
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: discussed on the show plenty of times before, the default

561
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: mode network. I was looking at a two thousand, seventeen

562
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: University of Cambridge study that found that the brain network

563
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: previously associated with daydreaming, that the default mode network also

564
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: seemed to play a role, an important role in allowing

565
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: us to perform tasks on autopilot. Autopilot so like when

566
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: you are say, unconstabed that like highway hypnosis kind of thing, yeah,

567
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: or I'm yeah doing the dishwasher, you know, or taking

568
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: taking clothes to the taking the laundry to the washing machine,

569
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Things you've done so many times

570
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: that you just kind of zone out and you're thinking

571
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:15,120
Speaker 1: about space battles or the lottery or what have you. Um.

572
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: The researchers here were also very interested in this because

573
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: abnormal activity in the default mode network has been linked

574
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: to an array of disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, attention deficit,

575
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 1: hyperactivity disorder, and disorders of consciousness. And this study in

576
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: particular found that the default mode network plays an important

577
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: role in allowing us to switch to autopilot once we

578
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: are familiar with a task. So it seems fitting that

579
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: the default mode network should emerge again in an episode

580
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: on Daydreaming. We've discussed it quite a bit in the past,

581
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: as as is, this is where we find so much

582
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: of the worry and anxiety that we seek to escape

583
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: through flow states. Um, you know, such as a creative

584
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: activity like of writing or or would carving or yoga

585
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: or anything like like this, um, as well as through

586
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: meditation or you know, some other kind of meditative activity.

587
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: The default mode network activity is also linked to difficulty

588
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: in sleeping in new environments. You know, it's just kind

589
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: of totally find this to be true. Yeah, So you

590
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: have just like this heightened narrative of things that have

591
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: gone wrong and things that might go wrong. And I

592
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: feel like myself especially, so much of my my life

593
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: comes down to trying to to turn that that the

594
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: volume down on that network. You never get a good

595
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: night's sleep the first time you're somewhere new. Yeah. Furthermore,

596
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: Daniel Koneman proposed in his book Thinking Fast and Slow

597
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 1: that we use two systems to make decisions, a rational

598
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 1: system for calculated decisions and a fast system for intuitive decisions.

599
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: And this Cambridge study argued that it's the latter system,

600
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: the fast system, that may be linked with the default

601
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: mode network. So it sounds as if dreaming is kind

602
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: of a it's kind of a mistake of cognition, right.

603
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: A byproduct of it, at any rate are predictive software

604
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: to envision not only extreme cases of joy or horror,

605
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: but impossible fantasies. Fantasies they may not even involve us,

606
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: you know. But that's now that's considering standard daydreaming, which,

607
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: as we've discussed, is extremely common. I mean, almost everybody

608
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: does it. Just to cite a couple of figures on that.

609
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: For one thing, in the book day Dreaming in nineteen

610
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:32,960
Speaker 1: sixty six, Singer reported that nine percent of normal, non

611
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 1: clinical adults who were educated and living in the United

612
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: States day daydreamed at least every day. And so that

613
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: kind of thing happens most when the person is alone. Right,

614
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: you are, say, laying in bed at night, getting ready

615
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: to go to sleep, and you start to daydream. You imagine,

616
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: you know, scenarios, you imagine fantasies, Your mind wanders, oh wow,

617
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: well mind mind does it far more often than that? Well,

618
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, but I meant nine percent of people

619
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: at least do this one a day. Um, And there

620
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: there's some evidence that it happens even more often. There's

621
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: a really good article in the Atlantic from that I'll

622
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:09,279
Speaker 1: come back to a few times in this episode, called

623
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: When Daydreaming Replaces Real Life by Jane Biggelson, and Tina

624
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: Kelly from its April and the authors there speak to

625
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: a University of Minnesota psychologist named Eric Klinger who has

626
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: done a lot of important research on mind wandering, fantasy,

627
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: and daydreaming, and Clinger says that quote, daydreaming accounts for

628
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: about half of the average person's thoughts, amounting to about

629
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,879
Speaker 1: two thousand segments a day. Oh wow, that's that's quite

630
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: a lot. Does that match with your number? I mean,

631
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,319
Speaker 1: try to think about how many times a day do

632
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 1: you find yourself daydreaming? I mean the the like, the

633
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: really critical way of putting this is that we are

634
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: off task like half the time? Right, Yeah, do you

635
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 1: ever find yourself daydreaming while you're sitting right here in

636
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: the podcast studio? And I'm talking it's generally less daydreamed.

637
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 1: I feel if my mind drifts during podcasting, it's more

638
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:09,959
Speaker 1: like worry based, you know, like I mean a bad kind.

639
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: So but I'm not I'm I'm not going to think

640
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: about space battles because ultimately our show is the space

641
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 1: battle show. Like this, this is a this, this show

642
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: is an escape. So Robert, you're gonna make me cry,

643
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: warming my heart over here. But the podcast booth is

644
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: not airtight. The worries in the fear is still managed

645
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 1: to creep them. Well, obviously there's no way to totally

646
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: keep them out. And that's one thing. I mean, one

647
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:39,280
Speaker 1: difference that I'm already seeing here is the difference between

648
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: the idea of fleeting mind wandering and moments of daydreaming.

649
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: I mean, if if a person is having about two

650
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,800
Speaker 1: thousand segments of day dreaming a day, those can't last

651
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 1: very long, just by the math of time, right, I mean,

652
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of like the money and the garbage

653
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: can like daydreams that are they're regular, but they're just

654
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: so flee eating that you you don't it's almost like

655
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,360
Speaker 1: they're not even occurring. They're they're really just like background static.

656
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: But when we think back to the story of m

657
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 1: or to some of the people that we're going to

658
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: talk about in a minute, um, it's clear that they're

659
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: not just having like a moment of a fleeting day

660
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 1: dream that comes for a second and then goes and

661
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: then comes back a few minutes later and goes again.

662
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: They are having prolonged, involved, continuous fantasies that's spin out

663
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: at that that spin out stories that have some sense

664
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:33,760
Speaker 1: of continuity and that they engage in in a sustained way.

665
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: So I think that's a kind of important and interesting difference,

666
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 1: and and maybe we can think more about that as

667
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:40,719
Speaker 1: we go on. But I mean, one of the things

668
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 1: we should take away from this is that everybody day dreams.

669
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 1: Normal people do it quite a bit. There's nothing pathological

670
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 1: at all about daydreaming. So there's really nothing abnormal about

671
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: some amount of it, provided that it is really daydreaming

672
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:56,319
Speaker 1: and not some form of hallucination or something like that.

673
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,919
Speaker 1: I mean, normal daydreaming is a fantasy that subject can

674
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 1: clearly distinguish from reality. If you can't tell the difference

675
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,520
Speaker 1: between your fantasy and reality, then something else is going on,

676
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,879
Speaker 1: and you definitely have grounds for seeking a mental health

677
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: professionals help. Right, the situation with m is not that

678
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 1: she finds these things the daydream is reality. She just

679
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: prefers it to reality. But if it is really just

680
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 1: daydreaming clearly delineated from reality, it's also important that it

681
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 1: doesn't occur in a way that's injurious to your way

682
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: of life or to the lives of others around you.

683
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 1: And we'll come back to that in a bit. So

684
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: One of the things that's interesting about the recent attention

685
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:38,359
Speaker 1: on maladaptive daydreaming is just the fact that we went

686
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:43,600
Speaker 1: so long with so little psychological recognition of the possibility

687
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: that excessive daydreaming could be a disorder that caused suffering

688
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: in people's lives. Probably the first major work on maladaptive

689
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: daydreaming was in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy in two

690
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: thousand two, mentioned earlier by by Elie Summer, called maladaptive

691
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 1: daydreaming a qualitative inquiry, and Summer rites first about Freud's thoughts,

692
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: which we talked about earlier, that daydreaming is this attempted

693
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: solution to a deprivation state that you know, it's a

694
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 1: form of wish fulfillment that's moderated by all these constraints

695
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 1: that society puts on you. But then, of course the

696
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 1: idea developed. You've got Hartman and fifty eight saying that

697
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: maybe fantasies serve some kind of actual adaptive function in

698
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: the organism. You've got Eric Klinger, who we mentioned a

699
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: minute ago, talking about how often people spend fantasizing, or

700
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 1: how much time a day people spend fantasizing. Clinger said

701
00:38:33,760 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: he found in his research that most fantasies, including both

702
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: sleeping dreams and daydreams, primarily involve current concerns, you know,

703
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: stuff that you're thinking about right now. So like you're

704
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 1: probably more likely, you know, not dreaming about space adventures,

705
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: but about what's in your email, yeah, or perhaps say

706
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 1: your your evening plans, daydreaming about that or particular video

707
00:38:57,160 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: game or film you're looking forward to right yeah. Or

708
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: interpersonal conflicts that's a big one. How common is that

709
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: dream of I'm having an argument with Jeffrey finally, and

710
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,400
Speaker 1: here's what I would really tell him. See now, this

711
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:15,360
Speaker 1: is an area where I feel like it's still daydreaming,

712
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: but one might easily categorize it more as simply worrying

713
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: and rehearsing for strife. You know, That's what a lot

714
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 1: of what daydreaming is, and like imagining scenarios is a

715
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 1: way of thinking about what you should do. But people

716
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 1: when when they talk when they talk about daydreams sort

717
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 1: of that they're very positive spin on it, you know,

718
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: where they say, oh that that Dan, he's such a

719
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:39,399
Speaker 1: he's such a daydreamer. Nobody's thinking, oh that Dan, he's

720
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: just always trying to think up what he would say

721
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 1: if he had the courage to, you know, confront his

722
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: boss or something. Right, Yeah, that's that's the good dan.

723
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:50,439
Speaker 1: The dan we like is the one who's daydreaming about

724
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 1: swash buckling on Mars and you know, flying flying around

725
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: the ridges of Phobos. The dan you do not like

726
00:39:57,239 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: is the one who's thinking, like, here's what I should

727
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: have said to Jeffrey. I should have told him that.

728
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: But I know that is a common thing. I know

729
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,399
Speaker 1: people all the time or thinking about either what they

730
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: would say if they had the guts to, or what

731
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: they should have said in that argument they had yesterday,

732
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 1: earlier today, and that at least it can be in

733
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 1: a in the short term now adaptive for a lot

734
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: of us, you know. I mean, you have like something

735
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: kisses you off. The next day, it can be difficult

736
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: to focus on the things you need to focus on,

737
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:27,880
Speaker 1: or to be present when you need to be present,

738
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:32,720
Speaker 1: because you're just running the same dialogue through your head. Well,

739
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 1: you know, I actually have a kind of counterintuitive view

740
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 1: about the virtues of venting. People often talk about how

741
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: they had a bad day at work and they need

742
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: to vent, you know, and that's like I need to

743
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 1: just let off all the steam and talk about it.

744
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: I noticed that in myself and in other people, venting

745
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 1: very frequently does not alleviate frustrations but makes them worse

746
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: because you just get to talking about it, and then

747
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:59,319
Speaker 1: you keep talking about it, and it makes you more

748
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 1: obsessed with the issue then you would have been otherwise.

749
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: What it makes me think of the scene in Poltergeist too,

750
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 1: where um, the dad coughs up the awful Giger creature

751
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: and then it crawls off, Like that's what I feel like.

752
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: Sometimes venting feels like it's like, oh, it's out of me,

753
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: but now it's out of me, and it's disgusting and horrifying.

754
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: Way to go. It's under the bed. Well, I think

755
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 1: if you're going to vent, I think you should try

756
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: to keep it short. You know, you should say what

757
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 1: you got to say, but don't dwell on it. If

758
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:26,359
Speaker 1: you're dwell on it, it's it's just worse for you.

759
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 1: So pinch off that Giger and you know venting, Yeah,

760
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 1: that's all right, let her go. But then okay, so

761
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:38,279
Speaker 1: back back to Summer. So Summer's chronicling the history of

762
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: this idea before before we get to maladaptive daydreaming, itself,

763
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,720
Speaker 1: and in and eighty three he points out how Wilson

764
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 1: and Barber discovered there's this group of people that they

765
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: class as what are called fantasy prone personalities who were

766
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,879
Speaker 1: avid day dreamers, and these people tended to quote live

767
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: much of their time in a world of their own making,

768
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,359
Speaker 1: in a world of imagery, imagination, and fantasy. So these

769
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 1: people sort of have the ability to like pick a

770
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: theme and not just think about it a little bit,

771
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:11,319
Speaker 1: but watch a scenario unfold in their imagination almost with

772
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 1: the same kind of continuous quality as a person would

773
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 1: watch a movie. They estimated that this group of fantasy

774
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: prone people with sort of high fantasizing capabilities is about

775
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: four percent of the general population, or up to four percent.

776
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 1: Other studies on fantasy proneness found somewhat similar numbers, maybe

777
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: between four percent and six percent of people, but also

778
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: found some interesting correlations. Fantasy prone adults had often been

779
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: encouraged to fantasize by a significant adult in their lives

780
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:43,160
Speaker 1: when they were younger, and also uh fantasy proneness is

781
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 1: correlated with aversive childhood environments, with some studies finding that

782
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: though it's about four to six percent maybe in the

783
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: general population, it was at a rate of maybe nine

784
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 1: to fourteen percent in people with the history of childhood abuse.

785
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 1: And this sort of goes along, you know, in a

786
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:01,760
Speaker 1: in a limit, it did way with the Freudian idea,

787
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: right that if you had some kind of inversive environment

788
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: when you were a child, you had some kind of

789
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: thing that you wanted to get through, you didn't want

790
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:13,800
Speaker 1: to be present in the unpleasant reality you were living,

791
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,240
Speaker 1: you would learn to come up with fantasy environments to cope.

792
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: And they also found that fantasizers were more prone to

793
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: depression and other issues. And we should we should be

794
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 1: clear that fantasy proneness is not necessarily the same thing

795
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 1: as maladaptive daydreaming, because there could be people who are

796
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: prone to fantasies, but it doesn't necessarily interfere with their lives.

797
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 1: And of course, when we're talking about ed adversary and trauma,

798
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's not necessarily just like a situation

799
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: of like physical abuse, right, but just say, um, yeah,

800
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: you know problems at school or we have we always

801
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: have to remember how how difficult say a move can be. Uh,

802
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 1: family picks up and moves from one suited the other,

803
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 1: you know, changing schools, etcetera. Yeah, exactly, or social problems,

804
00:43:57,440 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: social isolation, um, any kind of family problems. I mean,

805
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: I think things like that can drive a child inward

806
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,680
Speaker 1: and and send them to their inner resources. I mean,

807
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 1: I know, as you've probably described, I mean you've had

808
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: experiences like this, right, oh yeah, yeah, like you know,

809
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: moving from one school to another, of being an example,

810
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: or being in a school where you basically all of

811
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 1: middle school. I think this can Middle school was definitely

812
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: a time that drove me inward in a way that

813
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:29,359
Speaker 1: I probably never quite returned from. Middle schoolers really are

814
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: the worst that is, like the worst age of humanity. Now,

815
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:36,240
Speaker 1: another strain of research that emerged in the twentieth century

816
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 1: was that while healthy people use daydreaming to kind of

817
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: work through problems or to enhance good feelings, distressed people

818
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 1: can often enter into a kind of negative feedback loop

819
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 1: with daydreams in a lot of the same ways that

820
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: you could see other addictions coming into playing people's lives,

821
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: where the excessive day dreaming causes them to feel weak

822
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:01,240
Speaker 1: or inadequate or generally bad about their lives for various reasons.

823
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,399
Speaker 1: They might be you know, missing out on things that

824
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: it's causing them problems, and then the problems in their

825
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:08,919
Speaker 1: lives are driving them to want a day dream more

826
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: so they can escape from their lives. It reminds me

827
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: the line and the Warren Zevon song Splendid Isolation. We're saying, Mickey,

828
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 1: take my hand and lead me through the world of self.

829
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 1: WHOA what albums that on? Was that the eighties? Oh?

830
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 1: I'm not sure when I got into the Zevon I

831
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 1: was the greatest hits album? Uh oh, I see it.

832
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: So I'm not exactly sure where one finds that in

833
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 1: its original form. You're one of those Yvon posers. You're

834
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: one of those those are sadly sadly uh so. So

835
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:42,240
Speaker 1: clearly there are different kinds of daydreaming right there, people

836
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:44,840
Speaker 1: with different levels of proneness. For some people it helps,

837
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:47,439
Speaker 1: for some people it hurts. And so Summer was trying

838
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: to get a flavor of what this was like when

839
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: people claim to experience maladaptive daydreaming symptoms, and so he

840
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: used a qualitative methodology to assess people who presented with

841
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,720
Speaker 1: what seemed to be negative patterns of daydreaming, which again

842
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:04,439
Speaker 1: he coined this term maladaptive daydreaming. And so here here's

843
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: what he found common themes of daydreaming tended to be violence,

844
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: idealized self power and control, captivity, rescue and escape, and

845
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 1: sexual arousal. And I think that's kind of interesting because

846
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: it's strange how much it sounds like a list of

847
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: the most common themes and adventure stories. Yeah. I mean,

848
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,279
Speaker 1: basically the that list could be the narrative flow of

849
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:31,359
Speaker 1: a swashbuckling tale, uh huh. And then common functions he

850
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: identified apparently were disengagement from stress and pain by mood

851
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:40,279
Speaker 1: enhancement and wish fulfillment fantasies. And then the other main

852
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 1: one was for companionship, intimacy and soothing. So he they

853
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:46,400
Speaker 1: are all kinds of examples that he cites in his

854
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: paper from the interviews, I just picked a couple of

855
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 1: the more vivid ones to mention. Not all of them

856
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: are this action movie like, but I want to read

857
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 1: one of the quotes. Quote. I used to imagine America

858
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:00,839
Speaker 1: and the West at war against the Communist lock. There

859
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:04,720
Speaker 1: were bombardments, shelling, marine landings, and hand to hand battles

860
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: in which the Communists would have many casualties. I imagine

861
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 1: that my hometown is in ruins and under occupation, and

862
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 1: I am fighting a guerrilla war with the underground. Sometimes

863
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: I imagine myself fighting the guerrillas as part of the

864
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: occupying forces. I often imagine myself as a soldier in

865
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 1: battle against terrorists. I kill scores of them. The shooting

866
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 1: fantasies relieve my tension. It sounds like red Dawn, yeah, basically,

867
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,879
Speaker 1: and it also reminds me of these the zombie apocalypse

868
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 1: fantasies we discussed earlier right, which can clearly serve as

869
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: a form of mental empowerment and escape. Right and then also,

870
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 1: like both of these examples, a simpler worldview and which

871
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: clearly defined lines of good and bad, of of of enemy,

872
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: and ally. Here's another one quote. I am seated on

873
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: the field of a football stadium, surrounded with barbed wire.

874
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:56,319
Speaker 1: I am chosen by the prisoners to negotiate with the

875
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: captors because she is known to be an emotionally disassociate

876
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: ated person, hence not susceptible to psychological pressure. I am

877
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:07,880
Speaker 1: allowed to walk toward a desk with two chairs and

878
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 1: sitting in the bigger one. My opponent is putting forth

879
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:13,439
Speaker 1: his demands and threatens me with a gun. I pour

880
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:16,280
Speaker 1: myself a hot drink and sit from it with stable hands,

881
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: smile at him and tell him that I am suicidal,

882
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 1: so he cannot threaten me with anything because I've got

883
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: nothing to lose. He realizes he lost the bargaining, and

884
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: I give the sign for the insurrection to begin. From

885
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 1: now on, it's like a Hollywood action movie with explosion,

886
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: smoke and lots of blood. Although I am wounded, I

887
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: managed to free most of the prisoners and I leave

888
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 1: them to safety. I love this because I get a

889
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: real Garth Marenghee dark place five from it. Blood, blood

890
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: and bits of the sick. It's such a great, great show. Now.

891
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:51,839
Speaker 1: One of the really interesting things that I've found when

892
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:55,760
Speaker 1: reading about maladaptive daydreaming, and that's reported in this study,

893
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 1: but then also in some others, is that there are

894
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 1: some common pros sesses associated with this, with obsessive or

895
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: maladaptive daydreaming UH processes having to do with physical place

896
00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 1: and physical action, often with an object in the hand. Robert,

897
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:13,359
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier when you were a child that you

898
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:16,359
Speaker 1: would day dream with a rubber band in your hand,

899
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:18,799
Speaker 1: manipulating it with your hands always. I had to have

900
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 1: a rubber band, and you it had to be green

901
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: or red. It couldn't be just the brown ones because

902
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:30,600
Speaker 1: they weren't they weren't exciting enough. And also this this

903
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 1: is I guess maybe this sounds kind of strange, but

904
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: the the red and green rubber bands were explosions. And

905
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 1: I would also make explosion noises as explosions were needed

906
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: in these imagined scenarios, because apparently there were a lot

907
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:47,239
Speaker 1: of explosions. Well, I mean, given our samples, sometimes explosions

908
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 1: if you got to happen. I want to read a

909
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 1: quote from one of the subjects in Summer's study quote.

910
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: When I daydream, I often hold an object in my hand,

911
00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 1: say an a racer or a marble. I taw sit

912
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:04,359
Speaker 1: in the air. This repetitive monotone movement helps ME concentrate

913
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 1: on the fantasy. Daydreaming is easier when I do this

914
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: because I don't get distracted by other things in the room.

915
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: At other times, I would go down to the basement

916
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: and pace for hours while daydreaming. Also from the same patient,

917
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: sometimes I would go into an orchard behind my house.

918
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 1: Nobody comes there. I like the solitude because I could

919
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 1: act the fantasies out loud. I can shout and scream

920
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:30,919
Speaker 1: there without shame. And these are commonly reported elements having

921
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:34,320
Speaker 1: a place to go to, being in physical motion while

922
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 1: doing the daydreaming, like pacing or driving or something like that,

923
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:41,920
Speaker 1: and having an object to manipulate in the hand. Why

924
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:45,319
Speaker 1: that that is so interesting to me? Why those things? Yeah,

925
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 1: it really makes me think back on my my own

926
00:50:48,080 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: imaginative behavior as a kid, for sure. All right, well,

927
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 1: let's take a break and when we come back we

928
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:58,399
Speaker 1: will continue and conclude our exploration of maladaptive daydreaming. Thank

929
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 1: thank thank you. All Right, we're back now. We mentioned earlier,

930
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:05,400
Speaker 1: there's a good piece in The Atlantic about maladaptive daydreaming

931
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 1: from by Jane Biggleson and Tina Kelly called win day

932
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,760
Speaker 1: Dreaming Replaces Real Life that has some really good stories

933
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 1: in it about what this experience is like. So I

934
00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: just wanted to read maybe a couple of quotes from

935
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: this article of the author describing her own experience. She writes,

936
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:24,320
Speaker 1: when I was eight years old, I had a game

937
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: I like to play in my front yard in suburban

938
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,840
Speaker 1: New Jersey. My siblings were older and mostly out of

939
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:32,319
Speaker 1: the house. My parents worked long hours, and when there

940
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:35,279
Speaker 1: was nothing much to do, I'd walk in circles while

941
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:38,800
Speaker 1: shaking a piece of string, daydreaming about Little House on

942
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 1: the Prairie or the Brady Bunch. One afternoon, I created

943
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 1: an episode where instead of going to Hawaii, where dangerous

944
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:49,120
Speaker 1: spiders lurk, the Bradys went to the Bahamas, where I

945
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: had just been a week with my family. Greg Brady

946
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 1: met my teenage sister there and they started dating. The

947
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:58,360
Speaker 1: show playing in my head was so detailed and entertaining

948
00:51:58,360 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 1: that it lasted forty five minute. Another day, I imagine

949
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,320
Speaker 1: myself as the actress who played the seventh Brady sibling.

950
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:07,799
Speaker 1: I met all the other young actors on set, and

951
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:11,880
Speaker 1: they commented on my cute outfit and amazing acting skills. Again,

952
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,359
Speaker 1: the string in her hand, the object to manipulate. Yeah,

953
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:18,359
Speaker 1: I totally get it. I it's hard again, it's it's

954
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:20,319
Speaker 1: it's difficult for me to put it into words, but

955
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: I know exactly what she's doing there. And the author

956
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:27,760
Speaker 1: goes on to chronicle how with her experiences of of

957
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: of obsessive daydreaming going on throughout her life, she eventually

958
00:52:31,080 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 1: came to investigate this issue full like she got involved

959
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: in the subject of maladaptive daydreaming at the research level,

960
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: and she was a test subject in some research and

961
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: one of the things she found was that, So she

962
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:46,400
Speaker 1: went in for some brain imaging for some fm R

963
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:48,720
Speaker 1: I to look at what's going on in her brain

964
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:51,839
Speaker 1: while she's actively daydreaming, and one of the things they

965
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: found was quote, great activity in the ventral stree atom,

966
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 1: the part of the brain that lights up when an

967
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,759
Speaker 1: alcoholic has shown images of a martini. It's so it's

968
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:04,480
Speaker 1: literally setting off some kind of addiction response type feeling

969
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:07,840
Speaker 1: cheaper and healthier. Though right, probably healthier, but not necessarily

970
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:09,759
Speaker 1: better for your life. I mean, depending on what the

971
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 1: circumstances are. I mean again, we we certainly don't want

972
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 1: to demonize healthy forms of daydreaming, but for many of

973
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: these people, they end up seeking communities online for people

974
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 1: who have the same issues as them, or seeking clinical

975
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:26,359
Speaker 1: help because these people realize, like, this is taking up

976
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:28,840
Speaker 1: so much of my life, it is making me unable

977
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 1: to live my life, it's interfering with my work, with

978
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 1: my relationships, it's it's gone beyond its useful role. One

979
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 1: of the other things that's interesting that gets pointed out

980
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: in this article is the possible overlap between maladaptive daydreaming

981
00:53:44,560 --> 00:53:48,320
Speaker 1: and a disorder that's been known as stereotypic movement disorder,

982
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,799
Speaker 1: which involves repetitive motions of the body, kind of like

983
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about with like pacing or repeatedly

984
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:57,920
Speaker 1: UM moving you know, an object in the hand like

985
00:53:58,040 --> 00:54:02,280
Speaker 1: often SMD seems to have something to do with flapping

986
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 1: of the hands or movement of the arms or something

987
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: like that. And one of the things the authors talk

988
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:11,680
Speaker 1: about is that UM. There was a study that studied

989
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:15,880
Speaker 1: children who have stereotypic movement disorder forty two children, and

990
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:19,319
Speaker 1: this was in two thousand and ten. And when the

991
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:22,160
Speaker 1: researchers in the study asked the kids what they were

992
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: doing when they were performing their repetitive motions, eight three

993
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 1: percent of the of the kids said they were repeating

994
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 1: stories in their heads. So it sounds like there may

995
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: be some overlap with this existing known condition. And again

996
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:39,880
Speaker 1: I wonder what is the neural link between the motions

997
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 1: of the body and the internal storytelling impulse. Well, it

998
00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 1: makes me think back to the more recent study we

999
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 1: talked about discussing default mode network and the being on autopilot,

1000
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:56,240
Speaker 1: Like maybe there has to be some sort of autopilot

1001
00:54:56,719 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 1: thing you're doing, and it could be swimming or or

1002
00:55:00,719 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 1: pacing about, but also just manipulating an object. Maybe you're

1003
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:09,000
Speaker 1: not actually performing a task but in in object manipulation

1004
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:11,640
Speaker 1: or you know, some sort of basic tool use uh

1005
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:15,839
Speaker 1: and it maybe it's a necessary part of that network. Yeah,

1006
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:17,920
Speaker 1: that that could be. You know, one of the researchers

1007
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:20,080
Speaker 1: in this article who gets quoted talks about how there's

1008
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:23,640
Speaker 1: a possibility that day dreaming is somehow kind of like

1009
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 1: a fever, Like it is a natural defense mechanism. It's

1010
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 1: a cognitive defense mechanism for dealing with cognitive threats. Um.

1011
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 1: But it can, of course, like a fever, be harmful

1012
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: if it gets out of control. And for some people

1013
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:40,759
Speaker 1: this defense mechanism, while in some cases useful, it does

1014
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:43,359
Speaker 1: get out of control for them. What that makes sense too?

1015
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,760
Speaker 1: And when you think about the ways that that writer's

1016
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:49,799
Speaker 1: end up exploring, or not just writer has been any

1017
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:51,759
Speaker 1: kind of a you know creative individual is doing some

1018
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 1: sort of art or something. To consider their art, you know,

1019
00:55:54,440 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: you end up processing a lot of your own anxieties

1020
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:00,759
Speaker 1: and fears and hopes and dreams the who that art?

1021
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,040
Speaker 1: So it maybe and maybe that is just and something

1022
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 1: that's overlaid here and not part of the actual uh

1023
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:11,879
Speaker 1: you know, origin of the the impulse. But maybe there's

1024
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 1: a connection. Yeah, well, I mean I often think with

1025
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,800
Speaker 1: with like works of fiction. It's funny when people ask

1026
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:21,239
Speaker 1: authors like to interpret their own work in the light

1027
00:56:21,280 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: of their biography. You know, you hear that. It's like, oh,

1028
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:26,680
Speaker 1: you wrote this character in this novel, who does this?

1029
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:28,799
Speaker 1: What is that? You know? How does that relate to

1030
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: your life? This thing that happened to you? I feel

1031
00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:33,839
Speaker 1: like you've got it backwards. You should be telling the

1032
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:37,359
Speaker 1: writer how what they wrote explains their life. The writer

1033
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:40,480
Speaker 1: doesn't know. Yeah, yeah, like like often the writer has

1034
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:42,719
Speaker 1: to sort of have the realization like, oh, well, I

1035
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:45,839
Speaker 1: guess I guess this story was about, you know, my

1036
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 1: substance abuse problem or what have you. You You know. And

1037
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 1: speaking of substance abuse, of course, I mean one of

1038
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:53,359
Speaker 1: the things that comes up again and again in these

1039
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 1: reports is that some of the people who experience maladaptive

1040
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:02,000
Speaker 1: daydreaming compare it in way in some ways to an addiction.

1041
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:03,959
Speaker 1: Going back to you know what some of the brain

1042
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: imaging seem to show we mentioned a minute ago, is

1043
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:09,880
Speaker 1: that there isn't an addiction like response in the brain,

1044
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:13,319
Speaker 1: and then some people subjectively describe it as being like

1045
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:15,440
Speaker 1: in addiction. One of the people quoted in the Atlantic

1046
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,880
Speaker 1: article says, I felt the daydreaming was my main reality

1047
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:21,080
Speaker 1: and I only peek out into the main world now

1048
00:57:21,120 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 1: and then it's like I'm an alcoholic with an unlimited

1049
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 1: supply of booze. I can't turn it off. Yeah, I mean,

1050
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:30,040
Speaker 1: for the most part, you don't have to worry about

1051
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:34,439
Speaker 1: becoming physically ill from too much daydreaming, or falling over

1052
00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:37,840
Speaker 1: from too much daydreaming, etcetera. Like there, it seems like

1053
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 1: there are fewer obviously their limits, but there are few

1054
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 1: are hard limits involved there. Yeah, that's true. But as

1055
00:57:43,320 --> 00:57:46,600
Speaker 1: we've seen, of course, it can be a strong interference

1056
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 1: with the kind of life people want to live. And

1057
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: that's the reason there are all these you know, support

1058
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 1: groups and and a push to get this more recognized

1059
00:57:55,560 --> 00:57:59,480
Speaker 1: in in psychiatric and psychological treatment communities now, and there

1060
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:02,800
Speaker 1: are some treatments that that seemed to be coming along.

1061
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:05,959
Speaker 1: I mean, we're still in the early days of understanding

1062
00:58:06,040 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 1: maladaptive daydreaming as a psychological condition that that is treated

1063
00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 1: in a clinical way, but some are in his two

1064
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:15,840
Speaker 1: thousand two articles found that therapy helped some patients with

1065
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 1: aspects of their maladaptive daydreaming, including reducing violent themes in

1066
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 1: the daydreaming and reducing the amount of time spent on it.

1067
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:27,560
Speaker 1: There are some drugs that in some cases have been

1068
00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:31,440
Speaker 1: found work. Fluvoxamine, which is primarily used to treat obsessive

1069
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:35,280
Speaker 1: compulsive disorder, has apparently been used with some success. Other

1070
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:37,840
Speaker 1: patients have had some success with S S R. Eyes.

1071
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 1: One of the most interesting things I came across was

1072
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 1: also from that Atlantic article that it referred to one

1073
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:49,160
Speaker 1: person with maladaptive daydreaming who said quote, I recently found

1074
00:58:49,240 --> 00:58:55,160
Speaker 1: that constantly writing wandering thoughts down or keeping track of them,

1075
00:58:55,400 --> 00:59:00,600
Speaker 1: keeps you from falling into intense daydreaming. So the act

1076
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:02,240
Speaker 1: of right, I mean this brings it back to the

1077
00:59:02,520 --> 00:59:06,120
Speaker 1: Freud issue with like creative writing versus day dreaming. The

1078
00:59:06,200 --> 00:59:10,440
Speaker 1: act of writing down your creative thoughts somehow makes them

1079
00:59:10,480 --> 00:59:14,000
Speaker 1: stop flowing so hard, And I mean I know that

1080
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 1: from experience. Sometimes it's almost like weaponizing writer's block against

1081
00:59:18,360 --> 00:59:22,440
Speaker 1: your own imagination. You run the risk though then of

1082
00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 1: you know, you write down the ones that you think

1083
00:59:25,240 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 1: I promise and then that to fill you with with

1084
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:30,440
Speaker 1: joy on some level. But then you don't maybe you

1085
00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 1: don't write down the ones that are like stupid and

1086
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:36,120
Speaker 1: uh and and awful, you know, the ones that are

1087
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 1: that are that fall into that special category of you know,

1088
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: because yeah, I feel like, especially people who are write

1089
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:43,640
Speaker 1: up like horror or anything horror esque, you know, they're

1090
00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: they're liable to turn their fears into something useful, into

1091
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: something artistic and artistic expression of their fears. But what

1092
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 1: do you do when it's just something dumb, Like it's

1093
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:56,160
Speaker 1: dumb and it's hurtful, uh, dumb and hurtful day dream

1094
00:59:56,560 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 1: that you've got to make us like a special activity,

1095
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 1: I guess, of extracting it, of putting it on paper

1096
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:04,919
Speaker 1: and then just watting it up and forgetting about it. Well,

1097
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:09,080
Speaker 1: you know, I wonder, so there's the common experience of

1098
01:00:09,080 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 1: people sort of daydreaming by writing their lives into the

1099
01:00:13,200 --> 01:00:17,360
Speaker 1: existing plots and storylines of other TV shows and books

1100
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:20,840
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I wonder how often this type

1101
01:00:20,840 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 1: of daydreaming phases into just writing fan fiction. Oh yeah,

1102
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 1: because you're you're I can see that where that could

1103
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:31,680
Speaker 1: that could occur because you're just so into this world,

1104
01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:34,640
Speaker 1: you know, and then you you can't help it, want

1105
01:00:34,640 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: to become a part of it. Yeah, I can't help.

1106
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:40,440
Speaker 1: But wonder in general if if some people who have

1107
01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:44,600
Speaker 1: this condition would find relief through just creative writing, like

1108
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:47,880
Speaker 1: if you force yourself to write kind of like this

1109
01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:50,160
Speaker 1: this last person was saying, if you force yourself to

1110
01:00:50,200 --> 01:00:53,640
Speaker 1: write your creative thoughts down, that might only not just

1111
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:56,920
Speaker 1: limit them, but also give you something productive you can

1112
01:00:56,960 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 1: do with that time you spent. So you don't just say, well,

1113
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:02,440
Speaker 1: I spent three hours daydreaming today, I don't know you

1114
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:04,439
Speaker 1: know where that time went. You could say I spent

1115
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 1: three hours writing today. Well, not only do I think

1116
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,360
Speaker 1: that's a great idea, but I totally support anything that

1117
01:01:10,440 --> 01:01:15,760
Speaker 1: will create employment opportunities for my fellow creative writing majors. Well,

1118
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 1: I think we have to accept that not all writing

1119
01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:20,840
Speaker 1: can be writing for money, and that's okay. But you know,

1120
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:23,720
Speaker 1: if somebody is trying to tell you to write, they

1121
01:01:23,720 --> 01:01:26,840
Speaker 1: should be paying you money. So let's bring it all

1122
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:29,800
Speaker 1: back to good old Kirk Allen. Okay. I mean, ultimately,

1123
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 1: we just don't have a lot of hard facts about

1124
01:01:31,560 --> 01:01:34,320
Speaker 1: about who he was or what he actually went through.

1125
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 1: But I wonder how we can apply everything we've discussed

1126
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:40,160
Speaker 1: in these two episodes to his case. Yeah, I mean

1127
01:01:40,200 --> 01:01:42,160
Speaker 1: I wonder if he would have directly fit this emerging

1128
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:46,720
Speaker 1: diagnosis of the maladaptive daydreamer. Um, and I don't know.

1129
01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:50,560
Speaker 1: I wonder what we what we will continue to learn

1130
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:53,480
Speaker 1: about maladaptive daydreaming in the in the coming years, and

1131
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:55,400
Speaker 1: whether that will shed any new light on the Kirk

1132
01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 1: Allen story. Yeah. And of course we have a lot

1133
01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:01,280
Speaker 1: of listeners out there who to write in and share

1134
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:04,600
Speaker 1: their experiences with us. And I know that all of

1135
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:08,080
Speaker 1: you have experiences with daydreaming, and I imagine there are

1136
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:09,960
Speaker 1: going to be some of you who have experience with

1137
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:15,280
Speaker 1: maladaptive daydreaming or something that in self analysis feels close

1138
01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: to what we've described here. So we would love to

1139
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:20,160
Speaker 1: hear from you. And of course we can keep things

1140
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:22,720
Speaker 1: anonymous if if you would hope, if you want to

1141
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:24,960
Speaker 1: do it that way, sure, um, you know so, certainly

1142
01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:27,960
Speaker 1: just stress that point when you when you reach out

1143
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:30,040
Speaker 1: to us. But yeah, we want to hear from everyone

1144
01:02:30,080 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 1: about your day dreams. If you have had maladaptive daydreaming,

1145
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:36,480
Speaker 1: what have you found, if anything that has helped you

1146
01:02:36,800 --> 01:02:39,760
Speaker 1: reduce that down to a tolerable level or helped you

1147
01:02:39,840 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: get along with your normal life. Yeah, let us know.

1148
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:44,640
Speaker 1: And if you want to let us know, the first

1149
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 1: step and reaching out to us is heading over to

1150
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:50,200
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is fine,

1151
01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:52,840
Speaker 1: where you will find all the podcast episodes going way

1152
01:02:52,920 --> 01:02:55,600
Speaker 1: back to the very beginning, including those Alien abduction episodes,

1153
01:02:55,640 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 1: those X file episodes, They're all on there. You'll also

1154
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 1: find links out to our social media accounts. You'll find

1155
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:03,640
Speaker 1: a tab at the top of the page for our

1156
01:03:03,720 --> 01:03:06,960
Speaker 1: store where you can get some sweet swag that has

1157
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:11,400
Speaker 1: our new updated logo on it, or podcast episode specific designs.

1158
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:15,720
Speaker 1: A little bicameral mind here, a little uh black hole

1159
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:18,520
Speaker 1: cinema right here. Uh anything you can want get on

1160
01:03:18,520 --> 01:03:22,360
Speaker 1: a sticker shirt, and the proceeds, of course support the show.

1161
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:24,320
Speaker 1: And if you want to support the show in a

1162
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:28,240
Speaker 1: cheaper fashion, just simply rate and review it wherever you

1163
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 1: have the ability to do so. That helps us a lot.

1164
01:03:30,960 --> 01:03:34,200
Speaker 1: Big thanks as always to our wonderful audio producers Alex

1165
01:03:34,240 --> 01:03:36,600
Speaker 1: Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you would like to get

1166
01:03:36,640 --> 01:03:38,800
Speaker 1: in touch with us directly to let us know feedback

1167
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:41,800
Speaker 1: about this episode or any other, or just to say hi,

1168
01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: let us know where you listen from a suggested topic

1169
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 1: for a future episode. You can email us at blow

1170
01:03:46,840 --> 01:03:58,480
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more

1171
01:03:58,520 --> 01:04:00,640
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other type thicks. Does it

1172
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:13,520
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. I think the buses