The excessive daydreaming, Popularly known as daydreaming, and also called by professionals of psychology maladaptive daydreaming or compulsive fantasy, it is a condition in which the individual has a high number of fantasies. These can spend hours daydreaming, it's like an addiction. His fantasies are very structured, and can be compared to the plot of a book or movie.
It is true that we all daydream from time to time. Who has not been absorbed in imagining an ideal situation while doing their daily tasks? According to "Psychology Today" almost everyone seems to fantasize on a regular basis, with some studies indicating that 96% of adults daydream at least once a day.
It was previously thought that fantasizing was for lazy people with little discipline. While the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, considered dreamers as "childish" since that was his way of resolving conflicts.
However, daydreaming is currently thought to be a creative activity, which can serve to exercise our mind. Having several simultaneous thoughts increases the ability to attend to more than one task effectively, that is, it improves working memory. This type of memory is defined as the ability to store and retrieve information resisting distractions.
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Apparently, there are people who spend too much time a day on their daydreams. These end up replacing human interaction, and even interfere with normal academic, interpersonal and professional training functioning..
In that case we are talking about excessive daydreaming. It is a psychological concept, which can be framed in psychoanalysis. The term is relatively recent, it was coined by psychologist Eli Somer in 2002.
It is a poorly researched disorder and is only beginning to be known among professionals and to be evaluated in patients.
Some authors have found links between excessive daydreaming and emotional abandonment during childhood, the experience of negative experiences such as abuse, bullying, or intimidation. That is, any kind of abuse that causes victims to want to get away from a world they perceive as dangerous and threatening.
However, the exact causes are not yet known since there are people with this problem who have not suffered traumatic situations in the past..
What is clear is that pathological daydreaming reflects a significant dissatisfaction with real life, as it is a way to escape from it..
These fantasies serve to alleviate the pain, tension, and misery they encounter in real situations. They intend to replace these sensations with other relaxing and pleasant ones, of security, intimacy and companionship..
There are certain characteristics of people with excessive daydreaming:
With these cases you will have an idea about what this phenomenon is like, although there are more characteristics that distinguish it:
Daydreaming is more common when performing automatic, passive, low-resource, or highly automated tasks. For example, daily rituals such as showering, bathing, dressing, eating, driving a car, etc..
They tend to have triggers that facilitate their daydreams, such as books, music, movies, video games, driving, etc..
The person with excessive reverie knows perfectly well that what he imagines are fantasies. So you have no problem differentiating reality from imagination..
This is what makes the difference between Fantasy Prone Personality (FPP), a different disorder in which sufferers live in a fantasy world and have difficulty identifying the real from the fictional. They may have hallucinations that match their fantasies, psychosomatic symptoms, experiences outside their own body, identity problems, etc..
It is not uncommon for these individuals to have trouble falling asleep or getting out of bed, as they may lie awake fantasizing. They also neglect basic tasks like meals and grooming..
While absorbed in reverie, these patients can express emotions through slight grimaces, smiles, frowning, whispering, etc. Repetitive movements that are difficult to control and are unconscious are also very common, such as touching an object, biting nails, moving the leg, swinging, etc..
- The individual can develop an emotional bond with the characters and situations of the fantasies.
- Poor attention span, tends to get confused at school or work. These fantasies usually start in childhood.
In 2016 Somer, Lehrfeld, Bigelsen, Jopp presented a specialized test to detect excessive daydreaming. It is called the “Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale (MDS)” and it has good validity and reliability..
It is a self-report of 14 sections designed to distinguish between people with pathological dreams and healthy people. They measure three criteria for this: the frequency, the degree of control over the fantasies, the discomfort that it produces, the benefits that the reverie brings and the level of functioning.
Some of the questions are: “Many people like to daydream. When you are daydreaming, to what extent do you feel comfortable and enjoy yourself? " O well, "When a real life event interrupts one of your daydreams, how intense is your desire or need to go back to sleep?"
However, there are some difficulties in diagnosis. First of all, this scale is not adapted to Spanish. Another problem is that most psychologists have never heard of this condition, nor has it been officially recognized as a condition that should be treated. Although the media are giving him a certain fame for the curiosity he arouses in the public.
Excessive daydreaming should not be confused with ...
Excessive daydreaming is often confused with schizophrenia, since these people seem to live in a world created by their mind, isolated and with significant difficulties in their social life.
This condition is part of psychotic disorders and therefore symptoms such as hallucinations and serious delusions appear. They are not aware of their hallucinations and believe that they do not have any disorder.
However, people with excessive daydreaming know very well that everything is a fantasy. They have no delusions, no hallucinations, no disorganization of thought, or language (unlike schizophrenia).
In this case, hallucinations or self-suggested symptoms may occur, so it is not the same as excessive daydreaming. These individuals develop this type of personality by being exposed to a lot of fantasy during childhood that the parents themselves nurtured and rewarded..
They can appear together with excessive daydreaming, but it is not the same. These people can present mental or behavioral rituals that take up a lot of time and make them lose track of their daily tasks. The goal of compulsions is to alleviate an existing anxiety.
It is a personality disorder that includes unusual perceptual experiences, bodily illusions, strange thinking and language, paranoid ideas, little or no display of affection, eccentric behavior and appearance, etc..
As it is a condition subject to investigation and is very rare in professionals, not much is known about its treatment..
In a case of excessive reverie described by Schupak and Rosenthal in 2009, they explained that the patient had markedly improved her symptoms by taking 50 mg a day of a drug called fluvoxamine. It is an antidepressant that increases the amount of serotonin in the nervous system and is widely used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder.
The patient stated that she could control the frequency of her daydreams much better when taking medication. Interestingly, she also found that her fantasies diminished when she engaged in creative and enjoyable activities such as participating in plays. When she was very busy with her studies or work, she also achieved the same effect. All this can give us some clues about the possible treatment:
First, resolve personal conflicts that may have caused the need to flee the real world. For this, through psychological therapy self-esteem, security, social skills, etc. will be worked on..
So that the person is able to face real life. Psychotherapy can be useful to solve problems related to the past, such as situations of trauma or abuse that continue to torment the patient.
Once the possible causes or conditions that facilitate excessive daydreaming have been treated, it is recommended to control the periods of time. The patient can gradually reduce the time he dedicates to daydreams by putting some effort and establishing schedules and routines that he must follow daily. You can set alarms to limit the amount of time you can "dream" per day.
If the patient is tired, it is normal for him to "disconnect" from his work and isolate himself for a long time in fantasies, being less productive. To do this, you must maintain adequate sleep schedules and sleep enough hours (between 6 and 9 hours a day).
Better if they are incompatible with fantasies, such as those that require social interaction or are very motivating and interesting for the person.
Most of the daydreams arise when they listen to music, watch movies, are in a certain place, etc. What can be done is to avoid these stimuli, or to develop other techniques such as associating them with new functions, listening to other styles of music that do not generate these fantasies, other literary genres, etc..
Nor is it necessary to completely eliminate the fantasies, the objective would be to reduce them, learn to control them, and that they do not negatively interfere in other areas of life..
Bigelsen, Lehrfeld, Jopp and Somer (2016), compared 340 people who reported spending too much time daydreaming with 107 individuals without this problem. Participants were 13 to 78 years old and from 45 different countries.
The researchers found differences in the amount of daydreams, content, experience, ability to control them, the anguish it generated, and interference with a satisfying life. In addition, people with excessive daydreaming tended to have attention deficit, obsessive compulsive disorder, and more dissociative symptoms than "healthy" people..
Specifically, individuals with this condition could spend 56% of their waking hours fantasizing, and while doing so they used to carry out stimulating repetitive movements or rocking (kinesthetic activity). By spending so much time dreaming, many did not fulfill their daily obligations or lost performance at work and studies.
In terms of content, the main themes of the fantasies were being famous or having a relationship with a celebrity, idealizing oneself or getting involved in a romantic relationship.
In addition, many claimed to imagine stories with fictional characters, imaginary friends, fantasy worlds, etc. While unaffected people were more focused on dreaming about real life or concrete wishes like winning the lottery or successfully solving a problem.
Another difference found was that those who had excessive daydreaming could barely control their fantasies, and it was difficult for them to stop them. They were afraid that it would affect their life, work and relationships. They also feared that the people around them would discover their daydreams and continually tried to hide them..
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