Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder

I have this disorder and the horrible thing is I want it to keep going

I like the people in my head more than the outside world and idk

its interfering with my life so much and I want it to stop but I don't ?

and I can't tell anyone or I'll be labelled as Weird. I don't know what to do : /

Hi. I have been doing this for as long as I can remember. I pace while I listen to music and I see myself performing,which is something I would never do. I imagine myself having conversations with people that I will never meet much less hang out with. I picture people around me ,watching me, and it makes me hold back. I even regress in age in my mind and have a different family life than what I had growing up. I was always very lonely,no siblings, so I guess this is how I entertained myself and it just stuck. I use this to cope with my loneliness as an adult, as I am not close friends with anyone. It is extremely difficult to make connections with others and I avoid public outings. I am missing so much of my life and I wish I could be present more but I am afraid of what others think. I am not sure what to do or if any of this makes sense. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Well this sucks. I've had this for a while now, and I think it stems from A) Harrowing past experiences, and B) my love for star wars, and how I think this current world I'm living in is shit in comparison. I will often daydream for a few hours a day, and it can interfere with college assignments, sleep, and more often than not, pre planned social gatherings. If anyone has any advice, it would be much appreciated.

If anyone wants to learn more about MADD, you can rearch "maladaptive daydreaming" on Tumblr, there are many posts are several blogs about it.

I m a Maladaptive Daydreamer, it s a bit of a problem. I slip into daydreaming the second my mind isn t occupied with something else. It s okay when I read, eat, listen to musik, watch a movie or something it s kinda dangerous because I also slip into it when I m driving, walking or horse riding and stop paying attention to my suroundings. I can easily snap out of it when I notice, but I slip into it without noticing. Also it makes studying, koncentrating on something no as exciting, listening to lectures etc. hard.

Huh...Seems I got a tad of that

I guess one solution would be to seriously prioritize things you gotta do in real life, I know I used to daydream ALOT but now, trying to find a job and such, I just gotta stop daydreaming, it sucks alot, real life is so dull compared to the excitment in your daydreams.

Tough as with everything, I question if this is something they see as a "disorder" just cause you won't be the productive 9-5 worker people are expected to be, where else would books and stories have come from if not a daydreamer who decided to write it down? Well to say precicely when the first story was written is kinda difficult tough, but I doubt this is something new, they just put this fancy names onto something they don't find to fit the cookie-cutted human where all should be the same.

I've always been interested in learning about stuuf like this. I suppose this is partially due to the fact that I've had trouble concentrating on basically everything since I was in elementary school as well as being prone to daydreaming. I've turned a couple of daydreams into written stories, all of which are saved on my PC desktop, and when I reread them I've common themes. I'm not sure if this is true for anyone else, but I think finding out the source of your most common daydreams can really help cope with the entire problem. Another thing that has helped me is the whole meditating/deep breathing. If you've never taken a yoga class before, even the ones where you just sit there and breath for an hour are great and I definitely recomend it.

Wow, I just learnt of this a bit of time ago, and now it's here on 7Cups. :)

I do actually have this. I get lost daydreaming all the time, in a car, in the washroom, cleaning.. That world is so much more interesting than the real one. And there, I never fail in such embarrasing ways. I can just be the person I want to be - the person I will never be in reality.

It distracts from the tears. It relieves the pain. It helps me. If I didn't have these worlds in my mind, I wouldn't know what to do.

Smile! :)

Hi!

I'm the same as well. I always keep daydreaming, usually about different life and imaginary conversations.

Dreaming is good unless it affects our everyday life. Dreams and fantasies are ideas that we can make come true. Bob Proctor says (a philosopher) "If you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand". Everything starts with dreaming and fantasies. So the best thing would be to start working towards making those dreams come true in real life. It can be anything, even changing yourself (e.g. be more confident around others).

However, if someone daydreams all the time then it may be a problem. I have heard that we as humans have 6 human needs (Neil Strauss, The Truth, 2015). If some of our needs are not met, our mind tends to tackle it through daydreaming to simply help itself (our subconsciousness can't tell the difference between what is real and imagined). I think would be wise to think about the things that we daydream about and head towards making it real as long as it is within reach of human nature. This way we could live much more enjoyable life and possibly find "life purpose" that so many people seems to be looking for.

I wouldn't classify it as a disorder. Just a signal that there is something that we desire but haven't achieved it yet.

Few days ago I have heard about MDD, now I understand a lot about me, it is very godo to me talk about it.