
When Daydreaming Replaces Real Life - danso
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/04/when-daydreaming-replaces-real-life/391319/?single_page=true
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possibilistic
I'm not a hypochondriac, I swear, but this really hits home. I have medically
diagnosed ADHD; seemingly contrary to the disorder, I often find myself
getting stuck daydreaming for hours. I honestly _enjoy_ it, and as a
consequence of my incredibly realistic daydreams I never get bored. Seriously
--I never get bored. It's like a dopamine rush I can turn on whenever I want.
My stories are better than any movie because I'm actually _in_ them.

The walking in circles bit is just uncanny. My most creative thinking (or most
vivid daydreams) happen when I'm doing exactly that. It's really weird (and
I'm acutely conscious of how it must look), so I never let people catch me
doing it. Something about walking in circles turns up the realism an order of
magnitude.

I think this is highly related to my ADHD, and now I want to tell my doctor
about it. I don't want to rid myself of this, but I do want to control it
better.

~~~
kaybe
Walking in circles when using the telephone is really common. I wonder whether
it is related?

~~~
bitwize
The Navajo word for "cellphone" translates to "the thing you spin around
with".

I think motor activity helps us pump thoughts through our brain.

~~~
charliepark
I was skeptical about the Navajo claim, but you're totally right. "Bił
Nijoobałí"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzwupgNm0GI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzwupgNm0GI)

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astrocyte
Meh', I channel Terence McKenna and Alan Watts on this matter.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emHAoQGoQic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emHAoQGoQic)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMDu3JdQ8Ow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMDu3JdQ8Ow)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGwASGXj8w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGwASGXj8w)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC7aud4b3dQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC7aud4b3dQ)

"Real" life .... An Interesting concept.

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neovive
There is a story, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1939) [1] that was made
into motion pictures in 1947 and 2013 depicting a man who has elaborate,
heroic, daydreams. The 2013 film [2], directed by Ben Stiller (who also played
Walter Mitty) was an interesting mix of comedy and reality that leaves you
contemplating at the end of the movie.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mitty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mitty)
[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mitty...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mitty_\(2013_film\))

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sandeepspatil
Why not write down the characters and their lives and may be turn that into
fiction? Especially if they are so interesting. Then this obsessive day-
dreaming becomes an asset rather than a liability?

~~~
normloman
Don't a lot of fantasy prone people already do that? It would explain a lot of
fan-fiction and con-worlds.

That said, most daydreams have an element of wish fulfillment in them, which
wouldn't make for good fiction.

~~~
RobertKerans
I have problems with daydreaming similar to what the article describes (it
makes it incredibly difficult for me to work from home [with music the main
trigger], though I am getting much better at controlling it), and yeah, most
of it is wish fulfilment. Also fan fiction is basically wish fulfilment as
well IMO, so that fits as well. (somewhat ironically, the effort to turn that
into good fiction would probably fall prey to the same daydreaming problems)

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mtVessel
The reason why the author has a hard time finding a specific diagnosis is
because her "maladaptive daydreams" are a symptom, not a disease. Her real
problem is an inability or unwillingness to engage with reality, which is a
component of any number of personality disorders.

Really, this inclusion of ridiculously overspecified symptoms and diseases-du-
jour in the DSM has got to stop. It makes a mockery of what little credibility
psychology has left.

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jmnicolas
I don't know if it's only a French thing, but the problem is not unknown as
the author seems to think : this is called "bovarysme"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovarysme](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovarysme)

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rl3
The level of persistence and continuity in the imaginary worlds that some of
these people have constructed is striking.

I wonder if this is simply due to the extreme volume of daydreaming, or if
it's a characteristic unique to the disorder itself.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
I wonder if they remember all the details or if they are able to recreate them
to a very similar degree of detail with good accuracy without needing to
actually remember them because they also created the original information.

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discardorama
FTA: "Will maladaptive daydreaming ever end up in the DSM? In the most recent
version, hoarding and skin picking made an appearance for the first time, as a
part of obsessive-compulsive disorder. For people who suffer from these
conditions, this means they can now receive treatment and insurance
reimbursement for behaviors that were previously considered odd but not
pathological."

Am I the only one who worries about everything and anything ending up in the
DSM, to then be controlled by medication? Unless what's going in your head
actively interferes with your day-to-day existence, why does it matter what
you do?

~~~
DanBC
"Interfering with your day to day life" is one of the things used to decide if
you want or need treatment. There are limited situations when treatment is
forced upon you and hoarding or skin picking probably aren't them.

Don't forget that something with a common English word as a name ("hair
plucking") is not as simple as "occasionally plucks some hair", but
"compulsively plucks hair, to the point of semi baldness, with distress as a
result".

~~~
logfromblammo
With a sufficiently large vocabulary, it is easy to distinguish between
cosmetic depilation and trichotillomania. While drugs and therapies are
prescribed to people suffering from the latter (clomipramine, acetylcysteine),
they are also available over the counter for the former (thioglycolate).

One could also make the argument that perhaps it is real life that is
interfering with the daydreams, rather than the other way around. If that's
the case, we also have drugs to treat that (alcohol, psilocybin, heroin,
marijuana, nicotine, LSD-25, cocaine, MDMA, etc.).

Keeping it out of the DSM won't stop anyone from inventing treatment options.

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pja
I’m not surprised that a drug used to treat OCD helped her, because this
really sounds like a variant form of OCD. The difference is that she was
obsessing about the virtual world she had created inside her own head instead
of something out in the physical world.

It seems to be a human failing to sometimes trap ourselves in self-sustaining
loops of thought that we find very hard to break.

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zyxley
I am reminded of ELO's Eldorado, which itself follows the style of the
original Walter Mitty story.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldorado_(Electric_Light_Orche...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldorado_\(Electric_Light_Orchestra_album\))

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lemiant
I definitely met all of these symptoms as a kid, down to the hours of
elaborate stories and the repetitive motions. I've since outgrown it, I got
too busy to return to my fantasy chracters. But I'll always miss them a bit.

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kaffeemitsahne
What's it like to daydream? I don't think I've ever done it. Until a few years
ago I didn't realize it was actually a thing, I just thought the word meant
"not paying attention" or something like that.

~~~
mtVessel
What is it that's holding your attention when you're "not paying attention"?

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lectrick
Could someone who becomes "addicted" to an MMORPG be a variety of that?
(Because it requires suspension of disbelief, which is a form of imagination,
I feel)

