> Two theories are popular among the MD community. One attributes MD to a lack of emotional nurturing in childhood, leading to issues in emotional expressivity. It advocates emotional engagement with real life as a potential solution. The second theory suggests that daydream immersion is an innate trait and MD develops when people with this trait become addicted to daydreaming due to unfortunate real-life circumstances.
I'm surprised not to see consideration of this as a biochemical phenomenon (beyond the reductive "everything in the brain is biochemical") -- I wonder if an anatomical or signal/chemical oddity could put someone in a state where they're predisposed to switch on the dreaming/imagining circuits in the middle of tasks, almost like a very odd flavor of narcolepsy (which, among other causes, is commonly associated with the immune system destroying cells that produce a likely wakefulness-signalling protein).
I'm surprised not to see consideration of this as a biochemical phenomenon (beyond the reductive "everything in the brain is biochemical") -- I wonder if an anatomical or signal/chemical oddity could put someone in a state where they're predisposed to switch on the dreaming/imagining circuits in the middle of tasks, almost like a very odd flavor of narcolepsy (which, among other causes, is commonly associated with the immune system destroying cells that produce a likely wakefulness-signalling protein).