Maladaptive Daydreaming is a CURSE!

[@Mystic_Paths]

It can become a form of escapism, causing individuals to neglect their responsibilities, relationships, and real-world interactions

[@GoodluckSubscription]

For me it's deeper than escapsim

[@may696]

I have done this for years. Over the years it has only gotten worse and worse. To the point I would start doing it in public, even near other people. I believe mine developed because of my ADHD and childhood trauma, my step dad didn't like me. AT ALL. He would take all my toys away, he would lock me in my room, so I couldn't go outside and play. I learned to express myself inside my head. To the point it was all I knew how to express myself.

[@may696]

I have kinda controlled it now, but I don't believe it’s something I will ever escape. It's fun. It makes me feel safe. Crazy, but safe. I feel a lot more calmer and normal after I daydream intensely.

[@dylan.lartey]

@may696 Keep at it. We will be free of this one day. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I guess we both know that we're not alone in this when it comes to how we got it. If the video helped you in any way, please tell and thank you for watching! I really mean it!

[@gisellethejpeg9898]

@@may696same here! It SOMETIMES gets in the way of things i need to do(which way better than a couple years ago where i literally did it so much that i would never do anything in favor of that), but i’ve been good at self control. It’s fun especially since i like the stories i make up and i’ve learned to do it AFTER i finish all my work like all my hobbies instead of letting it take over my life.

[@SyndroOmCani]

I don't know if I am struggling with this specifically, since it's something that I came across just now. But interestingly I also have been daydreaming about made up scenarios since I was a child. I've had a pretty rough upbringing as well. I would spent hours and hours daydreaming, constantly introspective. As an adult this would then evolve into daydreaming about emotions of the past concerning anger, sadness, disgust or fears. Moments I would have to defend myself in made up scenarious about betrayal, fighting old bullies, I would watch a reddit post or KZbin video and feel like I was the person experiencing it and having to defend myself (like AITA videos). I realized that what was actually holding me back was taking responsibility for my actions. I needed to grow up. And that means, taking responsibility for how I feel. Doing things that give me self respect. Realizing taht the only thing that I can control is myself, not others. When I let others be themselves, I am free. THis helped me to snap out of it the moment I would realize "Oh, I am about to get sucked into the maelstrom of my emotions". And I would just go back to the now. Doing the dishes. Texting a friend. Learning how to write by doing on online course for free on KZbin. It made me a lot more physically productive. But I am taking it slow still, without going crazy.

[@nezukoyaegerr]

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT, is this a WHOLE DISORDER? SO I'M STRUGGLING WITH A WHOLE DAMN DISORDER?

[@lunarspirit4934]

No it's not a disorder

[@lunamig1006]

My brother does that sometimes and l used to do that as a child, Neither of us have any major trauma but we both have autism. I'm 90% sure that's not the case, unless it affects your life negatively.

[@limmitless4062]

Watching this right after I just finished walking around my house while listening to music and making up fake scenarios with my ocs 😭

[@Nope_999]

Same 😭 I thought everyone was day-dreaming like this at some point in thier home/room

[@kolpkii]

DUDE I LITERALLY DO THIS TOO

[@serenitysubs933]

Well yh that's normal. Maladaptive daydreaming is where you literally see them

[@limmitless4062]

@@serenitysubs933 I just looked, and nowhere does it say you have to “see” the daydreams (which I often do). Maladaptive daydreaming is when you spend copious amounts of time daydreaming and act out the movements/move around.

[@pluto780]

I have ADHD and honestly I am incredibly good at balancing the time I maladaptive day dream and do work for school. Maladaptive dreaming is really only bad when it’s your only escape/ the best one available. I admit I do it a bit much to escape a stressful situation but I’ve learnt to balance this with doing work and honestly I’m getting the best of both worlds. Due to this day dreaming I have a story that I have been crafting for years and I WILL draw it and express these thoughts, without the daydreaming I doubt I’d ever be so inspired or ready to tackle a story :))

[@elise.ch4nn]

How do people live without doing this, what do they think about, nothing? This is a disorder? I thought it was just imagination. It’s the reason I’m a artist-

[@dylan.lartey]

I explain this at 4:48

[@paula_rodriguez_al]

As someone who has been a maladaptive daydreamer until recently, I have the privilege (or curse) to know the answer to this... At least in my case, I can no longer daydream. My head gets filled with stuff continuously, but I can't really control it anymore, it's just in my head constantly. It's mostly repetitive melodies, that don't need to be full songs per se, just a few music notes repeated over and over. I've discovered recently that what I do is not common either in neurotipical folks, so... Maybe I'm autistic? I do have ADHD, that I know for sure...

[@kolpkii]

funny thing is i only do this “maladaptive daydreaming” while listening to music

[@atsuucore]

same-

[@dylan.lartey]

I'm quite sure that 90% of maladaptive daydreamers do it while listening to music. I am one of them.

[@Trinitymakayy]

Sameee I cannot do it without music. So I decided to not listen to secular music and just go gospel

[@iyraspusjfzifzocyoyxyoxyoxoy]

couldnt even finish the video before i maladaptively daydreamt 🤷‍♂️

[@dylan.lartey]

@@iyraspusjfzifzocyoyxyoxyoxoy I feel that. I must have said something that triggered that need to daydream.

[@cadynextdoorr]

this was in my recommended and I just wanted to say I can tell you have an amazing mind just by the way you speak. I've also struggled with daydreaming and the way you spoke about it really encapsulates how it feels. thank you for this great six minutes of my day :3

[@dylan.lartey]

@cadynextdoorr thank you. Thank you so much for this comment. I'm so happy that I was able to make you feel understood.

[@EPICANDOTHERS]

Wow I woke up just about to Maladaptive Daydream my ocs to some random song/scene for no reason but this popped up, I always had this for YEARS knowing I had the disorder, I try my best to turn this insane brain into shows or books or songs- anything to express the newest ideas to lessen everything in my mind. & I'm fresh from Elementary School, I've had it since I dunno, 5-7. Now that I'm 12-13 it's been 2 years since I've been trying to fix the problem... Unfortunately, Maladaptive Daydreaming is... Maladaptive. (Sometimes it's a good thing, it creates artists of any kind whether it's music, writing, anything...) I hope it works well for you in the future.

[@EPICANDOTHERS]

The amount of elipses-

[@dylan.lartey]

@srehtodnacipE I hope things work out for you too.

[@Swiftmakesrandomstuff]

Wait.. So it's not normal to create entire storylines in your head with your OCS for hours on end??

[@dylan.lartey]

@@Swiftmakesrandomstuff no...especially if it gets in the way of you doing other things. Important things even.

[@Swiftmakesrandomstuff]

@@dylan.lartey oh. *OH.*

[@whitney-r5p]

2:19 brought tears to my eyes. I didn’t even realise this is why I’ve been doing it until you said it

[@dylan.lartey]

Happy to help. Now that you know why, you can solve this problem! I hope the best for you!

[@Nope_999]

HOLD ON! You are telling me this day-dreaming of walking in circles, sometimes even while listening to music, IT'S A WHOLE DISORDER?! 😟

[@lunarspirit4934]

No it's not. Neither in the DSM5 nor in ICD10 or ICD11 is it anywhere classified as a disorder.

[@Godsfavouritebratz222]

​@@lunarspirit4934 Good news 🙏

[@blacksparrow15]

@@lunarspirit4934 I saw your other comment and dismissed you as ‘one of those guys’. But this comment gives me a better impression that you know what you’re talking about.

[@brainchildren7140]

I’ve done this my whole life, but it’s genuinely not maladaptive anymore. I’m autistic and have ocd which a probably why I do this. My whole life people wanted me to stop and I think I thought it was bad and felt guilty about that, but now that I’m an adult with better coping skills, I let myself “daydream” when I want and I love it. It doesn’t take over my life anymore. I do it when I want and stop when I want. I’ve realized it’s actually my favorite thing about myself, bc it helps me think and process things and come up with new creative ideas. If I don’t do this for some time each day I feel really uncomfortable and stressed. I genuinely feel like I have harnessed this “symptom” as a power of sorts lol, I wouldn’t trade it for the world

[@tumblrfrankenstiened]

having this recommended to me after maladaptive daydreaming for like five hours was the algorithm targeting me

[@khanhchi486]

so you're telling me i've been struggling with a mental disorder...

[@p1_dreamin828]

I feel like I'm the only person who's managed to turn maladaptive daydreaming into a good thing 😭 I'm an artist and 99% of my ideas come from it, if I stopped maladaptive daydreaming I'd be cooked. edit: Should also probably mention that I am autistic, and I started maladaptive daydreaming since the moment I gained consciousness. Self soothing and stimming is a huge part of autism, so once I finally tried to stop sucking my thumb, I needed to find another way to self soothe. So I basically immediately starting rocking and maladaptive daydreaming (instead of like walking around the room or whatever else other ppl do). It's been about more than a decade, so before I even started kindergarten. Also for additional context, I was extremely isolated my whole life (not to be mistaken for sheltered, I had unrestricted internet access since elementary), my parents never doing anything with me and I never had friends, so it served kind of as a replacement for social interaction before I started making friends online. After I became a kpop stan, providing me with an abundance of music and cool people to talk with, the need to maladaptive daydream so much got weaker and weaker. Now, as ironic as it is, I've gained control over my maladaptive daydreaming (not the rocking though, can't really control stimming like that lol) and only really use it to either recover from social interactions, or if I need to cook up an idea for my art. Or the most common one as of recent, I can't find good media and would rather just entertain myself lmao. Edit #2: Also I *personally* don't see it ever being officially classified as a disorder because of this. Sure it can be worsened with certain mental disorders, but in general it's something that can easily be controlled if you're self aware and emotionally knowledgeable enough, and whether or not it's even a negative thing in the first place relies 100% on the individual. You can't really call something a disorder if the only thing making it a problem in the first place is another disorder you have. Someone who has a mental disorder that causes them to be prone to becoming obsessed and detached from reality is going to have a significantly different experience maladaptive daydreaming from a neurotypical or lower support needs person.

[@sk_lxr2920]

I've noticed my maladaptive daydreaming has been getting worse lately. it's been pretty bad for a long time, years and years wasted into it, but lately they just blend into my dreams at night, and then I can't get up and out of bed if I'm not doing it either. this goes on throughout the day, I have to use it as motivation for things. at least I'm aware of the problem though. I think I'll be following your journey, while I try to figure out what to do with my problems too. best of luck bro!

[@dylan.lartey]

Someone made a comment about how they thought that they were super creative the whole time. They quickly deleted it. All I have to say is. I thought the same...

[@blacksparrow15]

My first grade teacher use to constantly get on my case about day dreaming but I had no idea what day dreaming was. I just called it “the story in my head.” Over the years it evolved into stories and now it’s a full on multiverse

[@Lottieiscool]

Thank you for the video! I’ve been daydreaming since I was a really little kid. As a kid I would run around in circles in my house all the time while “watching tv in head” as I called it. I’m 14 now and still do it for about an hour (maybe more idk) everyday. My parents always say I’m too old for it so I’m trying to stop but I really don’t want to. I don’t think it’s quite “maladaptive daydreaming” right now but there was a time in my life where I’d rather be watching tv in my head than be in the real world. I’ve been doing better since then thankfully and I still really enjoywatching tv in my head but it’s not really hurting me anymore it’s just something I find fun. I’m going to stop doing it altogether soon though because my family already thinks I’m weird for running around in circles in my house lmao

[@yoshawty3160]

i too used to love drawing as a kid, i cant imagine how upset i would've been if my family threw them away. keep on drawing dylan!! :)

[@looptexxpage569]

You actually gave me a whole new perspective on my art and also art in general, thank you!

[@jscire__872]

I would personally think about this currently via Parts Work or IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy method. I think it kind of takes the inner child-concept to another level with maybe a bit more subtlety or accuracy. It's basically an idea that different sides of a person's psyche hold different reasons for being like they are and having different impulses: there may be different memories, feelings and/or situations that have created them, like when the brain learned a new coping-skill like you said about daydreaming. These different parts of the mind each have a separate internal logic (that may even conflict with some other parts/thought-structures in the brain, like "one part of me wants to go to a party but another part of me wants to lay on the couch" type of thoughts). Parts work therapy has this idea that some of these thought-structures are protective, that they have a defensive, or survival-focused agenda which can be things like the usual fight, flight, fawn, or freeze i.e. dissociative thought-patterns (I've come to understand that things like depression, daydreaming, or doom-scrolling can be part of the brain's dissociative response, for example). In addition, other usually more emotional parts can be the sides of the psyche that are the ones protected by the defensive thoughts/parts and usually the protected parts may hold many of the negative compartmentalized emotions and memories. This essentially often means parentified inner children (defensive) and hurting inner children (suppressed/ignored emotions and experiences). The defensive modes of being may feel like curses but they are often the brain's physical way of trying to help itself, especially during developmental trauma and overwhelm. And even though those old defensive methods/coping skills/addictions etc. are currently dysfunctional, outdated, and/or no longer work, they might have been massively helpful, and even more importantly were good-intentioned back in the day. The defensive sides of the mind could be gently guided to accept better ways of coping through calm, self-compassionate mental-states. Can't reason one's way out of an emotion, an experience, or a coping-skill that the brain built for a purpose, as long as the emotion or the experience that it's protecting or protecting against is still in place. It's a pretty interesting way of thinking about the mind and physically relating to your brain and nervous system, after all the mind is a physical structure that has developed to try to cope and survive.

[@dylan.lartey]

So what you're saying is that mind is going to protect me from what happened to me in the past with the maladaptive forever wether I like it or not?

[@R4TT33TH]

Me who does this daily NOT REALIZING IT IS FUCKING HORRIBLE 😭💀

[@paula_rodriguez_al]

Hi! I used to do that. For most of my life, I used to be a maladaptive daydreamer. When I turned 19 though, I had a psychotic episode with hallucinations, anxiety and depression. (To be clear, maladaptive daydreaming and hallucinating is a quite different experience). I started taking a lot of meds after that. And it stopped, all the stories in my head, all the daydreaming... It just stopped in a matter of weeks. I can't remember most of my life. I suppose it must be trauma induced. I can't remember what I daydreamed about. But I remember the feeling. I was dissociated from the rest of the world, but I loved it. I miss it. Something in my brain changed after the psychotic episode and all the meds. People say it happens, the chemistry in your brain just isn't the same. But man I miss it... I felt like I could do anything, and I didn't have to even move to do it. It was all there for me to create. I just wanted to tell y'all my experience. I don't think my life is bad now, or that it was bad before everything happened... But they are different. We are completely different, my highschool self and my present self. At least our brains are different, and I regret it so, so much. I can only feel that way when I am asleep now, and that, for me, is pathetic, cause I had a whole universe in the palm of my hand to play with, and now there's no escape. Thank you if you read the whole thing, I know it is a very long comment, whoever you might be.

[@dylan.lartey]

Thank you for telling your story.

[@melchiorsmokes]

im tired of ppl treating like something quirky it ruins my life

[@chrisiscool]

When I was younger I convinced myself that my friends from a different reality (my girl group I made in my maladaptive daydreams) will meet me when I die. I made up a religion, that said ill meet these girls if I die, I WAS 13! And I have REAL bad memory so I genuinly DONT remember how I was before, I dont remember being without my friends they feel like they always been here! And I mean I think of them when I walk somewhere, when I fall asleep, when listening to songs, when watching movies, when class gets boring and so much more....I think its related to me being on the ´tism spectrum :D

[@justdoit5014]

2:19 why make things in the real world if no matter what you do that it's going to get ripped away from you just keep them in your head that way no one can get to them and take them away from you💔

[@Whatisthisgremlin]

Bro…do I got maladaptive daydreaming?…I think of different stories & characters every few years.

[@melchiorsmokes]

No. if its every few years your just a normal person.

[@Whatisthisgremlin]

@@melchiorsmokes oh, alr

[@ash_g8st944]

Idk if I have a childhood trauma adhd or stuff and idk but I think I do maladaptive daydreaming I make a story or continue the story to go to sleep but it’s gotten so bad that i imagine reacting to videos in my story when I watch these things in irl or when I draw or crochet I do it in my story too just a little differently and idk how to stop (it’s gotten like that because I can’t really go outside because of some mental issues) and I don’t do it with different characters I do it with me and imaginary people I often bring up things that happened in irl and stuff or I imagine horrible stuff (I almost completely gotten away with the horrible stuff) sorry for the long comment or the grammar I just wanted to tell my story and stuff and my grammar is not good so I’m sorry if it’s not understandable with what I wrote Edit: i forgot to mention that I had times that I self like the person is next to that imagen in my head

[@dylan.lartey]

Don't worry. I understood what you said. Thank you for telling your story.

[@jessikacaroline72]

Thank you for that.

[@bplovelove3119]

I think I stopped daydreaming when I lived in my self rent paying apartment for 2 years and during those 2 years I somehow woke up and stop daydreaming after I got into a severe car accident and needed to focus on making money. But I use to daydream a lot because I didn’t like have oily acne skin, boyfriendless, lazy didn’t want to do work, etc.

[@looptexxpage569]

Do yall also sometimes have these like.. Nightmare daydreams with the absolute worst personal horror? Like the last things you'd ever want to happen. Or is it just me?

[@dylan.lartey]

i guess i do sometimes. the whole belly of the whale or darkest hour thing. Imagining myself come out of that dark places made me feel stronger. for like 15 seconds.

[@SleepyHollowKnight]

Does it count if I just think about my characters for my book to get a better idea of them? No, I’m not in the story. I don’t have any mental disorders and I don’t THINK I have trauma. I’m totally fine!

[@dylan.lartey]

@SleepyHollowKnight I used to do that. Think about characters. But when I started to write them. I realised now how bad the ideas are. I had those bad ideas for 2 years... You'd only get a real idea of what you're thinking about when you write it down.

[@SleepyHollowKnight]

@@dylan.lartey I’ve done this since I was 9, how is it bad exactly? For me, I feel like it just helps me empathize with my own characters more

[@dylan.lartey]

@SleepyHollowKnight your just think about the character not writing them. In a way your making headcanons for characters that don't actually have canon. You should have book to write them in and also watch youtube videos about writing. Channels like hello future me abbie emmons, jenna moreci , alexa donne and overlysarcasticproductions would be the best for this.

[@SleepyHollowKnight]

@@dylan.lartey oh I do! I just usually lose motivation for one story and then move into the next before it can get to the writing stage 😅

[@dylan.lartey]

@SleepyHollowKnight I talked about what a story should have and what would probably help stick with it in the second to last second, the 'fraud' one. You should rewatch that part unless you haven't gotten to it.

[@Rosie333Sophia]

I kinda wanna talk about this on KZbin but I’m scared to show my face lol 😂I mean my face is fine but some people are mean. I have so much to say and I keep reminding myself it could help someone.

[@dylan.lartey]

@Rosie333Sophia Your voice matters more than someone's opinion on your face. If you want help, someone, hate comments stop you. I hate my facial hair, and yet I still uploaded and it I've gotten comments saying that I've helped people. Focus on helping people. That's more important than anything. I'd watch your video. DO IT!

[@tumblrfrankenstiened]

I HAVE ANOTHER DISORDER?!???!?! edit: nvm it's just the ptsd lol

[@cakethedude]

Dunno, if that counts, but I rethink the story of the games that had a potential and lost it all with terrible execution. I do that qutie alot.

[@dylan.lartey]

@cakethedude that 100% counts. I'm quite maladaptive daydreaming triggers when your passionate about something.

[@asamicat8323]

I've never heard this condition

[@GoodluckSubscription]

Thank you for talking about this