Successes:

Failures:

Total MD Time:

Good morning

i’ve started diving more into spirituality because i genuinely feel a disconnect between me and the world, but because of this i’ve been happier recently. i guess when i got to the core of why i daydream i felt like my life wasnt really interesting enough to live to its full extent which i why i had to come back to my own world and make my own up. i mean this came from a lot of things, anxiety, depression, derealisation, lack of opportunities...etc.

so what i have started doing is focusing on what im missing from my life and working on manifestation and also mindfulness to feel more in tune with the present moment. if i can look forward to things by attracting things into my life (manifestation, law of attraction), work on myself physically and mentally (gym, journaling, getting outside and getting some sun every day, stretching, initating hanging out with family and relationships i haven’t nourished recently, meditation, deleteing social media and only looking at things that inspire real life growth, emotions check ins, affirmations), and start seeing my daydreams as a guide of what i really want in life to work off of (because why would i find them so interesting and fulfilling anyways if they didn’t bring me something i feel like i lack already), has all have drastically improved my quality of life in general. complete mindset shift. and now that i actually have reasons to be interested in my own life, i’ve found the daydreaming has gone down. i mean i still daydream time to time, but i’ve accepting that is not a bad thing. it just means i have an abundance of creative and playful energy that wants to experience new things. i also feel like i want to be validated through my daydreams, so i know i need to work on validating myself too. that’s my starting point to work off of. gratitude is also something you can practice but for me because of what i’ve been doing it has naturally came on its own.

once i started living in the present and finding reasons to look forward, all this stagnant energy finally moved.

anyways, i just thought i’d let you all know what’s been helping me and hopefully i’ll help or inspire you in some way. i’ve had it really bad before, so i know the type of pain we experience here. but i also have seen light, and i want everyone to know that there is light too

I need help any tips to deal with it. It's consuming my day and I believe i indulge in it as form of escapism from intrusive thoughts but also still not sure if this is main the reason. Really need your help and advice in this.

I'm kinda new to the MD community here, mostly because I just discovered that there is, in fact, a name for this thing that I've been doing since childhood. I've been reading some posts on this subreddit and I've seen other people on social media talking about their experience with MD, and most of the time they talk about how they daydream about themselves in various scenarios, as in they exist in their dreams in the same way that they exist in real life.

I, however, daydream about a fictitious version of myself. And what I mean is, I have a character that I navigate my inner world as, and she has many of my same personality traits as well as other traits that I would like to have in real life, and her name is different from my real life name and she also looks physically different from me. But she still is me. And I don't daydream through my point of view, it's almost like a third person narrative in which I see my character as a separate entity but I just project my thoughts and feelings onto her, if that makes sense. It's almost like a video game where you play as a customizable avatar, or like an author writing a self insert character in a novel.

Does anyone else do this? Is this a common MD thing? Or am I even nuttier than I realize?

Officially turned 18 today. Honestly? I’ve been dreading it ever since I’ve turned 17, something about being seen as an adult when I feel nothing like it just doesn’t sit right with me.

Birthdays have always just reminded me of how much of my life I’ve wasted. Dissociating, daydreaming. Surrounded by my family when others my age go out with friends or lovers. While they do something with their lives and I stay stagnant in mine.

Truth is, I’m terrified. There aren’t any dreams or goals I have outside of my daydreams. No job that I would love, and even if I did, I know realistically I’ll end up settling for something else. School gave me something to do with passing time, when I join the workforce most of my days will be spent doing 9-5s with days off here and there.

Which just feels…unfulfilling? Anticlimactic? During my younger years life just seemed so much more hopeful. In my daydreams, life IS so much more hopeful. But I look around me and everything just seems so bleak. The workforce, the people, the future. It’s not even just my mentality, there are just some things that are so bad that it’s depressing.

18 is young in the grand scheme of life, but I can’t help but mourn those years. I wanted so much from it, but never worked to actually achieve any of it. It’s really over and I’ve done absolutely nothing. My entire life has been lived in my head. And honestly? I don’t know if I even want to join the real world with what I see.

Both my parents are immigrants and they separated after a year of living together in Canada. They had an arranged marriage, which is typical in my family's culture, in their home country before moving to Canada together. However, because they were strangers when they married and relocated, my mom had no idea how abusive my dad would be to her. My parents were only together for a year before the abuse was too much for my mom. I was around a year old when my mom took me and left my dad. We have not seen him since.

I am an only child who grew up in a single parent home. We lived below the poverty line for at least the first 10 years of my life. Due to our circumstances including the events that led up to our circumstances, my mom dealt (and still deals) with severe feelings of shame, depression and anxiety. She was a great provider and did what she had to to take care of me, but she was mentally unavailable and emotionally abusive. I believe she actually also suffers from MD as she has always talked to herself my entire life.

As early as I can remember I fantasized about a different life. When I was younger I would fantasize about having a healthy and happy mom, a loving, present dad and many siblings. I would escape to this world often.

I am 31 now and my fantasies have evolved. I have many, some which are rooted in real life and others which could be storylines from alternate universes that I have been developing for years now.

My MD is starting to get out of control. I catch myself having physical reactions to some of my daydreams in public (e.g. smiling, laughing). I talk to myself a lot when I am alone. And it is getting to the point where I would rather be alone than hang out with my friends because the stories in my head feel more fulfilling they real life interactions. I daydream all day, oscillating between my real life and my fantasy lives.

I discovered I might have MD last night when I was watching a YouTube video and the YouTuber used the term "Maladaptive Daydreaming". It sounded interesting so by sheer coincidence I looked it up. My heart sank when I read what it was. I was relieved to learn that what I am experiencing is common enough that it has a name; at no point did I think what I was doing was healthy. But I was saddened to read why people experience it (although, I think I always knew that I escape to the confines of my mind because I am not happy in real life).

I'm not posting this for any particular reason, just sharing my story.

I look forward to learning more about MD and trying to treat it before it gets even more out of control. I'm scared I'll become one of those older people in public who have full-on conversations with themselves.

I have a question, do yall have an album of photos of your characters? I’ll be working, outside, anywhere and I don’t even imagine myself doing all of these things. It’s been her. Like this bitch has taken over me 😭 It helps me escape reality, but sometimes it’s hard when you look up or snap back into reality and you’ve lost so many hours. 😭

I daydream as long I remember myself. It's like I have another hidden life in my head! Even if I have a good relationship and friends that doesn't stop me from having fantasy versions of them, as well! With faces of celebrities mostly...sounds so stupid, I'm 30y.o! I think it's something like copy mechanism esp when I'm depressed and anxious bec when I am happy (almost never)I don't. Ofcourse in those fantasies I'm very talented,charismatic and all the things I am not and I don't do in reality. It's heartbreaking when I compare reality to fantasy.

I daydream as long I remember myself. It's like I have another hidden life in my head! Even if I have a good relationship and friends that doesn't stop me from having fantasy versions of them, as well! With faces of celebrities mostly...sounds so stupid, I'm 30y.o! I think it's something like copy mechanism esp when I'm depressed and anxious bec when I am happy (almost never)I don't. Ofcourse in those fantasies I'm very talented,charismatic and all the things I am not and I don't do in reality. It's heartbreaking when I compare reality to fantasy.

I just have a bad urge to sleep all the time & sometimes I even use Disprin as a way to escape from headache and it only just reduces it. But at the same time mdd helps to escape from loneliness and it also interferes in my daily life. I have a tough time to keep up with my work and I often forget my belongings i.e., where I kept them & in which condition. To prevent that I often make a mental image. I often mishear lyrics of a song when they aren't available. Practicing mindfulness gives me anxiety because I get separated from my characters even though I know most of them really don't give a damn 'bout my existence. I have an excessive urge to masturbate due to my >!sex !<daydream. >!Excessive white discharge comes from my vagina. I feel suffocated down there. Due to this I have stopped wearing panties except on my period days. I'm obsessed with touching my nipples too.!<I can't stay at one place and often run around like crazy. Sometimes I even laugh at unexpected moments which make other people to view me as a weirdo.

Successes: 10

Failures:

Total MD Time: 10min, 1hr

Me: C’moooooon let me just have 5 minutes of MDing before work, pleeaaassseee?? I’m gonna be doing stuff for the rest of the day. Can’t I have this-

Also me: no

Me: pleeeaaaaase?

Also me: no

Me: just a little bit-

Also me: then go do it in the car (where I can’t ever completely MD since driving naturally takes up a portion of my working brain)

Me: …fine 😞

Edit 1: almost considered counting a failures yesterday but eh gave myself some leniency cause I did break out of it

This is for all those trying to stop their MDD, i really recommend this: (Remember that Acceptance is important before you start changing)

And to everyone out there trying to stop; you are very brave and strong, keep going. I'm proud of you all <333

NOTE: Everything isn't for everyone. However I do believe this could help atleast some people!

• SHADOW WORK ; Shadow is all about the repressed side, etc(And learning about the Shadow too, Carl Jung's works are amazing in getting to know yourself better)
• JOURNALLING, AND EMOTIONAL JOURNALLING; This is more related to building a platform to express your thoughts and feelings.
• DIARY WRITING; Instead of your daydreams, sit down and start writing in your diary things you usually would never feel like telling anyone; be brutally and shamelessly yourself.
• UNDERSTANDING ITS NOT NORMAL; Okay... I have to explain this one. I think alot of people who struggle with MDD forget that this is not healthy (it is not a healthy form of daydreaming), in my experience was a lot of invalidation I faced, getting told that I was making it up in my head and it wasn't real, that I was just making up problems in my life, etc. However none of these solved the problem. Once I REALIZED, i PROPERLY understood that this was an actual PROBLEM in my life, and that it was, indeed, VALID, was also when stopping it became so much easier. Its that reminder.
• BUILDING YOUR ATTENTION SPAN
• CREATING A NEW LIFE STYLE (IMPORTANT!!!!!)- Abstinence alone is not enough, you have to replace it with something good. You have to build new habits and a new lifestyle.
• GETTING OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE- Trust me, getting over Maladaptive daydreaming is not going to be very comfortable, in fact, it really never was. But on the other side of suffering is greatness.
• ASKING YOURSELF WHY YOU WANT THIS? ARE YOU SERIOUS ABOUT IT?
• BREAKING DOWN YOUR DAYDREAMS, DESIRES AND CHARACTERS. Characters and daydreams are all parts of you, etc, (IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE I SUGGEST TO READ ERETAIAS ARTICLE! ITS DESERVINGLY POPULAR)
• MOVEMENT
• GETTING INTO THE REAL WORLD: SOCIALIZING (VERY IMPORTANT)
• ACCEPTING THAT PAIN IS PART OF THE PROCCESS: DONT RUN AWAY FROM IT, ESCAPING YOUR PROBLEMS WILL MAKE IT BETTER.
• BUILDING HOBBIES; STUDY, READ SOMETHING FUN
• BUILDING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SELF; SELF LOVE, SELF ESTEEM, SELF CONFIDENCE, PERCEPTION OF SELF- mainly building self respect.
• Acceptance; accept that you need to change/what you hate about yourself/the time you wasted/ that you had to go through this alone (these are all examples) (VERY IMPORTANT)

When I was struggling with MD, letting go of daydreaming at night was extremely challenging.
I would daydream in order to fall asleep. If I didn't daydream, I would feel overwhelmed with painful emotions coming from my real life. Sometimes I would get so intense in my daydreams that I couldn't fall asleep because I would feel all these emotions coming from my daydreams. I needed to learn to balance what I was daydreaming about in order to fall asleep.
Also, it just felt good, when the day was over, warm under my blanket I could let my mind do its thing without feeling guilty of not being productive.

How is it for you? Do you use daydreaming to fall asleep? What is your experience?

As the title says. The worst part from this is that it always takes place when im doing some task so i can't focus at all. The daydreams are usually about violence on people who someway i hate. Has this happen to someone else?

I used to think it was a funny & enjoyable thing, but I've recently realised how much it's actually ruining my life.

The past few nights daydreaming has keep me awake and caused me to lose so much sleep. I was supposed to do a workout this morning but instead I got out of bed and immediately started daydreaming for 2 hours straight.

I turn 25 tomorrow, and I've done nothing with my life. I'm unemployed and depressed and I want to start actually living in the real world and achieving my dreams irl instead of only pretending like I've achieved them inside my head

This is my first time ever actually trying to stop MD-ing, so does anyone have any tips on the first steps I should take? Or any advice? Thanks so much ♡

The main town where I live has had road works (they are building a town centre) making it hard to cross roads. I had been listening to something on my Ipod and MD/not concentrating while trying to cross over. One car stopped on the left to let me cross over, another on the right near almost knocked me over. I thought they were going to yell and and swear at me, but I was asked if I was Ok. I said yes and they drove off.

I was close to tears, one couple across the road just gawked at me and then someone else asked if I was OK. They told me the person that almost knocked me over was at fault because the other car stopped to let me cross over. It was my own fault for not concentrating.

My daydreaming started when I was like 5. At the time I couldn't make up real people in my head, so what l'd do is line up all my dolls and teddy bears in front of me, and visualized them alive, in a real world in my head, it was so weird lol Back then I NEEDED to have a thin white sheet of construction paper in my hand.

When I first started daydreaming with real human characters, l used colored pencils. Then the feeling became too smooth for me so i started using the BIC gray pens; the cap always had to be off and on the top of the pen. I used the pen throughout elementary and middle school. Starting from High school, til now (21yo) | have to use mechanical pencils (the clear BIC ones with the edges and different color tabs) and the perfect amount of led has to be out of it. I also love the noise the led on the inside makes when I shake it. I've literally kept up with the exact same pens/pencils for months/a year at a time.

I'm always sad when I finally lose it because I have to adjust to the feeling of a new one all over again and it's so weird because I can get the same EXACT pencil that I had before, but it still feels completely different to me for the first couple days. It's almost like there's a certain energy that I put into them to give a custom feeling. Am I too weird for yall, lol ?

I’ve always used MDD to cope since childhood. I fixate on a TV character and immerse myself into their world. Usually, I can move on to real life for a brief period until I find another character to fixate on. This is normally not distressing but the character I’ve been enjoying for a year has spiraled into a rigid compulsion. I have to look at certain gifs lined up perfectly in a certain order while listening to a song that I restart until the horrible feeling goes away. I can’t daydream about any other character or consume any other media. I’m in a transitional time in my life so I recognize this as an attempt to gain control but I’ve been consumed to the point where this character is all I think about.

It doesn’t help that I decided to write fanfiction and I was self inserting a bit as a love interest for fun. But I started obsessing over how this character would act in my fic. Now, I can’t even get this fictional character to love me. Still can’t let them go (even temporarily). I feel like if I move on I’m losing a part of myself I won’t be able to get back. This might be super specific but it’s a strange experience for me. Does anyone have something similar?

So guys, I recently started smoking weed, and lemme tell ya, I become so aware of my surroundings that I can’t daydream. I can, but they’re usually just daydreams of me being high since when i’m high girl i’m already de-realizing.

I talked to my therapist about it, and I think she has no idea what is that, and it made me so angry. I used to go to many psychiatrist and therapists, and they used to give me some tips about how to be in the present, but no one really knows what is that, beside that these days I keep saying that I hate myself, I feel so bad about myself and so angry about the daydreaming

Today I found out that the actor who plays the character I have a crush on is leaving the show... I'm sitting here and crying, I know it's stupid but I really feel like he broke up with me... I feel sad and this unpleasant feeling of passing and the fear that because of this, the creators of the series will decide to kill this character. My heart is broken..

Hello everyone, I'd like to talk with you on behalf of the International Society for Maladaptive Daydreaming (ISMD). It is a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness of this misunderstood problem.

The ISMD is holding a series of webinars for its members; the second one is upcoming in a few weeks, if you'd like to attend you just need to subscribe to the organization on its website (https://maladaptivedaydreamingsociety.com/membership/)

The topic is: "Could focusing inwards make you feel less in control?" with ISMD President, Prof. Nirit Soffer-Dudek.

You will learn about the relationships between maladaptive daydreaming, dissociation and obsessive-compulsive disorder in this exclusive member event. There will also be an opportunity to submit questions directly to Prof. Soffer-Dudek.

​

Successes: 6

Failures:

Total MD Time: 40min

Woke up later than I meant to but oh well. I still have time to get everything I need done today and I can also do it tomorrow morning.

Gonna go crack open a few windows now let fresh air in. The more grounding sensations, the better 👌

Edit 1: the keeping myself busy theory continues to work. Mowed the lawn today. Physically laborious, but I’m proud of myself

So, I 25M daydreamed since I was 13. I always had this fantasy about being the best in everything, not always the protagonist, but someone, who could win all the impressions. I daydreamed of the perfect version of myself. It didn't affect my social life, like most people. I still go out, have fun, have relationships, go to work etc. But every morning and every night I ended up daydreaming. I realised that, this was driving me crazy so I told myself that I needed to stop. Every night, I watch TV shows or movies, or read a book and guys it actually worked. Also, gym helped me a lot. Now I have to find a way to deal with mornings too. But I reduced it to 20 minutes a day, so if I can do it, anyone can. It's been 1 year since I stopped daydreaming at nights. I think that I will soon start seeing a therapist so I delete this part of my life. But there is always hope.

He is not coming to save me in real life. He is obviously coming to save me in my la la land. But in reality noone is coming to save me.

Only I can save myself.

Only I can get myself out of procrastination rut.

Only I can make myself realise I need to focus on my studies and career.

Only I can make me trust myself and my decisions.

I can manage my anxiety about exam and still study with focus without daydreaming like a real student studying for real exam.

I can clear exam this time. I will clear this exam. I will definitely clear it this time.

I will surely feel anxious and stressed because everyone does. It's normal. I just need to keep going.

I can rely on myself. I don't need my imaginary bf to save me in my fantasies.

Hi All,

I have been MDD for years now and I have realised it is time to stop & put a consistent effort to stop myself from daydreaming my imaginary scenarios. I have lost years like many of us do over this habit and do not wish the situation to keep repeating itself all my life. I am drained and have struggled with not being able to experience true joy in my reality as those emotions were directed in my imaginary world. I have reached a stage where i do not want to feel alone anymore and seek guidance from those who are sailing the same boat.

Anyone interested to start this journey towards healing, let's do it together so that we aren't alone in this lonely journey of healing and to truly help each other come out of this strong.

Okay I have seen and read more than half of the forum as I just discovered that am not alone So now I would love you’ll to let me and others who newly joined what were the SOLUTIONS TO TRIED AND WHAT ARE YOU GUYS REALLY DREAMING OF NO JUDGEMENT

When i want to do something that might be considered a huge change in my life

something that i really need to do, and want to do, i keep trying to work on it and everything

but then once i daydream that i "already" did that thing, and it went well, i suddenly don't have the motivation to work on it irl anymore,

or more like, my brain thinks that i don't need to do it anymore?

it takes me afew days until i get motivated to start working on it again, but then i again start daydreaming that i already finished working on it, and now i again don't feel like doing it irl anymore

like does anyone else experience this? and how do i get out of this endless cycle?

im trying cold turkey lets see how long i last