Maladaptive Daydreaming: What It Is, Symptoms & Treatment (2024)

What is maladaptive daydreaming?

Maladaptive daydreaming is a mental health issue where a person daydreams excessively, sometimes for hours at a time. “Maladaptive” means this type of daydreaming is an unhealthy or negative attempt to cope with or adapt to a problem.

People who do this tend to “lose themselves” in extremely vivid and detailed daydreams. Research also shows this kind of daydreaming might be compulsive. That means it’s difficult — if not impossible — to control that you’re doing it.

This issue also overlaps with several other mental health and neurological conditions. However, there’s evidence that maladaptive daydreaming is different from these other conditions and should be declared a separate disorder.

Who does it affect?

Maladaptive daydreaming is most common in people with conditions that affect their mental health or certain types of brain functions. The conditions that are common with maladaptive daydreaming are:

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
• Anxiety disorders.
• Certain types of depression.
• Dissociative disorders.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Age can also be a factor in maladaptive daydreaming. Some research suggests it’s more common in younger people, especially young adults and teenagers, and that it can also happen to children. However, more research is necessary to determine how common it is in people depending on their age.

Lastly, many people who experience maladaptive daydreaming have a history of abuse or trauma, especially during childhood. However, this isn’t something that all people with maladaptive daydreaming have.

How common is this issue?

The term “maladaptive daydreaming” is relatively new. Eli Somer, PhD, a clinical psychology professor in Israel, coined the term in 2002.

There’s limited research available on how commonly maladaptive daydreaming happens. That’s partly because this isn’t an officially recognized condition yet. However, one early study put the number at 2.5% of adults in Israel, and slightly higher — about 4.3% — for younger adults who are students.

Another study estimated that maladaptive daydreaming affects about 20% of adults with ADHD. That would mean it affects at least 2.2 million adults in the United States, and that number doesn’t account for people who have it but don’t have ADHD.

How does this condition affect my body?

Maladaptive daydreaming is an issue that affects your mind. Your mind is the unique combination of memories, experiences, thoughts, beliefs, emotions and more that only you have. Your mind and brain aren’t the same thing. Your brain is the physical part of your body that generates all the above elements that make up your mind.

But experts also suspect that maladaptive daydreaming might involve differences in your brain that other people don’t have. People with ADHD have small, but still important, differences in the size of certain parts of their brains. Those areas are usually ones that control executive functions like decision-making, planning and self-motivation.

People with maladaptive daydreaming also seem to have trouble with executive dysfunction, which is why there’s so much overlap between maladaptive daydreaming and ADHD. They also experience similar problems with managing their own emotions. That means people with maladaptive daydreaming may also be more likely to have similar differences in their brains. However, more research is necessary before experts can confirm if this is the case.