It might feel like a story, but unfortunately it’s true. This can happen at any age or any time. Something that makes you feels the event near your eyes but goes around your mind. It’s the day dreaming or maladaptive day dreaming. No control on brain functioning and signaling and you might think it’s what is true is all happening around you. This symptom was discovered by professor Eliezer somer of Haifa University at Israel.
How it feels:-
People suffering from maladaptive daydreaming gets it in sensation of a wakeful indulgence preferably in thought which is not an immediate event in the person life. Although these are plesantful experiences in which person is having imagination beyond the world. As per researchers, it’s a product formed because of collection of brain regions that are considered as the default mode network. This network is set in part of brain cortex which demonstrates consistent activity pattern when the brain is in resting stage. Simply it’s seen that the brain activity in this network is quite high when it’s not attending the task. The activity level stands on at default mode and the network falls down if the brain is needed for paying attention to any external task or object. It’s also a factor that excessive of maladaptive day dreaming can result in trauma or abuse and it’s going to act as a strategy to escape the reality.
Sincerely it’s not recognized as a diagnosable condition and is stated as a kind of diagnostic and statistical preference to mental disorder 5 or DSM-V.
Symptoms and conditions;-
The DSM-5 denied its identification because of lack of criteria for its diagnosis. So to help people get aware of such day dreaming disorder, Somers maladaptive daydreaming scale is going to help in determine if the individual is experiencing MD-MDS which is rated at 14 points under these primary conditions.
- Quality and details relating to what the person is dreaming regularly about.
- Owns ability to control on the dream and how it is being handled in the dream.
- Distress percentage caused by day dreaming.
- Benefits that the person is having with dreaming.
- Sleep disruption and insomnia.
- To what extent the individual is able to carry out their daily activities with day dreaming.
- Deep dreams as well as repetitive unconsciousness movements like froth from mouth and twitching.
What is the reason:-
As per experts, the maladaptive daydreaming mechanism to cope in response to trauma, abuse or any kind loneliness leading to maladaptive daydreamer to conjure a complex imaginary or creative world. This is the reason for them to escape into in times of distress. This is an escapist method for avoiding real interaction with families and all.
Indeed practitioners have often diagnosed the disorder as schizophrenia which is a varied kind of psychosis. The reason can be both bearing similar symptom. But some have denied the fact saying that the maladaptive day dreaming is not psychosis as those sufferers didn’t recognize that the day dreaming is real.
Cure or curse:-
The disease is going to get treated with fluvoxime or Luvox is effective in helping with a maladaptive daydreaming control. This is a common drug for treatment for OCD. The disorder is going to be treated best with the medicine. Apart from this medication, which is used to just keep you safe there is no standard treatment process. Still there are certain techniques derived from anecdotal evidences which are proved helpful in managing the symptoms.
Reducing the fatigue can also be helpful in curing the abnormality. This can be either with increasing the amount or quality of sleep. Else can take something which is stimulating like that of caffeine for combating tiredness during the day time.
Secondly you can stay aware of the symptoms. Staying informed about the symptom is surely going to provide with opportunity in interrupting maladaptive daydreaming. You can also identify as well as avoid triggers with the time or space when it is happening. With this you can identify the activities or stimuli which are triggering the onset.
To identify the disorder even one can take help of therapy. There are a variety of therapies available like cognitive behavior therapy or CBT which may help expose the underlying issues. But for this it is necessary to visit the therapists.
Other than that, even medication is going to work to higher extent. This is required as per the term of the disorder. People can take the drug named fluvoxamine which is going to help with managing the symptom.
Maladaptive day dreaming and mental illness:-
This disorder is considering psycatric and excess of such condition is surely going to distract sufferer from their real life. At times it can also lead to depression and fatigue which is unavoidable. Further distraction and obsessive rumination is going to affect mood of the sufferer. Some basic examples of such kind of intrusive thoughts can be like;-
- One might take the risk of murdering or hurting someone.
- Person suffering from such disorder can commit suicide else can hurt themselves.
- Might get some deadly disease or any kind of disaster might happen randomly.
This kind of thinking can happen time to time to any one and even can have symptoms of obsessive- compulsive disorder or OCD. The maladaptive daydreaming involves obsessive thoughts and then will have compulsions which will make to get these thoughts out of head.
Misconception:-
At certain times, dissociation looks like daydreaming. Those who have post- traumatic stress disorder there dissociation is a common symptom. But this is quite different from daydreaming. In dissociation one will feel like physically getting disconnected from their body or place. The dissociation stays connected with the fight or flight response that usually occurs when person feels overwhelmed or threatened.
The maladaptive day dreaming:-
The maladaptive day dreaming is misunderstood because it carries similar psychiatric condition which involves persistent, intense day dreaming. Apart from that the symptoms includes long time of vivid day dreaming and a struggle to carry out the complete day to day task.
A coping tool:-
Day dreaming is not a bad situation but imagination can take higher. When it goes to become a case like maladaptive daydreaming then it might be lethal. In day dreaming people go through various kinds of thoughts in their dreams like creating art, finding solutions for any kind of practical problems and even setting goals which need less of imagination. This can help people get creative and deeply think about the matter with the priority to plan about the day to day life. This might not be bad or unhealthy to certain extent but still one must stay attentive to collect information relating to the disorder.
With research information, maladaptive daydreaming and dissociative identity disorder is made with a set of specific hypothesis. It’s like:-
- The symptoms of the both will be common in individuals.
- Individuals with maladaptive daydreaming disorder will report much higher levels of dissociation than those without it.
The hypothesis focuses on dissociation like a symptom and on most severe form of dissociation, dissociative identity disorder. They focus on maladaptive day dreaming as a symptom on most severe form of maladaptive daydreaming which meets the criteria for disorder. In cases it is seen that the disorder persist from child hood yet the sufferer is unaware of the situation. These can be identified with the intensity of creative imagination, aversive circumstances which have been contributing to the development of the disorder.
Diagnosing maladaptive daydreaming:-
This is no such universal method that is used to diagnose the disorder. There are some developed the maladaptive day dreaming scale (MDS). This is the scale which is helpful in determining if the person is experiencing the maladaptive daydreaming. This scale is a 14- part scale which rates five major characteristics of maladaptive daydreaming.
- Details of the dream with description of the content.
- Ability of the person to control the dream and its compulsion to dream.
- Distress level that is caused by day dreaming
- Person’s perceived benefits of daydreaming
- How much daydreaming interferes with person’s ability in carrying the daily activities?
Preferably the best way to stay prevented from the maladaptive day dreaming is to continue with mediation. This is going to bring calmness to mind and soul which will prevent unusual thought from entering mind.
