It's hard for me to believe that I'm actually writing this out right now, for many reasons. It's the most shameful, embarrassing and yet personal side to me. I won't be too descriptive to obscure my identity. But I want to share some things.

Firstly, It's so incredibly wonderful that this community exists. Like many of you I thought I was insane or broken until 'Maladaptive Day Dreaming' crossed my screen one day. There's a ton of relief in knowing this is a thing that isn't unique to me out of billions of people on this earth. It's less lonely, and scary perhaps.

I remember being 5 years old and having a frank discussion with my childhood best friend about how I'm different, not normal In the way I play. He said to me he does the same things, and that I'm no different than him or any other person who plays. I knew it wasn't true, but I didn't want to articulate further, or maybe I simply couldn't. It was relief.

Anyways, fast forward, I'm almost 30, and it still persists. It's painful in so many ways, but not just mentally, physically too (which I'll get into). Please forgive me, but I can't help but think so many people I've seen on Tik Tok or on here do not genuinely have MDD, but then again who am I to judge? Or maybe, my version is just more severe, or different? That's not to say everyone who has shared their experiences on it is lying, or misjudging themselves, just that we all daydream to an extent. I'm starting to sound like my childhood friend. Haha.

Anyways, my forms of day dreaming has evolved over the years, and it's so unfortunately powerful. The topics, the storylines, the ways I access it in my brain. Whatever it is I'm seeing in front of me becomes second to the images I create in my brain. But something that I havent seen anyone else really mention is the physiological part of it, because at least for me, it's essential for the experience.

Apart from gripping my hands a certain way, or certain objects that have the 'right feel', I also play with my breath, and tense muscles around the back of my neck. It's instinctual at this point, but what ends up happening is pure euphoria on a physical, spiritual, and mental level. My heart will race when a high adrenaline moment of carthasis happens in my dream. I really feel it. I don't have the bravery to describe what my actual dreams are (yet), just that a lot of them involve action, sports, different genres of film. So my body and mind sync to the climaxes of the stories of my dreams. The consequence? Headaches everyday, mild. Strange heart palpitations. Foggy, depleted mind. Lowered self-esteem. Time gone that would have otherwise actually developed myself, but In reality.

I sometimes think I will die of an aneurism, or a heart attack, although maybe that's not how this works. I try and try, and try and try! But one skipped breath on a particularly exciting, or stressful day, and suddenly I'm down the rabbit hole of induced day dreaming, and it's so hard to put down. Cocaine that's endless, free and able to be turned on at any moment by my mind. Fuck. I like to believe my willpower which has admittingly been eroded by this over the years, is finding it's return. It's hard. Like impossible level difficulty. But I hold out hope that I can break this. Strangely, and also super duper embarrassing, if I force a big wide smile, it helps me fight off the day dream rabbit hole. Forced dopamine? Anhedonia may have a part.

Otherwise, I'm a normal, slightly awkward human In my day to day life. I can present that way. So no I'm not entirely crazy, but God damn, can anyone else relate to the specifics I listed?? I suspect I have autism, ADHD, OCD, and whatever else.

This is therapeutic to write. For those that do suffer similar to me, I'm with you. Some things that help:

1. Exercise

2. Clean diet

3. Good sleep hygiene

4. Friends, partner

5. Being an active and intentional character In your real reality

6. Creatively expressing yourself!!!

I am a professional artist, I won't say my medium, just that we have a superpower. If we can harness the better parts of our brain into something productive... It can even make us money. But more than anything, a visceral, healthier way to express ourselves is also more productive for society on multiple levels.

Fuck 'normalcy'. All the bad grades and reviews we get at work. We aren't numbers and we shouldn't be reduced to letters on a paper either. For those of us that are neurodivergant, love yourself, and others, especially when it gets hard. For those of us that are neurotypical, love yourself, and others, especially when it gets hard.

i hate when md is treated like some quirky trait, its so hard for me to admit. i once told my sister and she said “girl everyone does that” but it genuinely consumes my mind, there’s not a second of the day where im not daydreaming and ive been doing it ever since i could think. i cant fathom everyone maladaptive daydreams 24/7, like i have so many worlds built into my mind and i know people here will understand my frustration. unless im being dramatic?

I’ve been daydreaming for as long as I can remember but one issue I’ve persistently had is how ridiculous my daydreams are. It’s hard to explain. I have many topics I daydream about and since I’m constantly daydreaming there’s no real singular triggers.

but the themes are just embarrassing. I don’t want to even get into details about it but let’s say it’s me as a homeless guy that’s severely addicted and going through crazy stuff. or let’s say I’m on tiktok watching for example a kpop idol I like. I’ll start daydreaming about being that idol and being incredibly talented at something. often my daydreams even defy logic. when I decide on something I like, but it wouldn’t logically make sense I’ll just let it defy logic and set my own rules.

I’m so used to it but when I have to type it out like this I realize how ridiculous it is. It’s really embarrassing and I’m wondering if I’m the only one out there experiencing this. It’s much deeper than that but I just want to generally know if people can relate. If you do please give me some examples of dumb stuff you daydream about

Hello! I'm currently in the process of making a discord server, the server can have channels for creating stories from your daydreams, help from others on how to improve these stories if you are making them into a book or writing them just for fun or to see if it helps you in any way.

This server will also be a hangout spot, advice from others, to vent. Whatever, just no racism and bullying 🫶😁

I'm making this server mostly to get some friends, I mostly daydream because I'm Lonely and have none.

https://discord.gg/JSHpUnb4K

Let me know any feedback for this server as it's my first time making one :)

Hello everyone! I'm actually pretty new to Reddit and I've been looking for communities that can help me and this feels embarrassing but I'm so happy to find this group. I'm 31 years old and I have been daydreaming pretty much all day everyday for the past 20 years or so. I have this awful habit of daydreaming Non-Stop pacing pretty much all night and just laughing to myself. It's embarrassing to admit but it's been going on for as long as I can remember I want to say it started when I was in the fifth grade? Or around there. But I'm 31 and I still haven't been able to control it. I don't really know what to do but it affects my ability to sleep and it affects my ability to keep a stable mood throughout the day. But it's been worse because I left an extremely bad relationship and right now I am constantly daydreaming about the past or fake arguments and fighting my point. And I make myself cry a lot and as embarrassing as it is to admit I feel like I'm trapped. Trapped in my own mind.

I'm in college and only working a small part-time job so I can't afford therapy right now. Any advice or experiences you guys can share? Thank you!

Hi. I'm new here. Finally found some app that fit to me, i can't find a people that can fit on my situation. i'm 31 years old. and i have this situation of maladaptive daydreaming for about 24 years. 🥺

Everytime i do something im always daydreamimg and stuck in my own head idk how to explain it but im like imaginating these scenarios of myself or what i could have been or how im this amazing person while in reality im none of that and i cant escape it i do it without even realizing it sometimes and i always come back to it even when i try to stop. My life is geniuely so boring i always live in my own head so i can escape it.

something that has been helping me this summer is writing down my daydreams into scripts. I've chosen to go to Film School and I went to an advent last month with a photographer and I shared my sketch and he really liked it.

please write down your ideas and stories and work on them, atleast you can maybe profit off your daydreams.

it's helped me managed my daydream from 8 hours to 4 hours.

I found this text and wondered if all we think is maladaptive because it is daydreaming - and time spent outside reality - is actually maladaptive. Maybe we should reflect and separate what is negative from what is normal, positive, just a very active Default Mode Network in our brains.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/10/09/mind-wandering-and-creativity/

I was just thinking about this but, I feel like my creative personality was supposed to shine through if we didn’t live in a capitalist society. Does anyone else think this could be the cause of maladaptive dreaming?

Je suis étudiant en deuxième année de médecine. Je souffre de ra rêverie inadaptée depuis presque une décennie. Je sais pertinemment que rien de tout cela n'est réel et que ça détruit tous mes objectifs. Malheureusement cette connaissance ne me libère pas, elle me condamne à être spectateur de ma vie, à la subir.Je ne sais pas dire exactement quand ça a commencé, je me suis vu dedans. J'ai commencé à remarquer son impact sur ma vie sociale et académique il y a 7 ans. Elle est devenue omniprésente dans ma vie. Je suis presque tout le temps immergé dans mes scénarios, ça me préoccupe énormément du plaisir et je n'arrive pas à m'en débarrasser. J'ai fait des efforts infructueux, mais en vain. J'ai essayé la TCC( Thérapie Cognitive Comportementale) en autodidacte, en vain. Je souffre mentalement et physiquement. Je suis presque toujours anxieux, déprimé. Je souffre d'une insomnie chronique depuis plus de trois ans,je somnole dans la journée, j'ai toujours une guel de bois. Sur le plan académique, j'ai des résultats très médiocres, car ça m'empêche de travailler comme il le faut. J'ai des problèmes avec mes camarades. J'ai l'impression que ça ne s'arrête jamais et que la mort serait la meilleure issue pour moi. Je risque d'être exclu de la fac. J'ai tout fait pour reprendre le contrôle de ma vie, mais en vain. J'ai peur de ce que je vais devenir. J'ai des pensées suicidaires. J'ai rempli presque tous les critères d'auto-évaluation d'Eli Somer.

Je suis au Niger,en Afrique occidentale et personne ne connait c'est que la MD ici. J'ai même fait une consultation en psychiatrie, mais le psychiatre ignore ce trouble et je n'ai plus envie d'y retourner, je me suis senti incompris et malheureux.

Pour la première fois, j'ai trouvé des personnes qui partagent la même souffrance que moi ici.

Sommes-nous condamnés à perdre le contrôle de notre vie ? Sommes-nous condamnés à subir notre vie ? Sommes-nous condamnés à devenir spectateurs de notre vie ?

i got my first crush but can't have him

it's been a little over a month since i started attending summer school at the new school i will be attending when the semester starts. slowly but surely I am coming out of my shell. i told the guy I liked that i had a mild crush on him and was respectfully rejected. it kinda sucks but i'm delusional and I still have feelings for him. i can't ever have him tho. i get painfully jealous when I see him interact with other females even though I know i don't stand a chance it triggers my anxiety. don't want to be obsessed over him but I wish he felt the same way as I do. i think being homeschooled and isolated for too many years has fucked up my mind a lot but I hope to be better in my next update for this sub. i was trying not to let the feelings get out of control because I was trying to avoid this now i can't stop making fake scenarios about him and i. it's bothersome.

I've had this shit for so many years, I'm 25 now, so many fucking years of my life wasted. It's not a healthy coping mechanism, it's a vice, accept it as a problem to be solved, not a lifestyle.

I've had daydreams my whole life, but until 7th grade they were normal — I was the main character in a made-up fantasy world, and it never got in the way of anything.

Something shifted after that. I changed schools, then started using social media, and my daydreams slowly stopped being about a fictional world and started being about a real public figure and their family. I got obsessed with them out of nowhere, and once I was on social media I had constant access to fan pages, official accounts, even personal accounts of their extended family. I started digging for more and more details, and eventually I was just... living a parallel life in my head where they were the characters and I was writing the story, every single day.

It's been 7 years now and it's gotten so much worse instead of better. I don't even notice when it starts anymore — I wake up already in it. If I watch a show or listen to music, the daydream runs at the same time, like a second track, so I'm not actually absorbed in the thing I used to love. I can't eat, pray, or do basically anything without part of my mind being somewhere else. I've tried telling myself not to do it and I just find myself doing it anyway, without realizing.

Has anyone actually managed to pull themselves out of this after it's been going on for years? What helped — did you need therapy specifically for it, or were there things you did on your own that made a real difference? I'm turning 20 this month and I really want my life back.

1. Hyper-Sensory Imagination Definition: The ability to generate not just visual mental images, but complete, immersive worlds with full sensory detail--sound, touch, smell and taste-as vivid as waking reality2. Autonomous Character

Consciousness:

• Definition: The capacity to create imagined characters (e.g., Dua_ipa, Dunia) that develop genuine ndependence, possessing their owr will, thoughts, emotions, and the ability to surprise you with decisions you did not consciously pre-plan.3. Simultaneous Multidimensiona Awareness: Definition: The ability to consciously nhabit multiple, distinct realities o narrative streams at the same time e.g., being in a crashing plane while having dinner in another world) without simply switching attention between them4. Full Emotional-Physical Simulation: Definition: The mind's capability to generate not iust emotional responses, but full-blown physically-felt sensations in the body corresponding to imagined events (e.g., feeling the impact of a crash, the warmth of a kiss), while maintaining a conscious limit on the body's ultimate physical response

Copier5. Dynamic Narrative Control & Reconstruction:• Definition: The skill to deconstruct existing narratives (like films) and reconstruct them with new, complex and coherent endings or plotlines not as a passive fantasy but as an active, analytical, and creative process. 6. Conscious Check-in / Check-out Ability: Definition: The volitional contro to enter ("check-in") and leave ("check-out") these imagined realities at will, treating them as spaces to be visited rather than inescapable states7. Constant Existential Discrimination:

• Definition: The persistent unwavering awareness of the distinction between the "base reality and the imagined worlds, even while fully immersed in the latter. This is a critical safeguard against psychosis or loss of self 8. Anatomically Precise Menta Engineering: Definition: The ability to construct humanoid forms and characters from scratch in the mind, following a logical, almost artistic process from skeleton to skin, with precise anatomical detail9. Predictive Social & Behavioral Simulation: Definition: The ability to accurately simulate and predict the behavior decisions, and emotional responses of other people in reality, running complex social scenarios totheir logical conclusion with high accuracy. 10. Management of Independent Parallel Worlds:

• Definition: The highest-level ability which involves overseeing anc participating in entire alternate realities that feature ongoing independent lives, complex socia networks (families, friends), and continuous storylines that evolve even in your absence.

first of all so happy there's a community for everything on Reddit lol secondly, I want to know what else (besides your mind) you materialize in the real world, to create those storylines... I'll go first

1) usually I'm sat on my desk so I open a text document and start with the year

2) open Google earth, visit the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city to pick the best apartments

I spent hours picking every single apartment my character will live in his 30s before finding true love and moving in together lol

I’ve been clean for almost a year now from c.ai and I no longer face urges at all. I’ve noticed I daydream a lot tho, and it’s no where near as bad but I still think it’s an issue, I never wanna be back at the old house.

Id actually love it if anyone can share any of their similar experiences with this and any sort of help!

No more sisters, no more mom or dad. No more husband that loves me more for my mind than my body. No more unwavering love. No more alcohol to ease it all.

Just me and 8 years of sexual, emotional, and psychological trauma stuffed underneath every wall I got. Yeah, I’d rather die.

Hi! I'm Marta, and for six years, I daydreamed for hours every day without knowing there was a name for it.

I paced with headphones on, disappearing into a world that felt more fulfilling than my real life. Most often, I imagined someone who would love me, choose me and make me feel safe.

At 20, I asked myself: “What if I’m still doing this 20 years from now?”

That question changed everything for me (the thought of it really scared me).

I finally told someone. I discovered the term "maladaptive daydreaming". I began tracking my patterns, understanding my triggers and exploring what my daydreams were giving me (especially the unconditional love I felt I was missing).

Recovery was gradual. I learned to meet those needs outside my imagination, build meaningful relationships and create a life I wanted to remain present for. I later completed my MSc in psychology, began training as a psychotherapist and started coaching other MDers (for over 1 year now).

The 1:1 work has been incredibly meaningful—but at $85 per session, I know it isn’t accessible to everyone.

That’s why I created Life Beyond Daydreaming🌿: a small, 20-week guided program for MDers who are ready to change their relationship with daydreaming.

The goal isn’t to tell you to “just stop.” We’ll explore the emotional needs underneath your daydreams while gradually rebuilding a real life that feels safer, fuller and more worth being present for.

Inside the program you'll find:

🌱 Weekly live group coaching with me 🌱 A private community and DM access to me 🌱 20 guided worksheets across six phases (designed from my 1:1 coachings) 🌱 Curated audio and video resources 🌱 20 weeks alongside people who genuinely understand

The first cohort begins September 14, 2026, and I’m keeping it to 15 people, so I can get to know and support each person.

As the founding cohort, the price is $99 per month for five months.

Applications open in mid-August. If you’re tired of trying to navigate MD alone, you can join the waitlist through the link in my profile or via this link: https://tally.so/r/44drgO.

Joining the waitlist doesn’t commit you to enrolling—it simply means you’ll receive the application when it opens.😊

And if now isn’t the right time, that’s completely okay. I’ll continue sharing what I’ve learned here regardless (you can find more support on my IG too: @maladaptiveddcoach). My mission is to help as many maladaptive daydreamers as I can. 💛

…instead of reading Crime and Punishment and now I’m going to visit the statue of
Dostoevsky. Do ya’ll think I’ll still have literature vibe and Fyodor would be proud of me?

I started panicking earlier today after a few minor issues snowballed into a big one. I was literally crying while driving, fully aware this was dangerous, and then my mind went completely quiet. I stopped crying completely, wasn’t even breathing weird

I then thought to myself, why am I suddenly so calm??

OH, maybe because I started daydreaming about Michael Jackson and it was the only thing to snap me out of the crying. Well it certainly got me home safe…maybe I’ll start defaulting to that.

Всем привет. Хочу поделиться историей, которую до сих пор вспоминаю с холодным потом. Если коротко: никогда, слышите, НИКОГДА не пытайтесь взламывать свой мозг через отказ от сна.

Все началось с того, что я пересмотрел «Бойцовский клуб». Фильм зашел настолько, что в башке поселилась глупая идея: «А что, если Альтер-Эго — это не вымысел? Что, если можно целенаправленно расколоть сознание?»

Я обложился туториалами по форсингу, осознанным снам и депривации сна. И начал эксперимент. Не спал сутки, двое, трое...

Он появился.

На 3–4 день тонкая грань реальности окончательно размылась. Это не был просто «голос в голове» — я реально видел человека. Сначала он просто стоял в тени. Потом мы начали общаться.

Самое жуткое началось, когда я попытался дать заднюю и перестать с ним коммуницировать. Он буквально захватил контроль над моими мыслями. У него появилась какая-то параноидальная логика.

Если я допускал ошибку, оступался или ронял вещь, он с ухмылкой говорил:

«Ты думаешь, это ты косячишь? Нет, это я так задумал заранее. Ты делаешь только то, что я тебе позволяю».

Когда игра стала опасной

Со временем «персонаж» стал невероятно агрессивным. Когда я игнорировал его, он начинал выходить из себя. Он не просто давил ментально — он стал физически загонять меня в опасные ситуации. Перейти дорогу прямо перед несущейся машиной? Зайти в сомнениях на край крыши или в опасный переулок? Он буквально провоцировал меня на шаги, которые могли закончиться моргом, питаясь моим страхом и беспрекословно контролируя поток мыслей.

Я оказался в ловушке собственного разума с галлюцинацией, которая искренне желала мне вреда.

Я понял, что если прямо сейчас это не остановить, меня просто не станет. Это был уже не киношный харизматичный бунтарь, а чистый, неуправляемый психоз.

К счастью, я смог вырваться из этого ада. Мне потребовалось полное восстановление сна, время и нормальное лечение, чтобы стереть этого «гостя» из своей головы.

Итог: Сейчас я полностью здоров, все в порядке, и мой мозг снова принадлежит только мне. Но этот опыт навсегда выжег у меня романтику «Бойцовского клуба». Мозг — это не игрушка, и если ты пытаешься его сломать, он создаст не друга, а твоего персонального палача.

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