The Psychology of your 20s - 242. The psychology of maladaptive daydreaming

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Daydreaming can be a perfectly normal part of life - zoning out in the shower, before we fall asleep, on the train to work. But some of us cross over into dangerous territory or what we call maladaptive daydreaming where we can't pull ourselves away from the fantasy. We feel disconnected and it makes our real life feel so much less bright and enjoyable. It can cause us a lot of distress and distraction. Why is that? And why can't we stop ourselves? In today's episode, we break down:  What makes daydreaming 'maladaptive' or 'excessive'  What are the signs + the 16 item scale for maladaptive daydreaming The impact on our emotional health  Maladaptive daydreaming and creativity  Maladaptive daydreaming, trauma, anxiety and OCD  Is daydreaming a form of escapism? How to turn daydreaming into intentional visualisation  Thank you to our listeners who contributed their perspective. Happy listening!  The 16 item scale here: https://traumadissociation.com/mds  The Reddit help group: https://www.reddit.com/r/MaladaptiveDreaming/  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]       See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of your 20s. Today's episode was inspired by a listener who emailed me a few weeks back with a conundrum. And I'm going to start the episode by reading what they said. Hi, Gemma. I have a more rare but personal episode request that I would love for you to consider. Basically, my situation is that it feels like I've spent my whole life daydreaming about a better

life rather than just living the one I have. I can get lost in these big dreams whilst I'm still awake, minutes passing by without me even realizing. I've created imaginary friends, imaginary enemies, pets, careers, scenarios, and I play them over and over again. Anytime I get the chance, I daydream. And it's getting to the point where I've lost too many hours in my life to count, probably more than four hours a day. What can you tell me about this? And am I the only one? As soon as I read this email, I knew I had to do an episode on maladaptive daydreaming.

Because this listener is by no means alone. There are thousands, millions of people going through the same thing, finding comfort in their imagination and their daydreams that, you know, they can't find that comfort in the real world, spending hours thinking about their dream life and picturing it so intensely, but also struggling to make real life progress towards it or to be fully present in their day-to-day existence. I don't think it's surprising to say that this has become a lot more common, especially for people in their 20s, because of how uncertain this decade is, how uncertain the world is.

daydreaming offers a temporary release from the stress and from the choice overload and from the confusion. As we'll get into, you know, the more lost, confused, anxious, disappointed, heartbroken maybe you feel, the more likely you are to daydream. And it's no surprise that this is common amongst this generation because we are so overwhelmed by getting it right. We are facing such intense pressure to be exceptional. Everything just feels so much harder for our age group as well. You know, who doesn't want to feel like they have an escape? And we all find a way to escape somehow through drinking, through, I don't know, maybe drugs, through addiction. And daydreaming is also one of those ways. So let's talk our way through why that

is. What are the basics of maladaptive daydreaming that you should probably know, but maybe don't? How does it differ from just having a really immersive creative imagination or being a visual thing? and what are the signs to look out for? I also want to talk about the link between loneliness, trauma, OCD, anxiety, because daydreaming is actually a lot more complex than we think. There is this whole cycle that can explain what draws people into maladaptive daydreaming as a coping mechanism, but because it is such a private experience, it's so hard to actually get answers and to talk about it openly,

and it's not really part of the discussion. But of course, it really should be. I also want to talk about a really interesting theory that I came across that explains how we actually can turn daydreaming into a method to motivate and energize ourselves rather than as this form of escapism, how we can shift our imagination towards intentional visualization. When I came across this theory, I was like, this is incredible, this is remarkable. It's like scientific manifestation. It's wonderful. So I really hope that you take something away from this episode. I hope you learn something about yourself.

I hope you learned something about how to be a more kind of like powerful cognitive and mental being, taking that daydreaming element that sometimes can be so negative and turning it into something really positive. So I'm going to stop rambling. Without further ado, let's get into the psychology of maladaptive daydreaming. If you want to know whether you have to be able to do, if you want to know whether you have a problem with maladaptive daydreaming, it is probably firstly best to know what it is and what distinguishes it from kind of aimlessly losing track of your thoughts from time to time.

Well, maladaptive daydreaming occurs when we spend a lot of our time during our days, weeks and months, daydreaming about the past, the future, making up these really vivid and complex plots that completely engulf us. The key word here, is maladaptive. There is such a thing as healthy daydreaming. You know, some people would call it immersive daydreaming where we zone out for a few minutes here and there. Our brain kind of switches off and we get to like pop into our warm, gooey imagination. That is totally healthy. It's totally normal. It's part of how our brain works. But the distinction is that those instances are quite brief and they're often something that we can control. It is not as well where we spend most

of our days. So there are a few components that really make maladaptive daydreaming stand out and they put it in a league of its own. First of all, it interrupts your daily life and it pulls you away from everyday activities. You know, you could be doing your dishes and then suddenly you are like absorbed by a daydream for like 10, 20 minutes or even longer before you like come back down to earth and you're like, wait, 20 minutes has passed and I'm still kind of just aimlessly standing at the sink. The daydreaming also almost feels preferable to your real life. It's addictive in a way. So it pulls you back in again and again and again. Some people have actually described to me as almost being like a hobby. It's something that they prioritize, that they're like, you know, I'm not

going to go see my friends. I'm going to deliberately stay up later. I'm not going to get up from the couch because I just kind of want to sit here and daydream. I want to sit here and fantasize. Like that's something that I plan for. The daydreams, as I said before, are often really vivid and compelling. It is like a whole almost movie series is happening in your brain. There are characters, there are plot lines, multiple plot lines, there are different settings that you could almost describe in detail. It's such a personal private experience that it's really hard to get specific examples of what this looks like. But some people have really reported creating entire lives in their imagination where they run multiple successful businesses. They have homes in three states.

They can describe the love of their life that they have in their imagination. Then they can almost go into these subplots. Like they could tell you when they met that partner, what's inside their homes, what these homes look like because they spend so much time building out. this world. Some people also, you know, they daydream about all the ways they could go back and change something in the past. They may also think about what it would be like to be famous, what it would be like to do something really heroic and they have this like one instance that they replay. Very intimate moments with a partner, shared adventures with a partner, what it would be like to have someone like that. You know, you could tell me almost like the smells, the sensations, the sounds

of what this feels like and all the while you could be sitting in front of me and have this entirely different world playing out in your head. If you are actually someone who experience this, I really want to hear from you because it sounds so intriguing, like all the reports that I was receiving and all the different case studies that I read and the people that I heard of, it was completely different for basically every single person. So please DM me if you have stories.

about this or what it feels like for you to kind of switch into your maladaptive daydreaming state. It's because of this very aspect, actually, how amazing it feels and how personal and private and intimate, how specific an individual it is, that it can be really easy to form an emotional attachment to our daydreams, even having like our favorites that we repeat over and over again, like a favorite movie. With time, though, we kind of realize that. that they aren't true. They may never be true. And because of how invested we've become, we feel really, really disappointed. We feel crushed. We also start to feel like, we have wasted all of this time, as that person said at the beginning, that we could have spent

creating that reality. We've wasted all this time that we could have spent being present, doing something about our dreams. But instead, we have been stuck in this thought loop. nothing has come from it that time feels wasted even though it felt so nice things are still the same and that can make us really stressed and really desperate to find a way to stop to just be present to make our reality be just as good even if like specifically we don't know how and that is the curse of maladaptive daydreaming it's like here is our brain and it's going to serve us up something that is so delicious and desirable and believable and perfect for us that we forget it's not real.

And then when we do, there is this very long fall back to reality. It's something quite a few people report like a daydreaming hangover or daydreaming guilt. Kind of like when you, you know, you wake up from a really good dream and you try to like fall back asleep or you try to like relive it as soon as you wake up but you know eventually it just feels like it's moving further and further away i remember being like 20 and i had this like amazing dream about being on holiday in greece and i met this man and this amazing guy and in my dream we had this like crazy whirlwind romance and we fell in love and it felt so amazing and then we were and then i woke up my god did you just see how i said we look yeah i was i was i was

woke up. He's not real. And it wasn't real. And the aftermath, though, of trying to hold on to how real it did feel and longing and the sadness, that is a dream hangover. And I cannot imagine feeling like that all the time from a daydream. So hopefully you kind of get the picture. It's a lot more complex than just, you know, occasionally zoning out. But now for, you know, more clinical perspective, some of the science attached to why this kind of happens. You know, researchers used to think that it was a type of like dissociative disorder where there was like a loss of connection between who we are, our thoughts, our feelings and our surroundings and this pattern of, I don't know, fantasy that was happening in our brain. There's also been like a real push actually

in recent years and it was just in the news last week to get maladaptive data. dreaming listed as its own mental health disorder in the DSM. Mainly because people like, well, this is just so complex and destructive, we need really great minds on this. I need a diagnosis. But of course, if you know like the clinical psychology community in the DSM, it is so hard to get new disorders considered. So as of right now, maladaptive daydreaming is not a mental health disorder. It's still seen as quite rare or niche. But most people, professionals would actually say that that's because maladaptive daydreaming isn't so much a condition. It's a coping strategy. So it is not the root of our so-called problem. It is a symptom of that.

And it comes as a result of things like loneliness, trauma, general depression. It's a product of those previous experiences. But because it's seen as a symptom rather than as the origin or a condition, it actually means that no one is systematically measuring the prevalence in society. There is not many people doing in-depth research. There is a group that is very dedicated to this. And I did find some studies from them over the past two years that really wanted to look at the prevalence of maladaptive daydreaming. So there was one study in 2022 that said about 2.5% of people experience this. there was a 2021 study that said 34.3% of their participants identified as being maladaptive daydreamers.

I'm just going to caveat that and say that's really quite high. That was a group of university students though and as we know it is more common in younger population groups but still 35%. You know, just that's mind blowing. The most trusted source in my mind though for how many people are experiencing this came from a study that observed around 3,000 American adults, and it concluded that about 4% of us would meet the clinical cutoff for maladaptive daydreaming. That's about 1 in 25, which I think is quite believable. Now, when we say clinical cutoff, what they're really referring to is actually this measure of whether you are a maladaptive daydreamer or not. And it is called the 16-item, Maladaptive Daydreaming

Scale. Super simple. name. There are 16 questions. Something that had me shocked, though, have a guess when it was developed. So maladaptive daydreaming has been around for years and years and years centuries. Only eight years ago. Eight years ago was when they had the first screening tool implemented that could tell, they could kind of, I don't know, not diagnose, but had a clinical cutoff for what we could count as maladaptive daydreaming. That's like yesterday in my mind. Like only eight years ago, 2016. That's wild. So there are 16 questions on this list. Some of them include like when you know that you have something important or challenging to pay attention to or finish,

how difficult was it for you to stay on task and complete the goal without daydreaming? Another question, when the real world interrupts one of your daydreams, how annoyed do you feel? How much does your daydreaming interfere with your academic or occupational success? To what extent is your daydreaming dependent on listening to music? These are just some examples. I'll leave a full link to the measure. It's actually publicly accessible. I'll leave it below.

Just a quick reminder. If you're going to go and look at it with all self-reporting scores, try and be honest. Score yourself accurately. And just remember that it's not the only confirmation. You know, it is important to talk to a professional, but it's an interesting resource. definitely something really, really fascinating.

The individuals who actually developed this scale, they make up a group called the International Consortium. Do I am I saying that right? Is it International Concertorium for Maladaptive Daydreaming Research? This is an entire body of researchers and psychologists who are primarily interested in why we get so wrapped up in these fantasies. And they've had a lot of really cool discoveries over recent years. What was really fascinating was one of their recent papers that found people who are maladaptive

daydreamers as adults were often very creative children. They often had make-believe imaginary friends. They were more likely to be scolded for daydreaming in class when they were younger. So that kind of pattern of creativity and imagination follows us into adulthood. but also, and maybe less pleasant, there is a really known relationship between adverse childhood experiences and becoming a maladaptive daydreamer. So when your circumstances as a child are very bleak and hard and stressful and you don't have the autonomy or the independence to leave to walk away, you find a private internal escape.

And that sanctuary is often your mind and your thoughts and your dreams. I actually used to work in this space. I don't know if I've spoken about this much on the show, but before I started the podcast, I would interview people about child maltreatment and child abuse. And one of the biggest misconceptions is that adverse childhood experiences only refer to abuse or neglect or physical violence. But if you also include being a child in an angry household

or being a child with absent parents who worked a lot, being a child in a house with a lot of conflict and yelling, having narcissistic or emotionally abusive parents, living through a tragedy or being bullied, those are also experiences that can make you find an escape through daydreaming. You know, how many of us have been in those circumstances when you are being bullied as a kid or your parents are yelling at each other or they're dealing with like financial problems and the only place that you can go that is your own is your mind. So daydreaming, it does become an escape. And I want to talk about that a little bit more, while we find ourselves so invested in these visions and our

imagination after this short break. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental topics. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will

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Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The most prominent explanation in like the psychological community for why Maladap of daydreaming occurs is that it is a form of escapism like we've alluded to. Escapism basically means finding a way to distract ourselves from real life problems deliberately or by accident and either just for a moment when things get stressful temporarily or for a prolonged period of time. It's a really incredible survival instinct to survival urge in our brain that is basically like, okay, there is nothing more I can do, but I can maybe minimize the trauma of this experience if I just completely clock out, if I just leave this

behind. All of us, I think, do need that kind of escape sometimes from what's going on around us. That's actually perfectly natural. It's hardwired into our minds. But it's not meant to last forever. It's meant to temporarily, you know, prevent us from being emotionally and cognitively overloaded, kind of like blowing off of steam and, you know, when you get home from work, putting on music or switching off in front of the TV, those are other forms of like that kind of mental escapism or mental switch off that is important for our brain. But excessive escapism of any kind, whether it is getting incredibly invested in video games or social media or shopping, or substance use, it becomes a problem when we rely on this habit to regulate our emotional lives

and that's our only skill. You know, we don't feel okay without it. It's our only way to cope. And it's getting in the way of everyday life. I read this one person's really compelling story on Reddit, actually, that I wanted to share to explain why maladaptive daydreaming is kind of up there with a lot of other forms of escapism and how complex it is. I've actually been doing a lot of deep diving into Reddit recently when I'm researching things for the show because there are just like so many communities of people online. And there are communities for every single issue or problem you can think of and people are so vulnerable and open, but it's anonymous and they give each other advice. It's like being a fly on the wall for these like deeply personal 12 hour online discussions and just getting to observe. And

when I went searching for people's personal experiences with maladaptive daydreaming, I found this support group that had like 120,000 members. And this one person's testimony, which they had only posted maybe like a day before it really stood out. I don't feel like I belong in this world, so I created my own. At this point, my paracosom, which is basically a fancy word for imaginary world, my paracosum feels more real than my actual life. I don't escape into my daydreams. That is my home.

What other people call real life is just a place that I visit from time to time. This is an extreme example of excessive escapism that has probably come from a really prolonged habit of maladaptive daydreaming. But what it really articulates for me is that those of us who daydream quite excessively, there is a definite split between imaginary world and the real world. and this person is basically saying, like, I'm choosing to stay in the imaginary world because it's safer. Normally, this really intricate, you know, internal life, it has been developed because there's something about our real life that we want to avoid. But, you know, unlike escapism through physical external activities like gambling or impulse spending or drugs or video games,

from the outside, no one would know. Like there's no obvious warning signs of excessive maladaptive daydreaming because by nature, like, it's so private. And so I think there is a lot of people who get away with this being a real advice for them and no one really being able to tell because there's no symptoms. There was a 22 study conducted in Finland that also found that there is quite a strong correlation between how bad we think things are going in the world and how often we find us. themselves mentally escaping through these distractions. And as our stress levels rise, as did the hours spent daydreaming by participants. Another correlation by two researchers in India back in 2021, it found that people who are lonely, they spend more hours maladaptive day dreaming. Between like four to seven hours a day was their estimate. That's like more than my screen time for the day,

in my own thoughts, being quite disconnected. And it makes sense. to me why now and in the last 10 years, rates of daydreaming and other forms of escapism have really increased and become such a buzz topic because a lot of us in this younger generation, we are more pessimistic than ever, we are lonelier than ever, the real world feels very gloomy, but fantasy can be whatever we want it to be. Our dreams can be whatever we want them to be, and they really do feel quite real. There is also, I'm going to say, like, quite an important relationship between maladaptive daydreaming and anxiety because it can be so soothing in the moment when everything around us feels stressful and is really heightened and

intense. You know, maladaptive daydreaming is like this place where we can go to retreat. But there's also a component of it that is emotional avoidance, you know. if we can always just retreat to this place in our mind and we use this unconscious protective mechanism, it means that we never actually confront what it is about our environment, our circumstances, our real life that is so upsetting. The most significant link as well is it's not to do with anxiety, it's not to do with escapism, it's actually interestingly to do with OCD.

And we haven't even mentioned it yet despite being like, if you look at the literature on maladaptive daydreaming, so much of it comes back to OCD. So OCD for a refresher is a condition that features like recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas, or obsessions that you can't switch off. You know, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people are like, oh, you know, OCD is basically just like wanting things to be neat or like germophobia or being quite type A. You know, that is such a misconception it leads to so many people being misunderstood. You know, OCD is really about trying to control unwanted, intrusive thoughts that make us feel intense stress and anxiety. And the only way that we feel we can lessen that anxiety is by these repetitive behaviors. If we think

about that in the case of maladaptive daydreaming, something in our life is really unpleasant, uncomfortable. That is the trigger. It's not as we want. And it's bringing up a lot of really anxious thoughts that we don't want to confront. But they just keep coming into our brain. We can't control this. We can't control this. This is happening. And so we have this compulsion, this compulsion towards our daydreaming that alleviates the stress and the pain. There is a really strong body of evidence that between 30 to 50% of people with O'Ss, also report experiencing prolonged daydreaming. And a person with OCD might engage in this because it is literally the only time when they don't feel fearful or anxious when they're in this state.

One group of researchers in Germany, they recruited 77 people who reported daydreaming excessively and they asked them to keep a daily diary for just two weeks. and they wanted them to basically be like, how often do you find yourself daydreaming? And then how's your mood? How are your like mental health symptoms? Specifically like looking at depression, anxiety and OCD. And it was found that when participants handed back these kind of like diaries, these journals,

when they were engaging in daydreaming, when it was becoming more frequent for them, their mood actually became worse. They felt more annoyed. more frustrated, they felt more anxious, and they also experienced significantly more OCD symptoms because there was a cycle. There was a cycle between maladaptive daydreaming and an initial, you know, soothing, calming sensation, some fun, maybe some entertainment, but actually a long-term avoidance and a long-term contribution to a worsening problem.

Here is what that cycle looked like. We experience a negative emotion or a negative thought, which makes us daydream more, which in turn makes us feel worse, which makes us more disconnected from reality and our daily experiences, which is, you know, makes us more likely to daydream, which makes us feel worse again. So there is this whole cycle. Every time something bad confronts you and you're like, okay, this is just too much. This assignment is too much. This assignment is too much. This friendship is too much. I don't want to think about my relationship failing. I'm just going to like settle in for a daydream. Maybe not even thinking about it. The cycle and the initial feelings just become bigger. I know this is all sounding really, really serious. I haven't

quite heavy there for a second. But again, like not all daydreaming is bad for you. Nick, we're not going to make huge generalizations here that every instance of having a nice thought, thinking about Christmas with your family, thinking about your wedding, thinking about graduating, like, you're suddenly mentally unwell. You know, it's an important part of how our mind protects itself and it's actually probably what makes us very human being able to fantasize and being able to dream. So please don't apply a deeper meaning. Like it's not always a sign of mental illness. It's not always a sign of escapism. Sometimes it is just how we cope. And there is actually suggestions that daydreaming, when it's at a healthy level, can help us reach Govs faster

because it is a form of motivation. When you have a really super clear idea of what you want in the future and what that feels like and looks like and all the sensations associated with it, and when you think about that quite regularly, it can really inspire you and line of fire to work harder. It's actually like a whole motivational self-improvement strategy called visualization, which we've talked about before. You know, that is a healthier version of daydreaming, one that is incredibly powerful. And I want to talk about how we can turn out unhealthy,

excessive daydreaming into something that is future-orientated, into something that is useful, quite mentally powerful as well. So we are going to discuss all of that and more and how we can get our maladaptive daydreaming under control, After this short break. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter.

And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the world. wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jett. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down,

and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now.

Then you're finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist,

Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch.

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Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app, Search learning a hard way and listen now. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story.

This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in someone's, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing.

Gregalespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until Justice of.

served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning maladaptive daydreaming into something helpful, like motivational visualization where we develop a mental image of what we want to achieve and how we imagine ourselves getting there, it really involves shifting our daydreaming from being escapist to being purposeful. And I want to really hammer that home from escapist.

to purposeful. Essentially, we want to get to a place where we aren't trying to run anymore or find a break from reality. We actually want to take back control of our reality to make it a place we want to be, even if it is the harder decision. Some really interesting studies have found that when you intentionally spend time in your day visualizing the life that you want and the steps you're going to take to get there, rather than just having that unstructured date, dreaming. You do tend to make more progress. You feel more purposeful. Your actions are more in alignment with the final outcome you want because you are internally motivated by the possibility. It's actually called by some the power of the mind's eye, creating like a very vivid, detailed mental image

of where you want to be as a way to clarify your desires and make more constructive progress, I guess. And I know it sounds very similar to daydreaming, but the big thing that we need to articulate here, the big difference is that visualization is deliberate, it's structured, it's realistic. So you're not fantasizing about marrying a celebrity, you're not fantasizing about saving a crashing plane, you're fantasizing about something or visualizing something that is possible. It's definitely not excessive as well. and it's used situationally to inspire. Daydreaming is unstructured.

It takes up a lot of time. It's very outlandish. And it's more distraction than intention. And I think the really good thing about visualization and in its kind of treatment of maladaptive daydreaming is that you don't have to give it all up, right? It's like supplementary. It's like a replacement therapy that is healthier.

I think moving away from maladaptive daydreaming can be a hard shift without that, because it does mean that you have to spend more time being present before we bring in that visualization. That is something that you have to confront, that you do have to see the parts of your life that might not necessarily be as positive or as enjoyable. It also means more time feeling our feelings, feeling uncomfortable, sad, disappointed, really listening and seeing what's going on around us. But you have to stick with it.

You have to, like, it's acceptance. There is a real acceptance to this. That life is not perfect. It is not a fantasy. But you still have to be there for it because that's what makes it so sweet. You know, the imperfections, the roller coaster. And when you've spent a lot of time avoiding that, it can be really, really hard, but people do it.

People do it all the time. So what we want to do is really recognize triggers and, patterns, identify when, where, why you start maladaptive daydreaming. Is it when you're in a certain environment around certain people? After seeing certain people, is it at the end of a hard day? Is it at your job? Is it when you're alone and feeling lonely? I think, and I believe really deeply, that maladaptive daydreaming is not unprompted.

It might feel like it comes along spontaneously, like suddenly we're daydreaming. But actually, there's normally a feeling at the root of it. There's normally stress, boredom, disappointment, loneliness that is causing us to find this safety and sanctuary. Once you know that, I think that that's the first step. I think then you're able to find alternatives to being in those situations. You are able to really consciously, deliberately think, if this is, if my reality, if my life is creating this urge to not even be present in my life.

life, to escape my life, is it really what I want? And that is the shift that I want us to grab onto. The possibility that you can change your life, you can do something about it rather than just, you know, daydreaming about doing so or escaping. And this is where we can transition our daydreams towards visualization. What this involves it is consciously assessing your daydreams for what could happen, what is basically possible versus impossible and trying to focus more. on what is real. You know, I think we mentioned it before, being more realistic about what you're thinking about. Visualize really purposefully.

Instead of like fantasizing aimlessly, I want you to channel all that energy and all the investment that you have in your daydreams to daydreaming about the goals that you really want to achieve, that you know that you can that are possible. Picture achieving things like personal milestones, like career success, small wins. what will that feel like? Will you feel proud, excited, peaceful, loved? Put all the energy into a realistic vision of your future. Visualization is also action-oriented thinking rather than only daydreaming about the end result, this big, bright, flashy future. Visualize and fall in love with the process. Imagine yourself taking steps towards your goals, overcoming challenges, persisting through setbacks,

and you can kind of use your daydreams, use this like mental blackboard to rehearse your next steps. And that really helps you like clarify your path, consider possibilities, consider different strategies and build confidence, this mental confidence that, you know, if I can think it, I can do it. I've rehearsed this. I've thought about this. These are my next steps. All of my mental energy is going towards bringing about this reality. that's like the whole basis for manifestation right you know it sounds very similar because it basically is it's essentially a version of this practice that is a bit more scientific we're going to combine that focused intention with the positive thinking with the visualization that creates action that creates a

self-fulfilling prophecy whereby the more we think about something and believe that it could come true the more confidence we have in taking actions that will make it true, in confirming our expectations because we are already kind of seeing success rather than failure. You know, it's quite spiritual, but we can also make it quite actionable. After you have those moments of intentional visualization, I want you to finish and finish with an action that you can take now. Every time you are fantasizing, thinking, dreaming, imagining, this few, future, when you're done, what is one thing you can do in the next 10 minutes that could actually

help you towards this thing that you are fantasizing about? No matter how minor, you know, if you've been visualizing about starting a business, your small step after you stop visualizing could be learning how to register a business, learning taxation law for the kind of business that you want, learning and just researching about manufacturers or supply chains, all those things. You know, I think that we have the nice feeling of being like, wow, this is exciting. This is something that's possible. I want that. We take that nice feeling and we put it into action and we use it as motivation to do.

And that ties your daydreaming or in this case, your visualization to real progress to something. you can see in front of you. Remind yourself, thinking about something is not doing, as much as it may feel that way. How much do you actually want the life that you are imagining? And can you afford to spend hours just fantasizing about it? Or is there something you could do with that time that would get you closer to that actual outcome? I also think that going back to what we said before about the links between.

daydreaming and OCD and anxiety and trauma? Is that something that you really need to address? Is that really what could help you stop turning to this habit as a form of escapism? Is it something more mental, more psychological? I really think it's worth looking into it. It's worth finding a really great therapist who can assist you with that journey of discovery and that journey of shifting how you address and how you tackle stress and anxiety and really bad thoughts. You know, there's a really interesting article by Harvard Medical School that I read as I was researching this topic.

And they say there is no single treatment for maladaptive daydreaming because it is so private and individual, but you have to find what works for you. That could be treating daydreaming like meditation that you do once a day. you only do it in a specific location or at a specific time like in the shower or on the train and then every other time you have to actively stop for some people it's keeping busy find what works for you maybe it is visualization you can't quite let go of the habit but at least you can make it something that helps you rather than distracts you you can make it something that is intentional and inspiring and motivating this was such an informative episode for me to even do

with some of my prior knowledge and some of the new knowledge that I picked up, I want to thank the person. And there were multiple people actually who messaged me to do this episode. Thank you. I've learned so much. I feel so enlightened. And it's crazy how you look at these things and you're like, oh, yeah, maladaptive daydreaming. Like, I just like to daydream a lot. And when you start diving into the research and the science, it's so much more complex and nuanced and emotional and personal. So if you're struggling with this, I'll leave some resources in the description, including that measure and that method for assessing yourself and that consultatorium of people who are doing some really cool research into this.

You can also DM me on Instagram with your own stories. I want to hear more about what this experience is like for you. We also, of course, take episode suggestions. And if you did enjoy this episode, make sure to leave us a five-star review. Follow along on Spotify on Apple Podcasts. And until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. and we will talk very, very soon. Hey, what's good, y'all?

You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host, Keer Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability

that does not mean that you need to, Listen to learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing.

Greg Gillespie and Michael Mianini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 2%.

That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO percent on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his

last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.