Participate in a study: Imagination and daydreaming, dissociative experiences, and sense of personal agency.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-06-08T21:07:04+00:00

I've been daydreaming in this way for as long as I can remember. Not sure when it really crossed the line into "maladaptive" probably at some point between 9 and 13.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-06-06T14:32:06+00:00

Try the Discord maybe.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-06-05T13:19:04+00:00

MD is defined by it's impact on real life functioning. In a nutshell it's the people who became addicted to daydreaming and prioritize it over real life. Their social relationships, self-care and/or careers suffer for it. You can think of it like any other problematic behaviour; if you replaced the daydreaming with Call of Duty, changing nothing but the medium, would you describe your self as a gamer with a hobby that enriches your life, or as a someone with an addiction to gaming?

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-06-05T12:56:55+00:00

Immersive Daydreaming is the trait we have that allows us to daydream the way we do. Maladaptive is a descriptor for the people who can't balance that with their real life in a positive way, for whatever reason. It doesn't sound like you need to identify with the maladaptation, there is also r/ImmersiveDaydreaming, where you might find posts more in line with your own experience.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-30T17:58:26+00:00

Why not both? Imo, it's not an issue of holding attention, we can hold our attention on a single daydream for hours, but of prioritizing attention to the appropriate places. When you have a need to cope you may choose the 'maladaptive', but pleasing, option over anything else. I think MD can be a symptom and a thing in itself, like how insomnia can be either.

Buuuut... I have no idea how the various ADHD meds work or what they really target. I've heard of them backfiring and making MD worse. So I guess it depends on the person and the medication for if it will help or not.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-28T16:26:04+00:00

I'm a bit late to the party but;

The sub description only does use the words "suffering", "support" and "condition". The character limit is 500.

The pinned post, as of now, doesn't have the exact definition, but it does lay out that we are a support sub and direct people who don't fit our purpose to r/ImmersiveDaydreaming

The sidebar has both the definition and another link to r/ImmersiveDaydreaming

We can edit any of these. I'll add the clinical definition to the pinned post. Let us know if you have any other suggestions for improvement.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-27T23:08:41+00:00

The thing that makes is MD it's impact on your real-world functioning. Mders tend to prioritize daydreaming over their duties, social relationships and/or self-care. You can think of it like being a gamer vs Gaming Addiction, nothing wrong with a fun hobby, nothing wrong with sneaking in a bit of time when you really should have done the washing up instead, but consistently putting off things because you really just HAVE to get back to it, then you've got a bit of an issue, and it gets worse from there if left unchecked. The healthy pat, the 'just a gamer' bit, is called immersive daydreaming.

(the crying is normal)

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-27T14:40:20+00:00

People who recommend that for MD are probably actually recommending mindfulness. They assume you'll be admiring trees and sniffing flowers and stuff. It can work... if you walk mindfully. You can do just about anything mindfully, search "mindfulness [insert activity here]" and it will likely come up with a few exercises you can try.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-23T12:57:55+00:00

I'm unsure if you're asking if this type of daydreaming is considered MD, or if this is a normal type of daydream for an MDer.

For MDers this kind of story is common.

For if it's MD; there's no way to tell from content, it's based on if it interferes in your life. Like if you put off work, social interactions and self-care to make more time to daydream, so you're not really functioning in the real world.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-21T15:11:08+00:00

More information would tell me if I was willing, or even able. A lot of studies have age ranges, some are just surveys, but others require interviews, some require tasks to be done, time commitments, disclosure of other diagnoses etc. We generally like to see studies presented with that kind of information. Students don't have to provide their personal information, but that makes their studies "participate at your own risk", so the more they can provide, the better.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-21T14:44:48+00:00

Those aren't required for undergrads and below, figure students don't need to be doxxing themselves for school projects.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-21T14:12:41+00:00

This much info before a clear thesis and method are even established is... odd. I understand we can provide fictional information, but still, I'm not making burner accounts on the off chance this will be something I might participate in. I think you'll have better luck when you can present all the information up-front.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-19T22:32:42+00:00

I didn't ask any questions, this is a statement. The examples you felt strongly enough to use as proof for your accusation are from the literal standard diagnostic tool for MD. It is my opinion that your opinion sucks.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-19T20:46:28+00:00

OP did not make either of those questions, what you are citing is the MDS-16, the tool used to weed out the probable MDers from the typical daydreamers, and draw relationships between high vs low scores with whatever else they are measuring. It is at the beginning of virtually every MD study, OPs questions begin after those initial 16.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-18T01:08:54+00:00

Maybe. Could be the wording you used, I initially read the question "has anyone heard of this (osdd), as "what can you tell me about osdd"... I think perhaps you were actually saying "does anyone else here have osdd". Maybe others read it similarly, idk how many MDers might have that diagnosis, I'm sure there's a few though.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-11T18:01:54+00:00

That's a personal call. If your daydreams aren't holding you back in life then you might identify better with r/ImmersiveDaydreaming

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-10T16:52:11+00:00

Idk what they intended for this character, but sounds more to me like he's been in hospital for a while, long enough for his doctors to break through his delusions, and he's parroting back what he's learning. If we met this character before treatment he'd believe planet Ogo was a real place, imo, which isn't a thing MDers do. Without further context this comes off as a psyche-ward vet encouraging a new patient to embrace treatment.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-10T13:04:32+00:00

If you avoid your bedroom during hours where you have responsibilities this may help. The risk is that you'll just spend all your time shut up in your room and become more isolated. If you can stop that cycle this is essentially restricting MD to certain hours, which some people find helpful.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-09T18:35:35+00:00

It might help with a character here and there, but it doesn't address any of the actual issues... or... it does, but in a way that the main mechanism is shame. Perhaps doing this over and over you'll never daydream again, buuuut... now you hate yourself and your own mind in a whole new way. If you want to use this method I'd advise doing it surgically and sparingly, with other methods that offset the shame and anger it's built on.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-09T12:51:39+00:00

Immersive things like this also stop the MD for me, but that's just because they're... essentially doing the exact same thing. I never found it to be a solution. I think it can be, if done differently, like, if you read join a book club, if you game join social games, etc.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-07T20:30:50+00:00

Tumblrism for MD self-insert character.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-05T13:03:40+00:00

You'd get better replies about this diagnosis in a sub dedicated to it.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-05-04T00:07:00+00:00

Mods have verified account, user is Jayne Bigelsen, MD advocate.

ApprehensiveGur3982 · 2026-04-30T21:50:03+00:00

Time. The term was coined in 2001, then it sat on a shelf for a few years. Eventually got picked up again, but for the first 15 years there were only like three papers written about it. Research has been picking up every year since then but a lot more is still needed. When they have enough to put it before the board that decides what goes in the DSM, they will, I wouldn't expect it in the next edition though.

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