We all love it, but when daydreaming or daydreaming occurs for most of our day, that is, it takes up more time than it should and interferes with our ability to carry out our usual tasks, it can be classified as a mental health problem. known as “excessive daydreaming”, “misfit daydreaming” or “compulsive fantasy”.
During this excessive reverie it is possible to see the patient speaking alone and even answering himself ; The sufferer can also assume a different personality or role than the real one and it is in this way that we distinguish it from schizophrenia. The person who suffers from these compulsive fantasies does not see or imagine anyone.
While daydreaming is healthy – 96% of adults engage in at least one fantasy a day according to a study in Psychology Today – it’s unclear why we do it. Psychologists suggest that it serves as training for the brain to be ready to spring into action when an external stimulus occurs.
When daydreaming becomes a disorder, it is no longer a healthy activity. Whether it is the product of a complex and a slow process of depersonalization due to low self-esteem or a violent family environment, the characteristics to determine it would be the following:
The amount of time a person spends in this reverie. In a study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition and carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Haifa (Israel) led by the expert Eli Somer, they documented the experiences of 340 people who self-identified as “maladaptive dreamers”, a term coined by Somer more than a decade ago, and they compared them to 107 people in the control group.
Daydreaming was considered addicted when participants spent an average of 57% of their waking time in this fantasy, compared to 16% in the control group. They also had more elaborate and whimsical fantasies, often involving fictional or historical figures, celebrities, or idealized versions of themselves. In contrast, the control group’s fantasies focused on real life events or specific wishes, such as winning the lottery.
While dreamers are prone to dreaming at any time of the day, there are certain triggers and others that can increase the risk of developing this excessive daydreaming. For example, some cite music or being lonely and bored, as a trigger to start the fantasy
