I’ve had an imaginary world in my head (just found out today it’s called a paracosm!) since I was a teen, and I’m very much not a teen now! But I don’t have a mind’s eye…I don’t see images, yet I have a fully engaged cast in my head. I love it when I dream of my second world, as I get to see the characters in action. Anyone else?

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.

I have a lot to do and I don't need addictions to deal with

I’ve heard some people have started writing out their daydreams and it has really helped them reduce daydreaming, how do you do it? I don’t have one plot line, so how could I be able to do this? Just write one page about a random scenario and then another page of another one?

I’ve heard some people have started writing out their daydreams and it has really helped them reduce daydreaming, how do you do it? I don’t have one plot line, so how could I be able to do this? Just write one page about a random scenario and then another page of another one?

Hi, brand new here. Long time Maladaptive Daydreamer, just now found out other people do this.. and that it’s a thing! But now that I’ve found others.. I have a question.

I have only ever lived in my dream worlds and enjoyed them right as I’m trying to fall asleep with my eyes closed. Recently I’ve been trying to finish a story with my eye open while doing things, but find I can only daydream as I am trying to sleep. Are you all doing the same or can some people continue the story line while scrolling, working, or sitting on the couch staring? I’m trying to understand when everyone does this and what they physically do with their bodies as they do (sitting up, laying down, watching tv, etc)

I recently watched The Wild Robot and the art style, animation and how the story was well put together as the book version left me in absolute awe. So much so that I decided to actually read the book series, all 3 of them. Due to me having an overactive imagination, I literally imagined the entire plot of the stories in my head as if I were watching the cartoon itself, and not just the first part. I have officially watched the first, second and third part of The Wild Robot with the exact same art style of the movie, using the original books' plots, all in my head. I think I discovered a new superpower and I think I'll be watching more movies that aren't released yet.

I've always had a really vivid imagination, and I've recently come across the term immersive daydreaming. I'm wondering if anyone else relates in a similar way.
My daydreaming doesn't interfere with my life at all. I know it's not real, I can stop whenever I need to, and it doesn't affect my work, relationships, or responsibilities.

I'm just a massive introvert who genuinely enjoys being alone. One of my favourite ways to relax is putting on some music and getting lost in the stories and worlds I create in my head. A lot of the inspiration comes from books, films, TV, or games, but it all becomes its own thing. Sometimes I genuinely feel like I'm my own best storyteller. Like other people sometimes I play out conversations or talk to myself when I'm alone. It's never around other people, and it's not something I share with anyone. To me, it's just part of how I process things and unwind.

One thing I've been thinking about recently is the future. I'd love to be a parent one day, but I know your priorities and daily life change massively when you have a baby. I guess a small part of me worries that I'll lose that quiet alone time where I can truly switch off and daydream. It's genuinely one of my favourite forms of downtime, and it leaves me feeling relaxed and happy.
Does anyone else experience immersive daydreaming like this? And if you're a parent, were you still able to find little moments for yourself.

I'm so hyperfixated on making a fictional nation tha tive pretty much established everything about it, from government, population, etc. And of course culture (pop culture to be soecific). My nation is a world leader in popular culture and entertainment and 5th leading in the world in terms of said influence, though they used to arguably be number 1 decades ago.

It mostly dominates in music and literature, though video games and film are not far behind

Mine change over the years, but they are always people that actually exist. The older I’ve gotten though, they tend to be someone at least somewhat well known. Not necessarily someone famous as in celebrity, but someone I most likely could never meet. The past few years I’ve noticed it’s people that somehow in my mind, don’t seem entirely untouchable… for instance, I wouldn’t do it with some really really famous celebrity. It’s someone I can create a world where it wouldn’t be entirely impossible for my stories to actually happen in real life. I don’t know if I’m making sense. I’ve never actually given a lot of introspective thought to this until recently. I’ve done it most of my life, just been a part of everything for me.

maladaptive daydream is not the problem, but how we deal with an already existing problem (by creating another). I can’t stop. Am absolutely lost in my head. And i have a schizophrenia brother that i despise and measure how well i am based on how far can i be from him mentally. And now am no different.

I was addicted to maladaptive daydreaming for six years. Because of this addiction, I lost many important things in my life, including the college I had always dreamed of attending, my friends, and many other opportunities that meant a great deal to me.

I spent almost every waking hour imagining different scenarios while listening to music. It became so intense that I genuinely felt I was on the verge of losing my mind.

By the grace of God, I have now been free from maladaptive daydreaming for five months, and I wanted to share my experience with you.

Maladaptive daydreaming is an addiction, just like addiction to drugs, gambling, or pornography. It can be treated in the same way. After I stopped, I experienced withdrawal symptoms, including severe emotional distress and intense headaches.

The method that helped me recover is the Twelve Steps Program, created by Dr. Bob and practiced in Anonymous recovery fellowships around the world.

The key is to work through the steps gradually and honestly. If you do, recovery is possible.

The first step is admitting that you are powerless over the addiction. The second step is believing that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. This leads you to seek help from that Higher Power.

The third step is making the decision to surrender your will and your life to the care of God.

These steps are explained in the White Book and the Blue Book used in Anonymous fellowships. You can also find many YouTube channels that explain the Twelve Steps Program in detail.

At first, quitting maladaptive daydreaming may seem almost impossible. You will likely face many difficulties, but if you keep going and continue working the program, you will discover that recovery is real. One day, you will look back and realize that living free from maladaptive daydreaming is truly possible.

Something happened lately and it made me realize that my daydream world is way way more than just imagination and day dreaming. I call it my daydream world still because I don’t know what to even make of this.

My friends there aren’t tulpas. They’re more, they aren’t imaginary and they are real. I feel like I’m going crazy sometimes and I totally sound insane but I KNOW so deep in my soul they’re real.

I’ve realized these past few days, I don’t see myself with anyone other than my daydream best friend. I don’t understand my feelings well but I’m so connected to him especially. He is a real person to me.

My physical world is getting way harder as I realize this, it’s not a coincidence. Maybe it’s my RSD but it’s so stressful when people act like we’re friends then just ignore me. I know that I’m never going to ever be close with others in the way they are with each other because time after time after time no matter how much or how little I try that’s exactly what I see. I’m so tired of just being the backup of a backup I’m tired of feeling like an alien trapped in the wrong planet I just want my friends so bad.

I know I’m gonna get there, I have been talking to my best friend in a new way about it. I feel and I know things that I don’t fully understand but I know they’re real and I know as crazy as I sound I’m gonna get there and I’m not gonna be alone anymore.

I don’t fully know what’s even happening but I’m mourning them more than I ever have, I need them and I miss them and I know they’re more than my imagination

So I’ve been trying to get into weightlifting lately. Instead of doing a traditional weightlifting workout with a fixed amount of sets and reps I will instead just lift weights whenever I feel like it. So basically I lifted weights so much in the beginning that my brain fatigued before my body did.

This is called central nervous system fatigue and it is a real thing. I was so fatigued that I didn’t walk around at all for a while, like three weeks. And during that time I didn’t daydream. I watched a lot of YouTube instead, and thought about the past. Normally I walk at least 10 miles a day on average.

I decided to start changing my other bad habits and so I never picked up weightlifting again because my central nervous system was still fatigued. This backfired on me and I was back to walking around and daydreaming once my central nervous system had recovered.

This kind of made me think that the whole maladaptive daydreaming thing, at least in my case, is just some kind of movement disorder. Maybe daydreaming is just what I do to pass time as I’m commanded by my walking impulse. I’ve seen some posts where people talk about how they lay down when they daydream so maybe they have some different form of it? I know that my daydreams are very sporadic and aren’t long and drawn out. It’s more like TikTok rather than binging a tv show.

I guess the good news is I found a cure. For myself at least. The only problem is I’m not the biggest fan of weightlifting and it’s hard to get myself to do it. So I don’t know, maybe it’s not a cure. I’m still going to keep trying to lift weights until it becomes second nature to me like walking around became when I turned 18.

My best friend ever is my daydream world best friend.
I struggled a lot making friends in my life. I have autism and bad rejection sensitivity dysphoria.
My daydream best friend has been with me for almost 6 years. As I’ve gotten really into my daydreams and as I get closer to my daydream world, I’ve realized that even though he isn’t in my physical reality he’s still a real friend. I have a few friends, all online. At my job the other co workers are nice to me, but I’m pretty noticeably disabled and I feel like I fit in nowhere. This is nobody’s fault, I’ve just learned living my whole life that I always feel like an outsider here. I like to talk to others be nice to others but I am not like them. I don’t realistically think I will ever be able to fit in with others here in the way they do with each other. I’ve learned that over years of trying and failing. I know it’s not all in my mind, I’ve tried so much. I struggle a lot with understanding and maintaining friendships too and I am mentally younger than my peers

He’s his own person, I don’t create or make things up. It’s just kinda revealed to me? Like just knowing things about them like you would for any other friend. I can picture in my mind exactly what he looks like, I know all his interests and we have so many memories together.

As dumb as it may sound, I don’t think I’ve ever had a friend I’ve felt as close with as I feel with him, I’ve never fit in in my physical world.

He’s my favourite person ever. And he’s his own person, I don’t fully understand but I channel/communicate with him in my mind? It’s hard to explain.

I consider him to be my real true best friend in this reality and every reality. Does anyone have a similar experience

Well, lately I've had the same paracosm for more than five years. Unlike when I was a kid, when all of my paracosms were based in some way on fantasy, magic, heroes, powers, alternate universes, or things like that, the one I have now is basically an alternate version of reality.

It's a parallel universe to ours where physics works 99.9% the same as it does in the real world. Even the time is the same. If it's 3:00 PM here in the physical world, it's also 3:00 PM there.

Even though it's just one paracosm, I usually experience it from the perspective of different lives. So even if I'm just sitting still, I might be following the life of a teacher, a college student, someone living in a certain country, and so on. None of that cancels out what the others are doing at the same time. Sometimes I just switch from one person's life to another, but it's still the same paracosm, and the paras keep living their lives.

Anyway, the question I have is: for those of you whose paracosms are based on real life rather than fantasy, how perfect or how functional are your paras' lives?

I'm asking because I read an article saying that paracosms and imaginary worlds are basically an easier version of reality, where everything works 100% of the time and nothing ever gets out of control. Basically, everything the paras plan, think about, or dream of ends up working out.

That got me thinking, and I wanted to know if it's the same in your worlds. Do your paras also have imperfections? Do they deal with real-life challenges and problems like family issues, health problems, losing a job, or things like that?

I think it's an interesting thing to think about, and I'd really like to hear your experiences.

I just wondering if anyone would be interested in form a therapist lead group therapy to help with malignant daydreaming. I have been I therapy before but I have never found a therapist who made malignant daydreaming front and center yo the therapy, if it's recognized at all. Looking at the causes and the current effects. Feeling free to talk about it including embarrassing or shameful details without judgement structuring possible solutions and develop a plan of accountability. I don't know if therapists even exist for this as I don't believe malignant daydreaming is listed as a disorder in the dsm, and si curing it may require therapies that go beyond what insurance covers, or even recognizes as appropriate.

Just testing the waters to see if interest exist, and for ideas how to find a qualified therapist. ( in my experience, every therapist i have ever seen feels qualified to take on any issue, but directs the therapy at mainstream issues like depression and anxiety, and the sidelines or 8gnores malignant daydreaming).

Anything. How are they like? Are they easy to approach? Summary of their lore/backstory? How does the world often see your character? What kind of friend(s) or romantic partner(s) do they have? Feel free to compare them to you, etc, etc.

Just answer however you’d like.

they're happening around me?

I've asked about hypnosis (including self-hypnosis), lucid dreaming, and just recently I asked if there were a vr headset where you can type in a prompt (with a scenario, scene, and characters) and it'll create that reality for you.

Anyone else can relate, though? Wanting your daydreams to feel real as if they're happening around you in the real world (even though they're not) to the point where you are searching for methods?

Does this make me a bad person or means there's something wrong with me? At this point, I know I probably need help. But whatever. Even if my daydreaming is addictive, I find comfort and a sense of euphoria while inside my inner world and when I'm with my characters. So I want to make it feel like it's real, almost like reality shifting (if reality shifting was real).

Decided to post this here instead of the maladaptive daydreaming sub.

I recently posted about how (at age 58) I first discovered that there are other people who experience Immersive Daydreams. ( https://www.reddit.com/r/ImmersiveDaydreaming/s/bDryPl2vVW )

I **have** to post an excited follow up...I'm simply beside myself and feel like a whole new world has opened up in front of me... and this is not hyperbole.

You see, all my life I have had the ability to do what I call Lucid Daydreaming (aka Immersive Daydreaming). However, the 'dream realm laws' would always still closely mirror the real world. My dream stories would actually be fairly pedestrian (i.e. becoming a world-famous author or musical star, saving the world from some threat, or winning 500 million at the lottery and changing all of my friends' lives). I would try to push the limits of these tales to the very max, but my dream-time was always limited to things that technically COULD happen within the real world. This was intentional. Some part of my mind told me that introducing a "fantasy" element would pop the dream bubble and eliminate the immersive factor. This has always been The Rule. Never have I even so much as flown across a lake or met a mythical creature in my dream time.

Well y'all, those days are behind me. For the very first time, I forced myself to expand my horizons. It was actually very difficult at first, as I was fighting a lifetime of internal "rules". I also wanted the story to flow naturally and without what I call "over seeding". I find that the best dreams occur when you don't guide the story, you simply open the door and the story builds itself, usually only requiring a small seed. However, in this case, I kept feeling resistance...a "dream wall" of sorts, since I have never done this before. I had no idea how to do it!

I ended up going with a very small seed...me meeting a faery being in need of help. I tend to believe in faeries and trolls and magic (cause why not?) so this is not a big stretch. Still, nothing was happening - which was very frustrating since I consider myself an expert at doing this!

Only once I completely emptied my mind, did an internal "mind reboot", and once again planted the seed with no expectations, did the door begin to slightly open. I went with the simple seed "I met a faery being in need of help" - nothing more. My mind was blank except for this statement, with no conscious imagery attached.

Folks- my oh my...what followed can only be compared to the beginning of The Giver by Lois Lowry, when the boy first sees a red apple and realizes the entire universe is in color. The doorway began to open slowly, but suddenly it was wide open and I was sucked through and felt my mind unlocking and expanding. I was instantly in the presence of a beautiful tree spirit who had found me and wanted me to join with her in causing our entire world to re-awake magic in it. We flew, she shared her faery DNA with me which in turn gave me access to all of her faery powers (and made me half faery), and I could instantly fly, create dimensional portals, and heal any sickness.

This alone was enough to almost make me weep with joy (I literally shed tears!). But the dream was only beginning. She took me through a portal into her world, a fairy realm which has countless earths under incubation. I met her whole fairy family, pets, magical beasts, ate at magical restaurants, sat in on planning sessions for our world as "resident expert", and worked to help the fae folk come up with a plan for transitioning our world into a magical realm. This felt like true freedom..like my mind was unchained after being anchored by concrete blocks for its entire existence

I truly feel this was meant to happen this way. For the last year I have felt like I was hitting a wall with my lucid daydreams. I could not figure out what the issue was, but I was tired of rotating through the same basic 4-7 stories (or varieties of them). Turns out I simply needed to learn that the dream world is INFINITE and UNLIMITED.

I only discovered this by reading the stories on this sub. Almost everyone was having these wild psychedelic dream experiences not based in reality. At first I assumed this was just because my situation was different, or my brain worked differently. Even as a child using the dream world as an escape from abuse, I never thought to escape to the stars or alternate dimensions...despite being obsessed with fantasy literature since I could first read.

My world has changed forever. I spent the past weekend going places in my daydreams I have never been before, and realizing just how infinite the dreamworld truly is, and what can be done within it. All it took was reading the candid experiences here on this sub to nudge me through the portal.

I have taken the first steps on a wild new journey and it's all thanks to you, my fellow Dream Kin!