I suppose this is odd, but sometimes (like today) when I am feeling particularly frustrated with my daydreaming and don't know how to stop I just come to this page or read about maladaptive daydreaming. That brings me back to reality pretty fast I think.
I believe the trick is not to 'control' MDD but to harness it.
We each have this evolutionarily developed capacity for great abstraction, visualization, and imagination. With this capacity comes decreased awareness of the 'real' world, but, if we can integrate our imagination with that real world, we can shape it to create things others cannot imagine.
So where to start?
I think the first thing is to be patient with where you are now. Guilt and self-castigation tends to result in a spiral that is self-destructive. You are different and that difference is not a good or bad thing in and of itself. It is a gift that can be harnessed.
Then, you have to acknowledge that there is a part of you that wants to be better. That idealized version of yourself, that version of who you could be, is there. Your life will be the process of becoming that person, of breathing them to life within you and within the world. If there is a huge gap between you now and that person, don't despair. There will always be. And life will always be a process of becoming to be that person. But write it out -- who is that person, what defines them, what motivates them, what do they believe about themselves and how do they approach the world...
So be at peace with where you are. But know there is a part that wants to be more. Know that your life, lived will, will be the gradual relentless but gentle process of becoming that person.
The next step is to build a part of your mind that is a map of your mind. Take your capacity for imagination and point it inwards. This was the original purpose of meditation. Watch your mind work. See what triggers thoughts. See what associations you make.
What you realize is that you aren't one person, but rather multiple habits within you. Each of those habits feeds off of some stimulation: internal or external. These loops have subconsciously defined the person you are. One loop might make it that, when you face a small setback, you assume everything is going wrong and as a result start catastrophizing. Another might be that, when people are cruel to others, you shut down because you believe the world is cruel and you engage in comfort-seeking behavior to dull your senses. Just map your responses. Trigger --> Habit --> Response. You'll see that you are a series of patterns. This takes a lot of time and a lot of self-honesty. You need to not identify with the habits. Don't justify them or attack them. Just note them and map them in a part of your brain and write them down. Understand why they emerged in a non-judgmental way. If people attack them or justify them, ignore that.
Okay, mapping your mind can take a while, and it is a continuous process. The purpose is to make it so that, instead of just being along for the ride, you can see the ride of your thoughts, emotions, triggers, and actions and how they are shaping you.
When mapping my mind, I use my imagination to depersonalize habits. I take complexes of habits and call them 'Daemons' after the little Greek helper spirits and the computer programming agents that function in the background. I determine their core motivations and what feeds them. One of mine simply wants to explore the beauty of higher mathematical and artistic truths. One wants to justify myself by blaming everyone around me for when things go bad. One wants to just play with the mad zany potentials in life. All of these urges are neither good nor bad, they are just core drivers. In the end, the higher self we want to be has all these same core daemons. They're just structured differently...
Tia Joseph
I suppose this is odd, but sometimes (like today) when I am feeling particularly frustrated with my daydreaming and don't know how to stop I just come to this page or read about maladaptive daydreaming. That brings me back to reality pretty fast I think.
Feb 17, 2015
Prav Surayu
I believe the trick is not to 'control' MDD but to harness it.
We each have this evolutionarily developed capacity for great abstraction, visualization, and imagination. With this capacity comes decreased awareness of the 'real' world, but, if we can integrate our imagination with that real world, we can shape it to create things others cannot imagine.
So where to start?
I think the first thing is to be patient with where you are now. Guilt and self-castigation tends to result in a spiral that is self-destructive. You are different and that difference is not a good or bad thing in and of itself. It is a gift that can be harnessed.
Then, you have to acknowledge that there is a part of you that wants to be better. That idealized version of yourself, that version of who you could be, is there. Your life will be the process of becoming that person, of breathing them to life within you and within the world. If there is a huge gap between you now and that person, don't despair. There will always be. And life will always be a process of becoming to be that person. But write it out -- who is that person, what defines them, what motivates them, what do they believe about themselves and how do they approach the world...
So be at peace with where you are. But know there is a part that wants to be more. Know that your life, lived will, will be the gradual relentless but gentle process of becoming that person.
The next step is to build a part of your mind that is a map of your mind. Take your capacity for imagination and point it inwards. This was the original purpose of meditation. Watch your mind work. See what triggers thoughts. See what associations you make.
What you realize is that you aren't one person, but rather multiple habits within you. Each of those habits feeds off of some stimulation: internal or external. These loops have subconsciously defined the person you are. One loop might make it that, when you face a small setback, you assume everything is going wrong and as a result start catastrophizing. Another might be that, when people are cruel to others, you shut down because you believe the world is cruel and you engage in comfort-seeking behavior to dull your senses. Just map your responses. Trigger --> Habit --> Response. You'll see that you are a series of patterns. This takes a lot of time and a lot of self-honesty. You need to not identify with the habits. Don't justify them or attack them. Just note them and map them in a part of your brain and write them down. Understand why they emerged in a non-judgmental way. If people attack them or justify them, ignore that.
Okay, mapping your mind can take a while, and it is a continuous process. The purpose is to make it so that, instead of just being along for the ride, you can see the ride of your thoughts, emotions, triggers, and actions and how they are shaping you.
When mapping my mind, I use my imagination to depersonalize habits. I take complexes of habits and call them 'Daemons' after the little Greek helper spirits and the computer programming agents that function in the background. I determine their core motivations and what feeds them. One of mine simply wants to explore the beauty of higher mathematical and artistic truths. One wants to justify myself by blaming everyone around me for when things go bad. One wants to just play with the mad zany potentials in life. All of these urges are neither good nor bad, they are just core drivers. In the end, the higher self we want to be has all these same core daemons. They're just structured differently...
Dec 18, 2017