Why I hate Barney the purple dinosour....

[Faye]

I'm not sure what the generational breakdown of the members on this site are. But I'm sure that many of you share experiences of vivid fantasy role play as a child. I remember distinctly that when I was little I used to wonder if playing pretend with invisible things was a strange and abnormal thing, I also recall watching episode upon episode of Barney the purple dinosaur...remember how he encouraged kids (almost compulsively and subliminally) to use their imagination? "Barney is a purple dinosaur from our imagination....." and every time a character would find themselves in a pickle Barney would say "use your imagination!" and then their predicament would be solved. Yes in the broader scheme of things its healthy and intellectually stimulating for children to subscribe to that but for someone who suffers from compulsive daydreaming stemming from an overactive imagination I now really wish that I was not so easily convinced by that show. ...

[Faye]

I feel like we are still miles away from fully understanding it, and moreover from finding the right cure for it. I've been reading the articles on the few studies that have been done on MD and compulsive mind wandering and it appears that it may be related to a "default" or baseline area of the brain. It's strange because this basically is an addiction but how do you cure an addiction in the brain when the drug is your brain?....