Why we are proud of daydreaming ?...

[maro]

I mean I see people on the site somehow proud of MDD ..Is it something to be proud of ...a disorder really ??

Daydream has always kept us in an empty circle ..always daydreaming ...wasted our times

We all started DD as a coping mechanism for loneliness maybe just emptiness and feeling bored 

we dreamed of a better life ..Is that what we get ?imaginations 

We wanted to live an amazing life ...We are split between two worlds and we are not living in those too we are distracting ourselves from being real ..instead of living it we wanted the day to end ...what we really wanted is what we are abandoned from it ..To LIVE ...TO HAVE GREAT MOMENTS...

Have we ever calculated the price of sacrifice we are doing for the joyful moments in DD ? Do we know what we really miss ?

How come we value life and moments ??! Can we realize that the way we love for ourself turned out to be our own misery and distraction !! 

Do you know that if our lives was really great we won't even think of daydreaming....it is dependence to feel good and affirmation... 

My wish is that we can be courage enough to handle pain than to daydream ...it is not our answer ...won't lead us to anything 

There is a right and wrong way to seek life ...there is sanity and disorders...

IF we can be free from DD and from the problem that caused it go back we left our true US ..We wont need to daydream because reality has a value than a thousand daydreams ...while daydream root your problem deep reality show it and help you get better ..we will feel inside ourself that we are ENOUGH ..we need NOTHING to make us feel better..Connect to reality TO PEOPLE ...found a safe place ..CHANGE UR MIND from being satisfied about dreams ..U who have always dreamed for a better life deserve a better one really ! 

[Dreamcatcher]

@Eretaia: That was really well-said. That's how I feel about MDD as well and why I so badly want to overccome it.

[Eretaia]

I'm too lazy to go through the entire debate but I just want to add something. What people in MD community are in desperate need to learn is to draw a thick line between daydreaming and maladaptive daydreaming. Maladaptive daydreaming has nothing to do with positive effects of daydreaming or creativity or even imagination, just like positive effects of a cup of wine on your arteries have absolutely nothing to do with alcoholism.

Maladaptive daydreaming means psychological addiction to daydreaming. Binge eating means being addicted to eating. It doesn't mean... eating. When you overcome binge eating, you're not overcoming eating. You're overcoming your addiction to it. Equally, when you overcome maladaptive daydreaming, you're not overcoming daydreaming but your addiction to it, leaving your creativity, if there's any, intact. You're just getting rid of the addiction component - of the wish to avoid real life in favor of being alone, the desire to escape when faced with threatening emotions and so forth. Your creativity, your imagination are not compromised. They never were. You can have a perfectly healthy inner life and write a 10 000 page book on it without it ruining your life and relationship in turn.

I'll fully agree with maro's post. Regardless of whether we call it a disorder, a defense mechanism or whatever, it's dangerously self-sabotaging to be proud of one's tendency to escape real life and mistake it for creativity. This tendency to identify positive effects of daydreaming and MD is literally causing people to think they'll lose a part of themselves when overcoming addiction. Which is just not true.

[maro]

@ darmodey: about the denial point I think we also deny the conditions like we say we are good and well which is not true for me .. again the example of work ..work is a very good thing and if you love your work you can have a good life but if you addict it to the point you lose your life ..that destroyed the main point of work that is exactly what is happening wz us...and yes i didn't mean proud of DD but MDD.. I want to know what is the point in spending the day dream about a hero who saves people instead of doing it in reality but daydreaming should done for a reason like write a novel ,a draw a film or spending time looking for a god way of presentation of something or thinking about something ..that DD is normal if it is done in the frame of life ...but just to DD severely it is mostly because you satisfy yourself and it don't do any good or Do u think something else ??..I asked the question here because if we will stay in denial we wont ever find a solution if we deny that it is out of control ...tell me if you think otherwise ...my personal though that for the best of everything reality comes first.. normal or not be aware of what are you doing ..know what it is analyze it ..if it is good for life 

[Source]

What I meant was conscious denial, rejection, not the inability to tell fantasy from reality.
I've also seen reports of non-afflicted dismissing it as something that everyone does, and I'm not surprised. Daydreaming is in the realm of pure thought, the mechanisms and intricacies of it, especially in the maladaptive case, exist entirely in your own mind. Language is too limited to properly describe something that complex, so unless the guesswork on the listener's part is enough to compensate for the inaccuracy, it's normal for it not so sound like something serious to someone who doesn't have it.

[darmody]

@maro...Your point is clear. Allow me to clarify something for you, once again. You're talking about something that by definition is bad, which is why the prefix "mal" appears at its head ("mal" means "bad," "wrong," "ill," etc.). Then you ask how anyone could be proud of it. Well, because they're not talking about the bad aspects. They're talking about the creative side of it, which you admit is there. Sorta like an idiot savant could justifiably brag about being a savant; if they were capable of doing so, despite being 

The problem I keep coming back to is that there's a famine of common terms to describe intensive daydreaming. So we are compelled to use a term which is by definition negative, which confuses the issue. 

But you wanted to know how anyone could be proud of a disorder. Some people are actually proud of it, and I can't answer for them. But others, myself included, aren't proud of the disorder. We merely use the name of a disorder to describe something else of which we are proud. Because we can't find any other way to talk about it. 

[darmody]

@source..."flat-out denial of reality"

No, that's schizophrenia, or some other disorder. Maladaptive daydreamers are capable of distinguishing fantasy from reality, by definition. 

"something that literally anyone with a healthy brain can do"

Maybe everyone is physically capable of doing it. Like how, for instance, literally anyone with a normal, healthy body can run a mile under a certain time. But not everyone can, in fact, because they haven't trained or simply don't know how.

Some are born with a greater knack for fantasizing. Or they hone the ability. Charles Dickens almost certainly had a much more powerful imagination than myself, though he may not have known how to daydream as I do.

Theoretically, every human could do it, I suppose. Just like every human could write a novel if they put enough effort into it. But very few, in fact, ever bother starting one, let alone bring it off.

I hear stories about MDDers telling their parents, or whomever, and the listeners are dismissive, saying something like, "Everybody daydreams." To me it's obvious non-intensive daydreamers don't know what they're talking about. Not just in relation to how the disorder can take over the lives of sufferers, either. They don't know waking dreams can be like dreams you have when you're asleep, only you're in control. (Or more in control than when you're asleep.) They don't get the intensity, the vividness, the detail, the elaborateness, the kind of focus and attention involved. Because that can't do it.

Not to say they couldn't possibly, but they don't know how. I do different kinds of daydreaming. One kind is what I assume is the normal kind, which I do over the course of the day. The other kind is the intensive kind, which I can only do under precise conditions. The two kinds are alike, of course, but there's a world of difference. It's not all of a piece.

For some on this site, their maladaptive daydreaming may be a case of doing too much of the regular sort of daydreaming, which everyone does. Not for me. I daydream like everyone else, and it's not a problem whatsoever. The sort of daydreaming I do for hours a day, which may be preventing me from forming meaningful human relations, having real experiences, and getting ahead in life, is something else altogether. 

[maro]

@i suggest u read source comment to get the nature of MDD ...We DD for a reason to meet our needs every DD is disociation but not by nesecary pathology unless it is severe or serious ...I suggest you understand MDD destroys some lives and the struggle is real ..You can love work and work alot "great" that is passion ..But if you addict work that is another thing ...U completely loss the abality to enjoy life again ....That is nothing to be proud of ...I mean u can be schizophrenic and proud of hallucination that is denial and that is what I m writing for ..Creativity is great we all know we are but we use it the way against building ourselves ...I think the reason we value dreams is that it help you visualize and hope for the future and live with a plan ...In MDD we DD to path through the day and feel numbeness for pain or feel good enough because we originally want to feel different and great but we don't feel that inside so we depend on it to cope ...I hope my point is clear

[Source]

The distinction between regular daydreaming and MDD is in the why and how, they're indistinguishable otherwise, because they both involve fantasizing. MDD is a twisted and excessive form of something that literally anyone with a healthy brain can do.

Regular daydreaming is just drifting off for a while and wandering around your own thoughts, MDD is the consequence of an aversion to reality that itself is caused by something else at a lower level.

Think of it as an upside down pyramid sliced into layers. At the very bottom you have the root problem(s), then you have several layers of derivative issues and escapism (all of which change from one person to the next). All these layers build up over time, each hiding the one below it, ultimately culminating in flat-out denial of reality in favor of an alternative world that doesn't have all those problems in it. There goes MDD.

[darmody]

@maro..."I m talking about using it wrong and fall under the control of it"

Fair enough, and admittedly that is the primary purpose of this site. But not everyone is always talking about that. Notice what you chose to title this post: "Why are we proud of daydreaming ?" Not "why are we proud of our disease?" 

Daydreaming is something you can be proud of, even if MDD isn't. And there really isn't anywhere else for a lot of us to talk about daydreaming. 

[maro]

If u deny the negative effect of maladaptive day dream and you live a healthy life ! Okay you don't have it or simply deny it !