Is Sucker Punch's Babydoll a Case of Maladaptive Daydreaming?

 Yesterday I re-watched one of those movies that you have to watch several times in order to completely understand it and take every detail in. Sucker Punch (2011) is an American fantasy action movie, starring Emily Browning as Babydoll – a young woman who gets institutionalized into the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane by her abusive stepfather after being blamed for her younger sister's death.

 It's only at the end of the movie, although already hinted in the very beginning, that the way the Lennox House is being portrayed is only Babydoll's version of it. Through her eyes the asylum is a brothel, the patients being the sex slaves. To her, this is probably a coping mechanism, a way to deal with the situation and preventing herself from going mad.

 Nonetheless, the things she does (she is trying to escape the asylum together with other patients/dancers she's befriended) do happen – she does steal things, set a fire and help a girl escape. The way it happens, where it happens, is just what's different in her eyes. She also dances a lot to hypnotize the males in order for the others to steal from them the tools needed for their escape. When she dances she enters a different world though, her world. In a way, it's a dream within a dream. While her seeing the asylum as a brothel is a 'realistic' change, the worlds she and the other's enter when she dances hold many fantastical elements, such as dragons and orcs.

 While watching I realized this is a lot like MD, though there have never been made any mentions of this in connection with the movie, possibly due to it being barely known in the world. Intentional or not – what are your thoughts on m thesis of Babydoll having MD?

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I haven't seen the movie, but I've heard of it. I think wether or not she has MD, depends on if she knows she is dreaming or not. MD'ers are always aware of the difference between dreams and reality, maybe not when we just started dreaming, but at a certain point we all realize that we're just pacing around in cirkels again, dreaming.

If I remeber this correct (It's probably a brain fart of mine, but I think I heard someone say this) this movie is based of a videogame. Maybe the subject of dreams is more clear in the game. Or it could be one of these random games that doesn't have a decent plot pof story. I wouldn't know, I haven't seen it.

Recently I have seen a movie called "The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty" that film was clearly about an MD'er (I am certain of this), or rather about a MD'er that breaks the cycle and stops excesive daydreaming. I recomend that movie, it was good.

I know, the problem is the fact that she has those two worlds. The fantasy worlds she enters when she's dancing she is aware of being nothing but her imagination, but it doesn't get completely obvious whether she is aware of the asylum not actually being a brothel as she imagines it to be, although I think she does know what reality is. It's just that she never snaps out of it, like I said it's only at the end that it gets revealed she imagined it different to what reality really is.

I know I've also seen the Walter Mitty movie, it's definitely better/more interesting than the story :D 

I was just thinking about it a couple of days ago. I'd have gone more with schizophrenia rather than daydreaming, because for me the difference is that you know you are still daydreaming, and apparently the plot kind of wants us to think that babydoll doesn't know how the asylum is exactly. If that makes sense.

I still need to see the Walter Mitty movie though.

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