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Maladaptive Daydreaming: where wild minds come to rest

Have you ever tried to stop the MD

Sorry if this gets too long. But have you ever tried to force yourself to stop the MD? How did it go? I have had many existential crises because I feel very lonely and unhappy in "real" life. But I have already tried to stop the MD and I CAN’T. The last great attempt was at the end of last year when I went 3 days without dreaming awake.

It wasn’t very nice.

Now I see that I didn’t even stop, because I was so desperate that I talked to myself, almost like I was someone else. On the second day, it was as if an agony had taken hold of me and I felt suffocated. On the third day, I sweated cold. I couldn’t talk to anyone without screaming, I was in a horrible state. Then I came back, I could not continue in this situation and I feel so weak for it, I would like to be strong and brave to overcome it and leave whole but I do not know if I can. Has anyone ever had that experience?

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Permalink Reply by Andy Mebbins on December 20, 2020 at 6:03am

I've lost the count of the number of times I * tried * to stop it, but my success rate needs no counting because it's ZERO. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here in this forum, and I would be enjoying my life out there. I tried meditation and a bunch of supplements. For meditation, you do get a subtle relief from MD, but it's only temporary. Also meditation is useless if you do it on a whim, and not out of routine. Because of my haphazard attempts at meditation, it's only a matter of time before my mind goes back to square one, because it's hard to be consistent with it. As for supplements, I have tried 20+ different varieties of them, but to no avail -- EXCEPT for N-Acetylcysteine (NAC). It only gave me a temporary relief, however. I began to take notice of its effects when my dermatillomania ceased. After that, I slowly felt liquid-like movements in my head, and the next day when I woke up, my head was completely clear, and it wasn't racing with thoughts it normally is. But its effects only lasted for about a week and a half before my MD came back with a vengeance. Interestingly, I'm not the only one who faced this:

-> https://wildminds.ning.com/profiles/blogs/n-acetyl-cystein-it-s-hel...

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Permalink Reply by samartha raj on December 20, 2020 at 7:19am

I want to get rid of it, but not possible, its good to me to find out that i am with this condition of mind.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda on December 20, 2020 at 9:54pm

That sounds really hard. We've tried to stop daydreaming many times in the past without success. Then we gave up trying to stop and decided to just learn how to do it better. So that's what we did, and now we feel really happy with things. I don't know if you have heard of tulpamancy - it's something we just learned about! But it sounds A LOT like "maladaptive" daydreaming that's done with quite a lot of intention and care. Anyway, just something to think about. This is an interesting article I just read about it: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/2016...

I'm also attaching a short paper about tulpancy and mental health. I wonder if the main difference between tulpancy and maladaptive daydreaming is the presence and intensity of SHAME.

Isler%202017%2C%20Tulpas%20and%20Mental%20Health.pdf

It sounds like daydreaming has a very important role in your life. Have you ever considered there might be ways to lean in to your daydreaming for healing?