Maladaptive Day Dreaming

[alyra]

with me in my past. I have had a lot of difficulty both with dreams and also with daydreams. I wake up in the morning but I am not in the real world, I am still in my dream. even if I acknowledge the falseness of the dream, I still can't shake the realness that it feels - I am trapped, and the dream turns into a daydream, sometimes even half-consious still half-dream. there have been times I fall back asleep and continue the dream. sometimes, my entire day has been thrown into depression or anxiety if the dream felt too powerful.

 

then, with day dreams, I would always in my life, have some running adventure or other which I was absorbed in. I've lost entire afternoons, pacing in my room, dreaming the daydream. it is so absorbing! 

 

 

that being said, I've made a lot of natural growth away from that in the past 8 years. and, with the advice of Leo's posts, I made a lot huger bound towards freedom from the compulsive dreaming. It is still hard. 

 

 

 

one thing that has helped me, is trying to shift that energy into visualization. another thing that has helped, is to have a source of strong light near my bed, open the window blinds or turn on the lamp the second I realize it is an option. And, once I started realizing about how I could visualize my plans or my future goals, I found I could use that as a way to ground me in reality. I've also tried to practice awareness while daydreaming - In a video on addiction, Leo mentioned how he believes that if a person is fully aware during an activity they will naturally move away from it - and I found this to be true so far for me - Tho I am still addicted to yogurt 'cause I don't care to stop that but both with daydreaming and also with eating junk food, I am becoming more and more hesitant and uninterested in these engagements because of my being more aware of negative impacts they have on my body and my time that I was before, unable to notice. Though for me, this may have been easier because I've sort of had a natural affinity for it in my youth - I've been stumbling upon this method for most of my life, before Leo's advice put it into a main perspective that let me. 

 

 

ugh, I've mentioned Leo so often in this post.. lol. can't deny that he is very inspirational for me... I am embarrassed 

[Buba]

On 12/25/2016 at 1:59 AM, Kuba said:

I day dream a loooooot since elementary school and just recently I started to notice how it doesn't allow me to be fully present and happy. I day dream mainly about me (or rather, about my cool-funny-ultra social self ) Today is the first day when I decided to really take action. If i'll have urge to daydream again I will notice it and just let it go, I know that it probably will be hard because my mind got accustomed to daydreaming through all these years but nevertheless I'm optimistic about it .

http://wildminds.ning.com/forum/topics/yes-you-can-cure-yourself-from-maladaptive-daydreaming

here's an interesting text that might help you

 

She says daydreaming is egoless mind. But my daydreamings are all narcissistic.

She says go to your childhood and find your true identity. But do we have a real identity which is not imposed by our mind? Are we born with a real identity?