What is maladaptive daydreaming? Exploring the psychological multiverse that traps the mind

Some nights before bed, I like to imagine what it might be like to waltz across the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, casually pilot a Spanish galleon blimp around the world, or, in my favourite scenario, open a café for anthropomorphic cats in a Studio Ghibli-esque universe. Thankfully, I don’t hit replay or storyboard sequels in my head because that, according to the professionals, is how you slide from “spirited inner world” into a term called maladaptive daydreaming.

Dr. Shawn Ee, director of The Psychology Practice, describes maladaptive daydreaming as a disorder marked by excessive, prolonged, and compulsive fantasising that interrupts real life. A little like staying at an afterparty too long and forgetting you have a job to attend to the next day.

First coined by Israeli psychology professor Eli Somer in 2002, maladaptive daydreaming isn’t yet recognised as an official psychiatric diagnosis. However, Dr. Boon Leng Lim, a psychiatrist at Dr BL Lim Centre For Psychological Wellness, argues that while there is a lack of official recognition of maladaptive daydreaming, indulging in it can be detrimental to one’s life.

The themes of these dreams? A glossier, more aspirational version of yourself. Judette Teo, senior psychologist at Resilienz Clinic, explains that these fantasies offer power, escape, and even righteous vengeance. Think of 2010’s Inception, only this time you’re Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Cobb, creating fantasy worlds in your vision.

“It offers a better life, with better circumstances. A daydream becomes a balm, a way to “mitigate pain and stress, to soothe, and to fulfil a desire for closeness,” she says. However, this is not as simple as zoning out mid-meeting. According to Dr Lim, the key difference between maladaptive daydreaming and zoning out is their intensity, repetition, and the compulsive pull of the fantasy itself.

On ‘r/MaladaptiveDaydreaming’, a thread on the social media platform Reddit, over 133,000 members trade such stories of lives lived in their heads. Some cinematic, some chaotic, but all compulsively revisited. One poster admitted their real life felt “pointless” because their favourite celebrity will never know that they exist. Another wrote that they are terrified of letting go of their daydreams, as it means losing a part of themselves. Others write about the fear of going out into the real world because of “scenarios that will never happen, people that don’t exist, perfect situations I’ll never get.”

Stuck in a world of your own doing

There’s brain science to back it. Big studies point to overactivity in the brain’s reward circuits, namely dopamine. Translation: it feels good. Really good. Humans, being predictable, chase that feeling the way we chase likes or doomscroll for hours. Judette links this to addiction theory, where a dysregulated reward system hijacks common sense and insists on one more hit.

Dr Ee notes three more neurological explanations. Firstly, the Default Mode Network – which governs inward reflection and imagination – may be hyperactive or under-regulated. Secondly, issues in executive functioning, like paying attention, impulse control, and working memory, can make it harder to step away. The last, and perhaps most poignant — it can be a dissociative escape when real life feels like too much. That said, Dr Lim adds, it’s not always about trauma. Sometimes, it’s simply a creative impulse running wild.

All three clinicians agree that maladaptive daydreaming creates stasis — a kind of psychological jet lag where the lights are on but no one’s home. This disconnect from reality can lead to neglected relationships and responsibilities, while the mental strain of dissatisfaction with life may cause both emotional and physical exhaustion.

For women, the fallout is even trickier. Dr Lim notes that in Singapore, women are expected to succeed in every arena — career, family, society — and to do so while maintaining a pristine public image. “They’re expected to juggle multiple roles with little margin for distraction,” he says. And when women mentally check out, especially mothers, they are judged more harshly. Absence is read not as burnout, but as failure.

“This creates a painful cycle,” he explains. “Fantasy offers relief from stress or loneliness, but it also breeds shame when responsibilities are neglected. Over time, the daydreamer may retreat further into fantasy to escape that shame, deepening the problem.” It’s not just about losing time.  It’s a slow-motion collision between the seduction of one’s inner world and the sharp edges of reality.

Reality, redirected

Unsurprisingly, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for slipping out of maladaptive daydreaming. Dr Ee recommends psychotherapy, particularly treatments that help patients identify their triggers (which, inconveniently, may include stimuli we love like books, music, or movies), build tolerance for discomfort and teach one how to reroute a fantasy impulse back into the real world. 

But success depends on the patient’s psychological makeup — their personality, problems, and willingness to trust a stranger. Dr Lim suggests the same path with a slightly different method: working with the material. He explains that some clinicians encouraged structured creative work like writing, painting, and even performance, which can transform an impractical fantasy into something productive.

All three experts agree that seeking professional help is essential. While maladaptive daydreaming may not appear problematic at first, prolonged patterns can mask deeper underlying issues for years. Dr Ee points out that trauma might sit quietly beneath the surface as the symptoms are mistaken for something else, like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), for instance, which tends to show up earlier in life. Judette adds that its overlap with conditions like depression, Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), ADHD, and dissociative disorders often leads to misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis altogether.

Then there’s dissociation, a common point of confusion. Dr Lim explains that while dissociation and maladaptive daydreaming both offer a means of escape, the former is typically marked by amnesia, depersonalisation, or blank spots in awareness. With careful clinical judgment, however, the distinctions between the two become clear.

So where does that leave us, the dreamers still tethered (however loosely) to reality? There’s no need to demonise the act of daydreaming itself. As Dr Ee notes, fantasising can be healthy, a way to explore desires or possibilities that reality won’t accommodate. Judette suggests mindfulness as a way forward, such as “noticing” rather than “judging” our thoughts, feelings, or fantasies with curiosity and kindness. And perhaps Dr Lim puts it best: “The goal isn’t to kill the inner world—it’s to keep it healthy enough to live beside the outer one.”