Excessive Daydreaming and Pacing

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Here's something from that site:

In my search throughout the internet over the last year, I’ve come across literally hundreds of people like myself who exhibit many symptoms associated with Maladaptive Daydreaming, and I’ve been repeated struck by how similar we sound. The following comments are based on my observations.

One or more of these symptoms are frequently mentioned:

Daydreaming excessively in a way that is often compared to an addiction.

This excessive daydreaming often begins in childhood.

Books, movies, music, video games, and other media may be a daydreaming trigger.

The daydreaming itself is often detailed and elaborate, sometimes compared to a movie or novel.

Repetitive movements while daydreaming are common (pacing, rocking, spinning, shaking something in their hand, etc.)

Some people will lie in bed for hours daydreaming, and may either have difficulty going to sleep because of this, or have difficulty getting out of bed once awake.

They may sometimes talk, laugh, cry, gesture, or make facial expressions as they daydream.

People suffering from this know the difference between daydreaming and reality, and do not confuse the two; this makes them distinctly different from psychotics or schizophrenics.

Daydreaming causes difficulties in their lives, or prevents them from fully functioning in their day-to-day life.

This is very interesting but they need to survey the people with these symptoms for other autism symptoms. It's surprising to me that they haven't seen the likely connection yet. I mean they're obviously describing classic examples of stimming, and insomnia and possibly special interests. It's also likely that if these people know about ASDs, they aren't self-aware enough to realise that they have even more symptoms of them. This was me until very recently, I knew A LOT about the symptoms, yet I didn't realise that they applied to me somehow. I'd think to myself, "no, none of my interests are unusual in focus or intensity" having spent hours every day for several weeks looking up studies into autism and AD/HD and daydreaming about the disorders all the time and while in the process of doing so right there and then, before opening a new window in my browser to look up the meaning and origins of first names and daydreaming about the names that famous people I was obsessed with (who I wasn't even sexually attracted to, which would have made it somewhat less inexplicable) might give to their children... for no reason even I understood, and for hours on end instead of going out with friends for the weekend.

I do all of that everyday, minus the hand-flapping.

I'm actually trying not to cry right now, I was just wandering around the internet, trying to find an explanation for my compulsive pacing, and I see all these people talking about ritualized pacing and excessive daydreaming and compulsively listening to music.

And I could've written it all myself.

I never stop daydreaming. I'm constantly transposing characters from their stories and dropping them into new situations, or combining characters and stories together, or just imagining myself in the story. Or I'm having imaginary conversations with my friends (what few friends I have), or my family.

Up to this point it didn't even occur to me that daydreaming was related to my pacing. I thought I was just being creative. And now it looks like it was just part of this disorder and didn't really have anything to do with me at all.

Even as I'm writing this, I CAN'T STOP f*****g DAYDREAMING. About how my cousin would say I'm being too hard on myself, or how my ex would react to see me so upset. And I've DAMAGED myself with this. I've bashed my nose into kitchen cabinets, I've dislocated toes from slipping while pacing and my feet hitting the wall. And I wait until the pain gets bearable then go right back to pacing. I tried to sit through a movie today and my stomach just felt hollow, I got twitchy and impatient, I had this overwhelming sense of impending doom. It was like getting vertigo. And all because I couldn't sit still for an hour and a half.

For f**k's sake, I want to be a writer, but this is making me question everything I thought I knew about myself. Is it really creative if you're just daydreaming about other people's characters, and all because of some mental defect I can't even contol?

I understand these feelings too... Revenge formed a big part of my childhood. GEtting revenge on the bullies at school. my fantasies involved rocket launchers, grenades, guns and lots of carnage.... just as well I never caried them through!! !! LOL

Now my revenge is against former employers who constructively dismissed me after a 12 year career....I was got rid of before I knew I had Aspergers and now, looking back, the aspergers made me very difficult at work... difficult to manage, difficult to manage other people and generally unpopular...Still I know now.

Also, whenever I am on the mobile, I pace, back and forth, back and forth.... Making sure my feet follow the same pattern, or making shapes with my feet in the carpark, or folllowing the paterns of the paving stones .. patterns, patterns, patterns....

At least I know it is normal Aspie behaviour... I always thought I was just different!
Now I know I am and I LIKE IT!

Gosh, what a fascinating thread. I thought it was just me that did this stuff

I've spent years of my life daydreaming ( I was going to put wasted but I get a lot of enjoyment from it). I don't tend to pace so much but will often live in 'my world' whilst doing monotonous stuff like household chores. I think it is obvious if anyone is around that I am 'somewhere else'. Often people will say things like 'why are you smiling' or 'are you upset' but these things will just be related to the fantasy I'm having- a bit like an actor

I've done this since I can remember, I generally construct a world based around a specific scenario/people which I pop in and out of- my current world has been going for about 3years now but they have changed over the years, I guess I eventually get bored or find a more exciting 'world' to populate. I put together music playlists to listen to whilst doing this that reflect my current fantasy- a bit like film and TV soundtracks.

I also do the replaying conversations or imagining how situations might pan out amongst real life friends and family but I wouldn't be surprised if most people (NTs) do this to some extent as it could probably be classified as learning from mistakes/planning ahead.

Whilst I get a lot of pleasure from daydreaming, it does become a bit of a problem sometimes, like stimming it increases with stress or unhappiness. A lot of my current daydream world focuses around my dream career but rather ironically my daydreaming means often I am procrastinating and not getting any further in actually achieving said career I also spend a lot of time only half listening to conversations or meetings/presentations because I drift off to my world.

It never occurred to me it could be an AS thing, I always put it down to ADD (I have a son dx ADHD so there is a genetic link to that)

God I'm weird! Glad it's not just me though.

I daydream fairly intensely, narrate them out loud. I do pace, although I don't typically daydream when I pace. I do when I take long walks. I don't spend most of my day doing this, although I easily could barring other entertainment.

happens to me often, unless i take caffeine to boost my wetware- then i pay somewhat better attention.



i did this when i was lots younger, but now that i'm old i seem to have aged out of it.

I do this almost all day, every day. I put on my headphones, crank up the music and live in my fantasy world. And then, when I pause after several hours of this, I realize all the amazingly hot guys who were all after me, all the brawls I had been in and been the victor in, all the awesome action I had seen was all a lie, and I am, in reality, friendless and going nowhere in life fast.

It's rather sad, but I guess comic book cyborgs aren't actually real; they are just pictures on pages, so I guess I won't become one anytime soon. lol

I have done this since I was a little kid. I do flap my hands sometimes, but pacing and daydreaming I do for a large part of the day sometimes. I get so absorbed in my own thoughts that words I've read, conversations I've heard, movies I've watched, seem to go in one ear and out of the other.

That profiles my behavior fairly accurately, for the most part, except for the hand flipping. I tend to tap my fingertips unceasingly on the top some nearby surface, or if there is no surface within comfortable arm's reach, I just move my fingers back and forth, or together in a strange motion I now see as similar to counting on your fingers like an abacus, which is amusing, now that I think of it, as I am horrible with mathematics. Don't know much about them.

I totally relate. SusannahG, just about everything you posted describes me. I also rock a lot in my rocking chair and pretend that I'm reading or watching tv

I'm 51 and I know this can be a good thing. 3years ago due to a very devastating event in which l had to quit my career, as a result of my asperger's, as supervisor of a Clinical Chemistry lab, I started having panic attacks that made me unable to daydream. This lasted for 3 months. I would try very hard to form a daydream, but I absolutely could not. All I would think about was how I couldn't live like this. I ended up in the hospital where they put me on zyprexa and then lamotrigine (the best for me) and I've been fine since. But I still don't work. I volunteer which is about all I can handle. I wish I wouldn't daydream all the time, but the alternative is a nightmare.

Anyone have this kind of experience where you aren't able to daydream and it throws you into a continual panic attack?

I do exactly what you do except that I don't flap my wrists and unless I'm alone I don't pace. Sometimes I talk to myself during lecture. I'm trying to find ways to divert those energies from dialogue to internal monologue, I just started a new electronic diary for that purpose. I'm hoping to reduce the total amount of time I spend daydreaming, because it is a huge part of my day at this point and it's really hurting my productivity.

I can relate, believe me. I often "wake up" and realize I've been daydreaming for the past hour. As for pacing, I did it last night for about the same amount of time. In those cases, it's like daydreaming only you realize you're daydreaming. Your mind just flies off into fantasy land and you can't get out of it. It's kind of hard to describe to anyone who doesn't experience it. My parents have made the "it's like he's off in his own little world" complaint about me numerous times, and it's hard not to see why.

Edit: This topic made me think of this scene in True Lies. Situations like this happen to me dozens of times per day. (Not all violence related. Some of them, though.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3YJ71gdoy8[/youtube]

When I was a kid, I had a shirt that said "I live in my own little world"... Clearly my parents saw something when they gave me that. There is a picture of me wearing it around somewhere - I think I was about 12

I found this thread because I've been pacing and talking to myself all day... still trying to figure out the triggers this in me.

Anytime I'm not forced to sit somewhere, I can't help but to pace around. My mom complains whenever I go downstairs to get some food, and I'll walk around as I eat it, leaving crumbs everywhere.

Meh, relish them. Exacting revenge on your enemies is a fairly natural desire and nothing to be ashamed of. Of course, actually doing it is another story... (if you do, then you're really satisfied, lol.)