Excessive Daydreaming and Pacing

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Yes I am always daydreaming, and acting out either events/conversations that happened to me that didn't go well, or rehearsing conversations/situations that might happen in the future. I pace while doing this, and talk out loud, or even yell at myself if appropriate (haha "appropriate"!). I used to grunt and blink excessively while doing this as a child, but I learned to stop doing that part.

Incidentally, I do not view these behaviors as inherently bad, as long as I have a private place to do them (which is why I live alone and often work from home), especially since I have read that some Law of Attraction philosophers believe that mentally re-doing past events to go the way you wanted them to, and rehearsing future events the way you want them to go, leads to a better life and better outcomes, because of the positive energy/vibrations or whatever:

http://lawofattractionsecrets.com/blog/ ... ok-lesson/

I apologize if that reference is too weird/metaphysical/pseudoscience for my fellow logical thinkers here It was for me too for a while, until I started doing it (making sure my daydreams were positive and not negative), and my life started improving. And even if it only improved because my head wasn't filled with bad thoughts & scenarios that depressed me, that's good enough for me!

Also @asobi_seksu - I like your description of your life as some kind of existential novel. I too am my own narrator, and the story seems to just always be trying to answer the question why...

This is a very important thread we should be paying a lot of attention to. Is daydreaming one of the signature features of AS/ autism? I daydream---quite a bit to be honest. When I am driving down the road by myself I will often enter vocal conversations with myself about my amusement park (which is part of my imaginary world). Although I tend to live in imaginary worlds a lot (I always have) I come out of them without much of a problem and engage in the activities at hand (but I still often daydream alongside the activities around me). But, when I don't have to focus on the stuff going on around me, I will often go back into my imaginary world.

As for pacing---I pace a lot. Even when I shave in the mornings, I pace back and forth from one end of the house to the other. On the phone, I pace. There is a phone upstairs that is plugged into the wall, I cannot stand to talk on it because I cannot move about.

Last edited by glider18 on 05 Sep 2010, 3:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

You sound EXACTLY like me. However, I'm usually fantasizing about "The X-Files," "Star Trek," a videogame, or whatever my obsession is at the time. REALITY BITES.

As for the pacing, I've worn furrows into my rug with all of my pacing back and forth. No fooling. I pace, hand flap, and head bob while listening to my iPod and watching a TV show. If it's any consolation, I bet I look way crazier than you. Heck, I'm rocking and flapping as I write this.....

--XFG

way back when i was in kindergarten, i used to just sit in the classroom next to the big picture windows facing the horizon and just look out at the gray sky [western washington state typical gray fall weather] and zone out, and they had to rouse me out of my reverie when it was time to eat lunch or go home.

I have also done the same things all my life. I will daydream excessively, pace while doing it, and sometimes act out what I am daydreaming about. The thing is, I don't have Austism at all, not even Aspergers.

I believe that what I have is called Maladaptive Daydreaming. This illness is just starting to be studied, so it's hard to say what connection, if any, it has to Austism. I think that it could be possible for someone to have both Austism and Maladaptive Daydreaming, but very little official information is available about Maladaptive Daydreaming. If you want to read more about it, look up "Maladaptive Daydreaming" in any search engine.

As a teen, I would spend HOURS pacing back and forth in my room listening to my portable radio while daydreaming. My parents thought it was odd, but I didn't see why not do it.

I think an an adult PC then console gaming took the place of that practice.

I pace, talk to myself, and daydream constantly. Its not uncommon for me to stop mid task only to realize 10min later how I got off-track and started daydreaming. I feel as though I lapse into daydreaming without even knowing it and as a result I lose track of anything I may be doing at the time. Sometimes I will decide to go get a drink, but end up in my back yard pacing around thinking about things for a few min before I return to the original reason I left my room with an "ah-ha!" moment of recollection. Everything just seems so interconnected sometimes that I get sidetracked or lost completely by even the slightest association that pops into my consciousness. Getting a drink makes me think of water purification, camels, Africa, a Richard Dawkins quote where he describes the number of possible people allowed by our dna as "outnumbering the sand grains of the Sahara". Its seemingly endless stream of associations from even the smallest thing that just wash over me sometimes.

Pacing is an important thing for me. I try to only do it when Im alone because people say it makes them nervous. They think I am nervous or stressed but I pace because it feels good.

I also talk to myself, but Im even more careful about doing that when Im alone.

I day dream all the time, but much less than I did when I was younger. I used to write an elaborate, endless story in my head every day. I dont know why or when I stopped but now I get lost in much shorter fantasies.

Really interesting to read what you're all saying. I find it impossible to control my daydreaming, which uses up a lot of my time and stops me being able to concentrate on everyday tasks. Doing something that needs concentration is even harder. Mine nearly always takes the form of imaginged conversations. I don't usually talk to myself, but often find myself mouthing the words. I suffer from a lot of tiredness and i'm wondering if it's the constant daydreaming that's wearing me out, as sometimes it can be quite intense.

My Dad and brother are much more afflicted - they pace and talk to themselves for hours/days on end, but this isn't talked about in the family.

I've asked friends about this and no one seems to know what i'm talking about. I usually get the response that i shouldn't worry about it. This is the first place that i've found anyone talking of similar experiences.

Has anyone found a way to control it, or know what might be factor in making it worse?? I'd love to gain a better understanding of this.

I daydream on such a basis that it definitely isn't healthy anymore (points at nickname). I always thought through possible conservations of the future, future events, things of the past that I could have done different...

I still do, and at some point of my childhood I started dreaming myself away to a fantasy world with magic, mythic creatures, high kings, haunted places...
By now I have a certain set of places, characters and creatures that I reuse constantly for all kinds of incidents, that actually tend to be quite repetitive. I used to dream of myself accidently getting into this world as the person I really am, until I "discovered" that I could daydream myself a whole new life, without the need to start off with the person I am in reality.
But, as I said, it's not a healthy thing, because I tend to prefer this world to reality and neglect important tasks of my real life...

Edit: I don't act out my daydreams, though, at least not too much. Sometimes I do act out the facial impressions, or whisper some part of a daydream conversation under my breath, but that happens quite seldom.

In the past couple of years, I've taken up distance running and weight-lifting.

Making my body tired helps with the pacing. Caffeine helps keep my brain from floating away.

Not a "cure," but brings the pacing/dreaming down to managable levels.

Yes - physical excercise seems to help me too, and anything that lowers anxiety i think.

But - i've just found that this thing has a name - Maladaptive Daydreaming.

It's been studied in the last couple of years after an article 'Excessive Daydreaming: A case history and discussion of mind wandering and high fantasy proneness' which was published in 'Consciousness and Cognition' in 2008.

There's a site - daydream disorder - which offers a follow-up with some useful links (I can't post the link cos i've only just joined this site)

Haven't seen any reference to Aspergers, but haven't read all the stuff yet.

It's great that this is being talked about - I've been wondering about it for over 20 years.

I've heard about it, but I don't consider my case to be "maladaptive."

It's more like stress relief. My brain can't take the overload of everyday life. So what if, on my down time, I have adventures with Mulder and Scully? It's lame and makes me a nerd, but I still manage to get most things done. Besides, at times, the pacing/day dreaming is practically a compulsion. My brain can get real mad when I ignore it.

I wouldn't worry about lameness and nerdyness (isn't it cool to be a nerd these days?).
If the daydreaming is enjoyable then nothing wrong with that.

But, for me it is stopping me getting things done and living my life as i'd like. Some of my daydreams are really quite boring(?!) - but i can't stop it.

So - for me it is maladaptive - hoping to cope with it better in future, especially now it's being talked about a bit.

I definitely pace, especially when I'm thinking or agitated. I've always daydreamt, I did it in school and at uni, and I still do it at work nowadays (I'm a carer). I've always found it very soothing and therapeutic.

OMG yes. I'm glad I'm not the only one, this is one of those things I thought I'd always be alone with and confused by!

I don't do it when I'm thinking about what you think about though, I do it when I'm thinking (in a quiet and relaxed environment so usually no one is around to see) about one of the real or imagined people that are special interests of mine, or when I'm thinking about how I (or one the aforementioned people) might respond to an argument I've heard and disagree with. I don't flap my wrists, but I do all the other things you say and also leap into the air at times.

I have recently seen a few video clips of autistic children doing very similar looking things as well (one is the last thing shown in the 'autism reality' documentary that's linked to in a thread on the front page), but I've never known anyone else describe it and I've never known anyone else do the vocalisations.

Must be one of those 'complex whole body movements' the main two diagnostic tools list as a symptom. I never see it described though, most stims described are relatively simple movements.