Daydreaming a lot

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Does anyone else daydream a lot?

I spend a lot of my time daydreaming about having a much different life than I currently have. I've done this since I was a kid and it can be very distracting, though I don't have a lot of control over it since I start doing it without intending to. It makes me seem a lot more "spacey" than I really am, and isn't great for my attention and executive functioning skills.

Yes, i do that a lot too especially while jogging/cleaning while listening to music.
I don't know if its the same thing with maladaptive daydreaming.

^Most people do that when they’re jogging, etc.

Maladaptive daydreaming is when daydreaming starts to interfere with one's ability to function.

I don't really know much about maladaptive daydreaming, or about when daydreaming becomes an issue like that. I think daydreaming during some activities is normal, but I don't think a lot of people spend hours doing it or have a recurring issue with doing it instead of finishing tasks.

I'd wager that meets the criteria for describing it as maladaptive.

I kinda used to.
My day dreams are usually consists of fictional worlds and alternative fictional scenarios from fictional medias.


I swear if I had strong inclinations to writing, I could've been a writer.

Now it's just shorter and less intense. Taking lesser space in my head and therefore lesser time.
It became more manageable as soon as I confessed somewhere about it openly and honestly.
Because I never let it out of my head.

The content of my daydreams is pretty similar. I think one of the reasons I like video games so much is because they give me cool fictional worlds to imagine myself in. lol

I don't know if my daydreaming has gotten more or less manageable over time. It's always been very distracting, even now. I also don't know how much my ADHD and issues with dissociation play into it. I wonder if I'd not daydream as much if I managed those things better.

That's a lot of what mine are. I think I started using worldbuilding to occupy my brain at mind-numbing jobs. I've written some short stories based on the stuff, but most of what I've written down is just like character bios, plotlines, descriptions of locations, lore, descriptions of political and economic concerns, etc.

I have 10x more that's not written down though.

I don't know why exactly I started daydreaming as much as I do, since I was a kid when I started doing it. It definitely helps me pass the time though.

I also used to write a bit, but I don't do it anymore. It's hard for me to translate my daydreams and ideas into writing, even if I'm just writing down info about them.

I don't know a lot about maladaptive daydreaming either but I've always daydreamed aLOT my whole life. I've been diagnosed with ADHD/ADD since I was little & I have lots of other ADD symptoms besides the daydreaming so I do think I have ADD. But I also have a lot of the symptoms of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo so it seems like the 3 disorders are related to each other & play off of each other for me & I wonder if they could be due to the same underlying cause. I tried the ADHD med Strattera & it made it harder for me to focus & my docs/psychs don't want me to try stimulants cuz they are worried about making my anxiety worse, triggering psychosis, & causing me to have mood swings. I do take caffeine supplements to help me wake up when I have something going on & I didn't get much sleep the night before & the caffeine does help me feel more awake but that's about it. I've taken a couple of em together before & they made me hyper for a bit & I was still daydreaming aLOT. I don't have a clue what else if anything I could try that might help.

My daydreams are usually very boring & extremely repetitive & they mostly stick to 4 themes. Thinking of various shows I've seen & me going over their scripts again & again in my head. Or I'm thinking about a video-game I'm playing & I keep going over the plot, gameplay & my strategy in my head. Or I keep replaying various songs or bits & pieces of songs in my head. Or I daydream about being with my celebrity crush & most people would even find that fantasy boring cuz I keep thinking about the same couple aspects of it. My fantasies also keep jumping around between the 4 few things. Like I'm going over & show & then I'm suddenly going over a different show, then I'm thinking about a game & then it's suddenly a different game, then I suddenly start playing a song & then I'm randomly jumping between bits & pieces of various songs, & then I'm suddenly thinking about my crush, & then I'm suddenly thinking about playing a game again.

My understanding is that folks with ADHD aren't as likely as average to experience anxiety from stimulant medications; it's certainly been my personal experience that they don't contribute to my anxiety no matter how large the dose taken.