Daydreaming can be a way to relax or explore your creative side, but if making up imaginary situations becomes excessive or interferes with daily life, it may be a sign of an underlying mental health condition.
Do you find yourself constantly making up scenarios in your head that may or may not happen? Are you the parent or caregiver of a child with an “overactive imagination?” Are hypothetical situations taking up all of your thoughts? You may be wondering: Is this ruminating, overthinking, or just daydreaming? And, more importantly, is it something to be concerned about?
First, it’s important to understand that daydreaming can be enjoyable, harmless, and even beneficial at times. “Creating scenarios in your head, and imagining different things occurring is a very natural human experience,” says Taylor Newendorp, M.A., LCPC, Network Clinical Training Director at NOCD. “It’s part of the way your brain tries to make sense of the world. Your brain is very creative.”
However, there are times when daydreaming can become problematic. “If the situation is that you’re supposed to be doing something and you’re daydreaming, it could be an avoidance behavior,” says NOCD’s Chief Clinical Officer Patrick McGrath, PhD.
Keep reading to learn about the underlying causes of excessive daydreaming and how to balance daydreaming with staying engaged in the present moment.
Daydreaming and mental health conditions
While making up scenarios in your head doesn’t necessarily indicate a mental health condition, excessive daydreaming can be a symptom of anxiety, depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Daydreaming might look different for everyone, depending on their mental state and situation.
- Depression. For someone experiencing depression, daydreaming may be a form of escapism. Escapism involves trying to avoid difficult or stressful situations by distracting yourself with enjoyable ones. This can include daydreaming, watching movies, reading books, or playing video games. All of these activities can be positive and enriching, but when they are done as a way to avoid reality or negative feelings, escapism can increase the intensity and duration of depression.
- Anxiety. Someone with anxiety might daydream about what might happen in the future. This might cause anticipatory anxiety or a feeling of anxiety or dread that occurs in response to upcoming events or situations before they actually happen. You might daydream about being late to work, failing a test, or stumbling over your words during a presentation. These thoughts can spiral into worst-case scenarios, increasing feelings of panic or helplessness.
- ADHD. Additionally, struggling to concentrate might look like daydreaming for someone with ADHD. For those who find it hard to focus on tasks, daydreaming can be a way to escape from the pressure of their responsibilities. “It can also be hard for some folks, whether or not you have a diagnosis [of ADHD], just to sustain attention for very long periods of time,” Dr. McGrath says. “Other people may find that they get really creative and things pop into their head when they daydream.”
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OCD and intrusive thoughts
Intrusive thoughts can often intertwine with daydreaming, causing you to play scenarios in your head that are similar to daydreaming. However, intrusive thoughts are often persistent, disturbing, and unwanted. They may include:
- Imagining hurting someone or yourself.
- Thinking about death, whether your own or a loved one’s.
- Visualizing catastrophic events, such as accidents or natural disasters.
- Fearing that you will lose control over your actions.
Although anyone can have intrusive thoughts, they are also a symptom of OCD. OCD is characterized by obsessions, or recurrent or unwanted thoughts, urges, feelings, images, and sensations that cause distress. In response, you may perform compulsions, or repetitive physical or mental acts that are done to decrease distress caused by obsessions or prevent something awful from happening.
“Intrusive thoughts can get into anything, even daydreaming,” Dr. McGrath says. “You could just be daydreaming, and then suddenly, an intrusive thought pops into your head. Daydreams know no limits whatsoever.”
You can learn to manage intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors with a treatment called exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. ERP is a specialized form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that is specially designed to treat all forms of OCD. Working alongside a trained therapist, you work to carefully confront your triggers and intrusive thoughts while resisting the urge to do compulsions. Over time, you will develop the tools to handle intrusive thoughts so they’ll become less distressing over time.
Dissociation
Dissociation is a mental process where a person feels disconnected from their thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. When you’re experiencing dissociation, your brain is trying to protect itself from stressful situations or from experiencing extreme emotions after a traumatic event. This can be a coping mechanism and a natural reaction to trauma.
Although dissociation can include daydreaming, dissociation often involves a disconnection from your thoughts, feelings, or sense of self. While daydreaming can be a creative or imaginative escape, dissociation may lead to feelings of detachment or unreality, making it difficult to engage with the present moment. People who experience dissociation might feel as though they are observing themselves from outside their body or have gaps in memory regarding certain events. However, they still have an awareness of their surroundings.
Often described as a psyche escape, dissociation is a symptom of multiple mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, OCD, borderline personality disorder (BPD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Treatment for dissociation includes trauma-focused therapies such as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), psychotherapy, or a variant of ERP known as prolonged exposure. These therapies work to address the root cause of trauma and reprocess old traumatic events.
Maladaptive daydreaming
Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) involves immersing yourself in vivid, elaborate daydreams for extended periods, often neglecting real-life relationships, work, school, and daily responsibilities. MD is not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) but can be a symptom of anxiety disorders, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, and depression. Like dissociation, maladaptive dreaming can also develop as a coping mechanism against negative emotions or situations.
There’s no official treatment for MD, but CBT and talk therapy can help by addressing avoidant behaviors, identifying triggers, and building healthier coping strategies.
How to stop daydreaming
Dr. McGrath reiterates that daydreaming is a normal experience for many people. “I don’t want to say that daydreaming is bad for everybody because for some people, it can be a very great experience,” he says. It all comes down to how much time is taken up by daydreaming. “If it’s affecting your daily functioning, you should get help.”
If you believe that you are using daydreaming as a form of avoidance, here are some tips to get a handle on the behavior:
- Talk to a therapist: Talk with a mental health professional to better understand how daydreaming is affecting you and how you can make positive changes.
- Practice mindfulness: Techniques such as meditation or grounding exercises encourage you to focus on the present moment and reduce the urge to daydream.
- Create balance: Setting aside time to daydream can be more helpful than trying to stop it completely. By scheduling specific periods to let your mind wander, you can create a structured way to enjoy these daydreaming without letting it interfere with your day-to-day life.
Bottom line
Everyone daydreams and creates scenarios in their heads. However, if you feel like daydreaming is disrupting your life—interfering with your responsibilities, relationships, or overall well-being—it may be time to take a closer look.
If you think that your daydreaming is associated with a mental health condition, a therapist can help you dig deeper into what’s going on and identify any underlying issues that may be contributing to your daydreaming, such as anxiety, ADHD, depression, trauma, or OCD.
Key takeaways
- Making up scenarios in your head is common, but excessive daydreaming can be linked to anxiety, OCD, ADHD, depression, trauma, and other mental health conditions.
- Maladaptive daydreaming and dissociation can develop as symptoms of a mental health condition or as a coping mechanism for trauma.
- Therapy, mindfulness, and scheduled daydreaming can help manage excessive or avoidant daydreaming patterns.
