Daydream Trap: A Search to Understand Maladaptive Daydreaming—and the Millions Looking for Answers

An in-depth look at maladaptive daydreaming—the rising mental health disorder that shines a light on our generation.

What if two percent of our entire population suffered from a mental health disorder you’ve never heard of? Though it's not yet formally recognized as a diagnosis by the DSM-V, maladaptive daydreaming has become increasingly well-known, with research underway in nearly twenty countries and hundreds of thousands of people sharing their experiences online. TikTok hashtags related to #MaladaptiveDaydreaming have grown from 36 million to 200 million views in the last few years, and the r/MaladaptiveDaydreaming subReddit has more than 145,000 followers. And now, authors Jayne Bigelsen and Aliyah Baruchin unpacks exactly what maladaptive daydreaming is and what we can do about it.

Shared through the lens of Jayne's experience as a pivotal organizer, a research collaborator, and the first MD patient formally profiled in a medical journal, The Daydream Trap will be one of the first books to fully explain and explore the world of maladaptive daydreaming—a condition in which people experiences intense, highly detailed daydreams that disrupt their daily lives. For decades, the author was torn between two worlds: the world of reality, and an all-consuming fantasy world populated by made-up plots and fictional characters. Maladaptive daydreamers spend hours at a time in the grip of detailed, elaborate fantasy worlds. They often can’t control their daydreaming, and it collides with their functioning in school, at work, and around other people. Usually, they tell no one about their daydream worlds. In addition, they often spin in circles or pace for hours to facilitate the daydreaming. But are they the only ones lured by a fantasy? How many of us spend hours with fictional characters in our heads, and is it always a problem? Is our twenty-four-hour digital reality slowly pushing us all into a dream? And can different types of intense daydreaming ever fuel creativity? The book will feature in-depth accounts of multiple, diverse maladaptive daydreamers and share the most up-to-date science on the disorder itself and how to manage it.