MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING

 

Maladaptive Daydreaming is a behavioral state of intense compulsive fantasizing involving deep lifelong involvement in imagination.

There was a psychiatrist on TV a few years ago talking about the dangers of trying to live out our fantasies while living in the reality of life.  I grew up in a time when most people kept their fantasies to themselves and wouldn’t have wanted others to know about them.  Today more and more people are living in their fantasies publicly and pretending they are real. 

A quote from this psychiatrist I found to be very descriptive of this modern trend of living in a fantasy, “It’s OK to see castles in the clouds as long as you don’t try to move into them.”  Much of the crazy things you see people doing can be attributed to this phenomenon.  Many people can’t deal with reality and invent a fantasy then actually live it believing it to be real.  A large part of this mental illness I think is due to demonic influence.  The problem is further exacerbated by alcohol, drugs, social media and television entertainment geared to support mental illness rather than call it out and dealing with it.  

Many people are unhappy with who and what they are and being weak in character and morals give into the current social pressure to create their own personal fantasy.   This mental illness is not limited to the misfits of society but has infiltrated into many areas including politics, economics, education, religion and medicine.  

In William Shakespeares play Hamlet , act 1 scene 3 the character Polonius gives advice to his son Laertes saying, “This above all, to thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”   This is excellent advice for any time that is logical and sound, a profound moral principle to live authentically and maintain personal integrity.   The modern society we have today has forgotten this.