The Israeli study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology on the MD path to ADHD continues to garner attention. ADDitude, a publication of a vast American-based ADHD organization, recently featured a report on the findings, with an interview with Dr. Nirit Soffer-Dudek.
The MD field has been recognized by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). Nirit received a 300,000$ grant for a proposed 5-year study titled: "Maladaptive Daydreaming: Exploring Dissociation-Related Mechanisms ."Congratulations, Nirit, for this impressive achievement, and thank you for getting such recognition for our new field.
Talking about grants, a big applause to Thomas Willem Renckens a Dutch documentary filmmaker based in Amsterdam. His recent short documentary ‘The Daydreamers’ was nominated for a Grierson Award and is currently being screened at film festivals worldwide.
The film was also selected as part of the NPO’s (The Dutch public broadcaster) ‘Filmmakers of the Future’ strand. Thomas recently received funding to make a long documentary about MD and was already given development money from the Dutch public broadcaster for the project. Way to go, Thomas!
Despite the scorching summer heat, MD research does not slow down.
Italian researchers found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, probable MDers showed higher levels of dream recall, emotional intensity of dreams, nightmare frequency, nightmare distress, recurring nightmares about daytime, and lucid dreams.
The link between daydreaming and nocturnal dreaming certainly requires more research. Here is the linked reference:
Margherita, G., Caffieri, A., Mariani, R., Filosa, M., Manari, T., Lenzo, V., Quattropani, M. C., Vegni, E., Borghi, L., Castelnuovo, G., Saita, E., Freda, M. F., Varallo, G., Franceschini, C., & Musetti, A. (2022). Dreaming or daydreaming during COVID-19 lockdown: A comparison between maladaptive and nonmaladaptive daydreamers. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/cns0000333
The leading authoritative textbook in the field of dissociation was published in its second edition. Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: Past, Present, Future, edited by Martin Dorahy, Steven Gold, and John O’Neil, features a chapter titled: Maladaptive Daydreaming is a Dissociative Disorder: Supporting Evidence and Theory by Soffer-Dudek and Somer, outlines the construct of MD and offers the formulation for its pathological manifestation.
In the chapter, the authors argue this is a form of dissociative compartmentalization that may give rise to significant dissociative pathology such as DID. The authors show that MD is a dissociative disorder grounded in pathological absorption (i.e., a dissociative absorption disorder). The authors propose an etiological framework nesting MD along a continuum of agency and control and argue its underpinnings are born from a tendency to engage in absorption and imaginative involvement that is both positively and negatively reinforced (e.g., to avoid stress), creating pathological manifestations.
Another noteworthy academic achievement is that of Rachael Haynes of Charles Sturt University in Australia.
Her doctoral dissertation titled: The Differential Emotional Processing Theory of Maladaptive Daydreaming is now available online. Congratulations, Dr. Haynes!
The MD field continues to draw the attention of senior science journalists. For example, Erik Taipale wrote an article for New Scientist titled “The dark side of daydreaming”. New Scientist is a weekly magazine covering all aspects of science and technology editions in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. Sold in retail outlets (paper edition) and on subscription (paper and/or online), the magazine covers news, features, reviews, and commentary on science, technology, and their implications. The magazine has over 3.5 million Facebook followers and over 3.5 million Twitter followers, and over 7 million monthly unique visitors to its website.
The Guardian, a newspaper of record in the UK, recently published two articles on MD. The term “newspaper of record by reputation” denotes a major national newspaper with a large circulation whose editorial and news-gathering functions are considered authoritative and independent. The first was a short column by Emma Beddington titled “Need one more thing to worry about? You are probably daydreaming wrong”. The writer described the results of our studies, but then made the following comment:
“Isn’t retreating to a gentler imaginary world an entirely appropriate way to cope with financial and ecological catastrophe, war playing out around an actual nuclear power plant, Covid, monkeypox, and langya.”
Unfortunately, Beddington provides a disservice to the sufferers by dismissing the gravity of the disorder.
This minor harm is thoroughly corrected by a much more profound article that features interviews with MD sufferers and reviews of MD research papers by Alessandro Musetti, Nirit Soffer-Dudek, and David Marcusson-Clavertz and excerpts from interviews with the scholars. The article titled ‘I just go into my head and enjoy it’: the people who can’t stop daydreaming stirred an intense talk-back discussion with 300 comments posted in the first hours following its publication.
Another form of daydreaming was featured in an article titled “Premashifters want out of this reality for good,” published in Input Magazine, a technology and culture publication that “investigates the objects, ideas, people, companies, and trends that are shaping the future .”The story features an interview with Eli Somer on an extreme version of reality shifting that involves beliefs that one can mentally shift to a desired reality and live there permanently, while at the same time, a personal clone is living in the current reality.
China is the world's biggest social media market. However, with access to websites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube blocked in the country, most people can only use domestic social media sites such as Weibo, Renren, and YouKu. We have been approached by Chinese individuals who live with
MD. They informed us that they are committed to making MD information available to Chinese consumers. For example, here are MD informational videos on Bilibili, the Chinese equivalent of YouTube.
Get inspired by your daydreams!