News – Page 9 – Maladaptive Daydreaming Center

Artist, Ashley Wright Brings Awareness to Mental Health and Maladaptive Daydreaming

27Sep

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Arts, Event

Artist, Ashley Wright Brings Awareness to Mental Health and Maladaptive Daydreaming

Art Association features Redlands native, U of R grad From the article: “My paintings are visually inspired by the natural landscapes of Southern California, 1980s and ’90s nostalgia, and sci-fi artwork,” she said. “I am surrounded by the beautiful San Bernardino National Forest, Joshua Tree National Park, Santa Rosa Wilderness and the Angeles National Forest. These natural landscapes have played a huge part in my life and continue to inspire my art.”She has a passion for raising awareness around mental health.“Each painting is a peek into how my mind perceives the world while struggling with dissociation, derealization, depersonalization and maladaptive daydreaming,” she said.https://www.redlandscommunitynews.com/news/art-association-features-redlands-native-u-of-r-grad/article_74f...

23Sep

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Research

Call for Participation; Oral History of MD

Graduate student at The New School looking for Interviewees Awareness comes in many forms, every highschool paper, every graduate research project, is an opportunity for a classroom of young minds to hear this term for the first time. If you'd like to help students out with projects, papers and theses they are listed on under the Participate tab. Here's our most recent addition: My name is Hannah and I’m a graduate student at The New School. I’m currently working on an oral history project centered around Maladaptive Daydreaming, and I was wondering if anyone here would be willing to do a Zoom interview with me? I would really, really appreciate it. I’m especially interested in talking to people who have paracosms/imaginary worlds, but I welcome all perspectives. If you’re intere...

Call for participation: Awareness Dates Poll

21Sep

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Community

Call for participation: Awareness Dates Poll

Take this poll to help us choose a time to observe MD We’d like to take a moment to ask ALL MDers, on every platform, to take this brief poll. Awareness efforts have been scattered, with everyone doing their own thing. We’d like the community, as a whole, to decide when is the best time for a Maladaptive Daydreaming Awareness ‘observance’ of some kind. Every single vote matters.If you are bi-lingual: Below there are links to this survey in various languages. Please, take them, carry them to any community or Maladaptive Daydreamer you know of in these languages. Here is the survey in: English https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GrMXHNKiVb-1AAgGbPWGG6YPYkh7qfFlSSWTah89OkI/edit French/français https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PNVBhKXDfYrNXTbHakaUfCgzSP...

Psychology Today Published Article on MD

17Sep

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Media

Psychology Today Published Article on MD

The new study on MD and personality traits has piqued the media's attention. Psychology Today picked up Mark Travers' article overviewing a recent study that was published in the journal Personalities and Individual Differences. Below is an excerpt from the piece: According to previous studies, approximately 4 to 6 percent of people spend large chunks of their waking time in fantasy. These fantasies become maladaptive when they produce shame, loneliness, emotional pain, and interfere with one’s ability to engage in normal life activities. Studies suggest that maladaptive daydreaming first appears in youth and is more likely to affect individuals exposed to childhood trauma.In this study, the researchers were interested in identifying the common themes that appeared in the fantasies ...

Daydreamers Film featured in Dutch Newspaper

15Sep

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Media

Daydreamers Film featured in Dutch Newspaper

De Volkskrant ran a story on The Daydreamers film. Daily morning paper recently published a piece on The Daydreamers film, by Thomas Renckens. The film has been making the rounds in festivals and aired on Dutch television. Here's an excerpt from the story, titled "Dagdromen om niet te hoeven leven" (Daydreaming to not have to Live) in de Volkskrant (translated to English): Where is the border? When does a mental pick-me-up daydream become a disorder, like Jessica's from the documentary? What about Agatha, who replays in her head for hours every day a scene she imagined around a boy she once had a crush on? "They are no longer in control," says trauma psychologist Eli Somer, who spoke to both women at length before the film. " Maladaptive daydreamers have a serious defect, which ...

Childhood traumatization and dissociative experiences among maladaptive and normal daydreamers in a Hungarian sample

15Sep

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Research

Childhood traumatization and dissociative experiences among maladaptive and normal daydreamers in a Hungarian sample

New Study Published A new study from the University of Debrecen, Hungary, looks at childhood trauma in a sample of over 700 people. Here's the abstract: The aim of the study was to identify some potential etiological segments of maladaptive daydreaming, especially the relationships between maladaptive daydreaming, childhood traumatization, and dissociative propensity. The questionnaire package included the Hungarian version of the Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale, the Traumatic Antecedents Questionnaire, as well as the Dissociation Questionnaire. 717 participants were recruited online, 106 of whom were problematic daydreamers. The results revealed that certain types of childhood trauma occurred significantly more frequently in the group of maladaptive daydreamers. Furthermore, maladap...

10Sep

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Media

Forbes Covers MD in Article

Awareness Continues to Spread as Larger Publications pick up the topic of Maladaptive Daydreaming Yes, Forbes, the business magazine, covered MD recently. Here's an excerpt from the article titled "Vivid Daydreams Provide A Window Into One’s Personality, Suggests A New Study"; The researchers view this as evidence that maladaptive daydreams offer an outlet for individuals to “realize” unmet emotional and psychological needs in a fictitious environment. They state, “Sufferers from the disorder can spend more than 60% of their waking time in an imaginary world they have created, realizing that it is a fantasy, and without losing complete contact with the real world. One man related how for 30 years now he has been repeatedly imagining the plots of a series that is constantly evolvin...

TherapyTips Interviews MD Researchers About New Study.

8Sep

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Informative, Media

TherapyTips Interviews MD Researchers About New Study.

Mark Travers, PhD, talks with Eli Somer and Reut Brenner about the newest MD publication, Personality Traits and Maladaptive Daydreaming. Mark Travers, Of TherapyTips.org recently sat down with two MD researchers, Eli Somer and Reut Brenner, to discuss their most recent findings. Here's a brief excerpt from the article: Can you talk a little bit about why you narrowed in on the traits of grandiosity, separation insecurity, and Anhedonia and their relationship with maladaptive daydreaming?Eli Somer: We hypothesized that individuals with elevated MD would tend to address unmet emotional needs by engaging in compensatory fantasies specific to these personality needs. We thought that would be reasonable because the MD experience is reported to involve a powerful sense of presence, and ...

New Study Published; personality traits and fantasy functions.

8Sep

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Research

New Study Published; personality traits and fantasy functions.

Personality traits and maladaptive daydreaming: Fantasy functions and themes in a multi-country sample A new study on Maladaptive Daydreaming has been published, co-authored by Reut Brenner, Eli Somer and Hisham M Abu-Rayya. From the Abstract: In this study, we analyzed the responses of 539 adults who met an evidence-based criterion of probable maladaptive daydreaming (MD) and met the description of at least one of the following personality facets: grandiosity, separation insecurity, and anhedonia. Respondents reporting grandiosity tended to use their fantasies as a means for wish-fulfillment for power and dominance, while respondents characterized by separation insecurity fantasized more about relationships with others. Their fantasies often featured an idealized relationship...

11Aug

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Announcement, Event

How to view The Daydreamers documentary

'The Daydreamers' documentary has been selected for this year's 'Rhode Island International Film Festival'.Because of the pandemic, the festival is organizing online screenings, which gives everyone around the world an opportunity to access the film for free. 'The Daydreamers' is scheduled to go live from this Friday August 13th at 5:15pm EST. It will be available to watch for a full seven days following its launch, so the last day to watch it will be Friday August 20th. You'll be able to access the film using this link: https://prog.tsharp.xyz/en/riiff/39/film/6810/The-DaydreamersOnce the film goes live, you will see a viewing link appear as well as a ticket icon, which will direct you to 'The Daydreamers' screening block. To access the film, you will just need to click the "To V...