Pretty frequently my imagination will wander and then I’ll start thinking of a game or show that I like and I’ll imagine new story plot points and stuff. It’s very visual and vivid to the point where I complete forget I exist in real life. While I’m doing this, without thinking, I start jumping, flapping my hands, and repeated flopping myself onto furniture. I only get brought back into reality because I eventually exhaust myself by jumping around too much.
I’ve always hid this behavior, but I’ve been caught a few times and whoever catches me is always like “What are you even doing? Are you okay?” So I feel like what I do is probably really weird to most people. I am Autistic, but idk if it’s because of that or if I’m just weird cause I haven’t heard of anyone else doing it. I’m curious if anyone else does this or something similar.
Disclaimer of things doctors tell me: adhd, depression/anxiety, BPD(i sorta disagree now) suspected autism, waiting on an eval.
I can relate to some extent. I tend to daydream a lot and get really sucked into the world or the lore or even imagining a specific scene from a story. So much so that I’d zone into it and just pace around the apartment. That and just doing stimmy stuff while pacing.
I also sort of run through dialogue in my head, and sometimes that “leaks” as me verbally saying a line a character would say, or repeating it with an altered tone, or doing a couple parts of a conversation.
When I worked at a gas station I got jumpscared a few times by coworkers or customers who came in when the door beeper was broken or I was doing dishes, and they seemed fairly creeped out, but I also might’ve just been panicking at being seen or heard so… I dunno.
I’ve heard the term maladaptive daydreaming used before, but I don’t think it’s an officially recognized term or anything. I feel like there was a more neutral term that meant “intense daydreaming” but I forget what it was >.<
Your experience seems pretty similar to mine. There’s been times where I’m so into it it’s hard to tell if I just spoke something I was thinking out loud, but I don’t think I actually have. Probs is some sort of daydreaming, but I don’t want to call it maladaptive cause I enjoy it so much.
You are thing of immersive daydreaming. When daydreaming doesn’t disturbe your life. There is a subreddit for it if you wanna find people
There is also a subreddit(and discord server) for Maladaptive daydreaming if you wanna check out that too.