An examination of the daydreaming experiences of patients with dissociative identity disorder: A qualitative study

Daydreaming is a normal phenomenon that people often experience. However, with increasing age, the time spent on dreaming is expected to decrease. If this time is not reduced, daydreaming may become maladaptive and cause social, academic and occupational dysfunctions. Although dissociative identity disorder (DID) is seen in the %1 of the society, it is a disorder that is poorly diagnosed and treated by mental health professionals. Many studies have previously shown the relationship between maladaptive daydreaming and dissociation. However, the relationship between dissociative identity disorder and maladaptive daydreaming has not been examined so far. The aim of this study was to examine the daydreaming experiences of DID patients in depth. A total of 8 participants, 6 women and 2 men, took part in the study. Online interviews were held with the participants and semi-structured interview questions were asked. In the analysis of the study, Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, was used as it aimed to examine participants' daydreaming experiences. MAXQDA 2022 program was used for analysis. As a result of the analysis, 5 main themes and 14 sub-themes were found.The main themes are (1) the content of dreams, (2) reasons for daydreaming, (3) problems caused by daydreaming, (4) physical movements while daydreaming, and (5) the effect of dissociative identity disorder on daydreaming. The main theme of the content of daydreams was fantasy daydreams, ideal self daydreams and friendship and romantic relationship daydreams. The main theme of reasons for daydreaming consists of the sub-themes of meeting emotional needs and avoiding distress. Problems caused by daydreaming include the sub-themes of incompatibility with real life, impaired functionality, negative psychological effects and time spent daydreaming. The physical movements performed while daydreaming consist of movements appropriate to the content of the daydream and movements independent of the content of the daydream. Finally, the main theme of the effect of DID on daydreaming includes detailing, the influence of alters on daydreaming and continuity. The findings of the study show that the daydreaming experiences of DID patients show many similarities with maladaptive daydreaming and that alters affect their daydreams in various ways.