Maladaptive daydreaming, also known as excessive daydreaming, is a mental health issue where a person daydreams excessively, sometimes for hours at a time, and it interferes with their daily life. It is a proposed diagnosis of a disordered form of dissociative absorption associated with excessive fantasy that is not recognized by any major medical or psychological criteria. Maladaptive daydreaming can result in distress, can replace human interaction, and may interfere with normal functioning such as social life or work. The symptoms of maladaptive daydreaming revolve around the daydreaming itself and tend to fall into two categories: daydreaming behavior and how a person feels about their daydreaming. The kind of daydreams that happen with maladaptive daydreaming often involve detailed plots with characters that pop up over and over, like in a show, and are more likely to involve themes of violence, power, control, sex, captivity, or rescue and escape scenarios. Maladaptive daydreams can last for hours on end, and if a person is prone to them, they might even find themselves realizing they spent a whole day thinking about those complex stories. Maladaptive daydreaming is not a widely recognized diagnosis and is not found in any major diagnostic manual of psychiatry or medicine. However, in 2015, a 14-item self-report measurement known as the Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale or MDS-16 was designed to identify abnormalities in the daydreaming of individuals.