Somer Eli
School of Social Work, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Case Rep Psychiatry. 2024 Apr 9;2024:9391645. doi: 10.1155/2024/9391645. eCollection 2024.
When a person experiences maladaptive daydreaming (MD), they spend a prolonged period daydreaming with a strong sense of presence. The symptoms of MD are often excessive, interfere with functioning, and are linked to distress and comorbid mental disorders. In this paper, apparent false memory is described in the context of a woman with MD and visual impairment due to a progressive eye condition. Her vivid daydreams seemed indistinguishable from actual memories. . A 35-year-old woman with a lifelong MD reported three incidents of fabricating detailed false memories of events that her family confirmed never occurred: obtaining a new job, miscarrying twins, and hospitalization for COVID-19. She experienced anxiety and shame when the stories were disproven. The assessment confirmed MD, PTSD, OCD, and other disorders. Her verbal memory was below average, especially for longer narratives. Her misattributions of daydreams as real-life memories may relate to reliance on vivid mental images over deteriorating vision and source monitoring deficits.
This first reported case of confabulations in an individual with MD and visual disability suggests daydreams could potentially be mistaken for actual events in some MD cases. While sensitive, more research is needed on the prevalence of false memories among individuals with MD. The default mode network, prefrontal cortex, and their connectivity may be implicated in generating vivid daydreams and misattributing them to actual episodic events. Understanding the relationship between sensory impairments, dissociation, and susceptibility to memory distortions could inform interventions to improve reality testing for some MD patients.
当一个人经历适应不良性白日梦（MD）时，他们会长时间沉浸在白日梦中，且身临其境感强烈。MD的症状往往过度，会干扰正常功能，并与痛苦和共病精神障碍有关。在本文中，描述了一名患有MD且因进行性眼部疾病导致视力受损的女性出现明显的错误记忆。她生动的白日梦似乎与实际记忆难以区分。一名有终身MD病史的35岁女性报告了三起编造详细错误记忆事件的情况，她的家人证实这些事件从未发生过：获得新工作、怀双胞胎流产以及因新冠病毒住院。当这些故事被证伪时，她感到焦虑和羞愧。评估确认她患有MD、创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）、强迫症（OCD）和其他疾病。她的言语记忆低于平均水平，尤其是对于较长的叙述。她将白日梦误归因于现实生活记忆可能与视力下降时对生动心理图像的依赖以及源监测缺陷有关。
这是首例报道的患有MD和视力残疾个体出现虚构症的病例，表明在某些MD病例中，白日梦可能会被误认为实际事件。虽然敏感，但需要更多关于MD个体中错误记忆患病率的研究。默认模式网络、前额叶皮层及其连接可能与产生生动的白日梦并将其误归因于实际情景事件有关。了解感觉障碍、解离与记忆扭曲易感性之间的关系，可为改善一些MD患者现实检验能力的干预措施提供依据。
