When daydreaming becomes a way to cope

Excessive daydreaming is often a hidden trauma response or neurodivergent coping strategy. This article will explore how internal family systems and EMDR therapy can support healing with compassion and curiosity.

A mind that wanders for a reason

We all get lost in thought sometimes – imagining a perfect life, replaying past conversations, or escaping into a world that feels more manageable. But for some, daydreaming becomes a way of coping with emotional intensity, stress, or disconnection.

If your mind frequently drifts into vivid internal stories and it feels hard to stay grounded, it may be more than a distraction. It may be something your system learned to do a long time ago, to protect you.

Why excessive daydreaming begins in childhood

When children grow up without emotional safety, due to neglect, unpredictable parenting, trauma, or constant overwhelm, their minds often adapt in powerful ways.

Case example – Maya, 32

Maya grew up in a home where her needs were ignored, and emotional expression was criticised. As a child, she created elaborate fantasy worlds where she had friends who understood her and caregivers who listened. Now in her 30s, Maya finds herself zoning out at work, drifting into imagined conversations that feel more comforting than real ones.

This isn’t regression or avoidance for the sake of it. It’s something her nervous system learned: if the outside world doesn’t feel safe, create an inner one that does.

Autism and daydreaming

Excessive daydreaming can also be more common in autistic adults, not always as a result of trauma, but as a form of stimming or sensory regulation. The inner world can feel more ordered, understandable, and manageable than the external one.

Case example – Elliot, 28

Elliot is autistic and often feels overstimulated in social situations. He finds comfort in mentally revisiting favourite TV shows, imagining detailed plot lines and dialogue. His daydreaming helps him wind down after stressful interactions. But when it begins interfering with sleep or relationships, Elliot starts to wonder: Is this helping me, or holding me back?

In these cases, the daydreaming part isn’t trying to avoid pain – it’s trying to soothe the nervous system.

Understanding the daydreaming part through IFS

In internal family systems (IFS) therapy, we view the mind as a system of parts. These parts are not problems to be fixed – they’re trying to help us in the best way they know how.

The daydreaming part is often a protector. It might be trying to:

• keep emotional pain or memories at a distance
• provide safety, creativity, or even a sense of connection
• offer relief from isolation, stress, or overstimulation

IFS helps us build a relationship with this part, not to make it stop, but to understand it.

• “When did you first start helping me this way?”
• “What are you afraid might happen if you stopped?”

This gentle inquiry often leads to deeper insight. Beneath the daydreaming may be an exile, a younger part of the person who holds the feelings they’ve never fully processed.

When daydreaming starts to get in the way

While daydreaming often starts as a clever way to cope, it can become a barrier to connection and presence. Many people find that their imagination is easier to live in than the real world, but they also feel:

• isolated from others
• distracted or unproductive
• distant from their own emotions
• ashamed of how much time they “lose”

Case example – Leah, 40

Leah often imagines idealised relationships, revisiting romantic scenarios that never happened. She feels safe in those stories but finds it hard to form real connections, fearing they’ll never live up to her internal world. In therapy, she realises these fantasies began as a way to cope with abandonment in her early teens.

How EMDR can support healing from the inside out

Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapy that helps the brain process unresolved trauma so it no longer feels overwhelming or current.

If excessive daydreaming began in response to:

• emotional neglect
• bullying or rejection
• family conflict or abandonment

...then EMDR can target the memories that the daydreaming part is trying to protect you from.

Using bilateral stimulation (e.g., eye movements or tapping), EMDR helps your brain:

• process painful experiences safely
• reduce the emotional intensity of past events
• free up mental and emotional space for present-moment living

Clients often find that once those early experiences are processed, the need to escape into fantasy softens.

Gentle curiosity, not control

It’s understandable to feel frustrated when your mind constantly wanders. But if we look more closely, that part of you is working hard. It’s not trying to sabotage your life, it’s trying to keep you safe in the only way it knows how.

In both IFS and EMDR therapy, we work with the part, not against it. We explore its story, its fear, and what it might need today.

And often, what it needs is presence, compassion, and a sense of safety it never had before.

Therapy can support people who feel caught between inner safety and outer reality. Whether your daydreaming is linked to trauma, autism, or simply years of feeling unseen, there is nothing wrong with you. Your mind has been trying to help all along.

Together, you can begin to understand these patterns with care, not judgment. IFS therapy and EMDR help you gently uncover what your system needs now to feel safe enough to live more fully. I often find that EMDR can be the therapy that helps to "supercharge" IFS, and IFS can be the therapy that makes EMDR less of a "bulldozer". 

*All client examples are composites or anonymised and adapted to protect confidentiality.