A daily diary study on maladaptive daydreaming, mind wandering, and sleep disturbances: Examining within-person and between-persons relations

Abstract

Cross-sectional and experimental research have shown that task-unrelated thoughts (i.e., mind wandering) relate to sleep disturbances, but there is little research on whether this association generalizes to the day-level and other kinds of task-unrelated mentation. We employed a longitudinal daily diary design to examine the within-person and between-person associations between three self-report instruments measuring mind wandering, maladaptive daydreaming (a condition characterized by having elaborate fantasy daydreams so insistent that they interfere with daily functioning) and sleep disturbances. A final sample of 126 participants self-identified as experiencing maladaptive daydreaming completed up to 8 consecutive daily reports (in total 869 daily observations). The scales showed acceptable-to-excellent within-person reliability (i.e., systematic day-to-day change) and excellent between-person reliability. The proportion of between-person variance was 36% for sleep disturbances, 57% for mind wandering, and 75% for maladaptive daydreaming, respectively (the remaining being stochastic and systematic within-person variance). Contrary to our pre-registered hypothesis, maladaptive daydreaming did not significantly predict sleep disturbances the following night, B = -0.00 (SE = 0.04), p = .956. Exploratory analyses indicated that while nightly sleep disturbances predicted mind wandering the following day, B = 0.20 (SE = 0.04), p < .001, it did not significantly predict maladaptive daydreaming the following day, B = -0.04 (SE = 0.05), p = .452. Moreover, daily mind wandering did not significantly predict sleep disturbances the following night, B = 0.02 (SE = 0.05), p = .731. All variables correlated at the between-person level. We discuss the implications concerning the differences between maladaptive daydreaming and mind wandering and the possibility of targeting sleep for mind wandering interventions.

Sad mood and poor sleep are related to task-unrelated thoughts and experience of diminished cognitive control

“…Additionally, we cannot draw causal inferences from any observed association with sleep disturbances. Regarding the temporal association between mind wandering and sleep, a recent longitudinal study indicated that self-reported sleep disturbances on the night are likely to be followed by increased mind wandering the next day, but the study did not find a significant reversed association between mind wandering on the day and sleep disturbances the next night 49 . A second limitation of the present study is the use of self-reports for measuring sleep disturbances and mind wandering.…”

Comparing the phenomenological qualities of stimulus-independent thought, stimulus-dependent thought and dreams using experience sampling

“…It is possible, however, that waking up to respond to the nighttime probes significantly affected sleep quality or the phenomenological qualities of dreams or waking thoughts. Given that previous work has found a link between sleep disturbance and mind wandering (Marcusson-Clavertz, West, Kjell, & Somer, 2019), it will be important for future iterations of this study to examine and, if possible, protect against, this possibility.…”

Go to Bed and You MIGHT Feel Better in the Morning—the Effect of Sleep on Affective Tone and Intrusiveness of Emotional Memories

“…Another study found that sleep disturbances in soldiers before deployment predicted the degree of re-experiencing symptoms post-deployment [73]. Studies recording day-to-day variations in sleep have found that participants with PTSD had increased intrusion symptomology after nights with shorter sleep duration [74], and that mindwandering in general increases after nights with poor sleep [75].…”