Maladaptive Daydreaming and the Self God Loves

Week 3 of the series Glory Days in the Mind: When Escaping Inside Keeps You From Living.

A gentle note: this post touches on sexual abuse. Please read at your own pace, and see the support details below.

Quick answer: If your daydreams are always about being someone better (braver, more attractive, admired), they reveal two things: a God-given longing to be seen and loved, and a belief that the real you isn’t enough. The way forward isn’t fighting the daydream. It’s naming that belief and replacing it with the truth that God already delights in you as you are (Zephaniah 3:17).

In Week 1, Maladaptive Daydreaming: When a Daydream Becomes a Place to Live, we named the inner world, the place some of us move into. In Week 2, The God Who Sees Me: Rewriting the Beliefs We Formed as Children, we met the child who built it to survive, and the belief they formed back then. This week we look at who we become when we’re in there, and who God says we really are.

In this post

Two walks on a beach
Who do you have to be to be loved?
Soiled, defiled, and sung over
Setting your thinking compass
There’s a party going on

Two Walks on a Beach

Here’s a picture I want you to step into.

You’re walking down a beach, and you see me in the distance. I turn my head, and you see I’m smiling at you. I jump up and down with excitement as you approach. Then I rush towards you, singing, laughing, and overflowing with delight.

You’re quite shocked by this. Embarrassed, in fact. You always thought I was strange, and now this confirms it. Unbounded, overflowing, over-the-top love. You’d tried to tidy yourself up and make yourself socially acceptable, but none of that seemed to matter.

Now picture the same storyline again.

You’re walking down a beach. You see me in the distance. I turn my head, and there’s a frown on my face. I look away from you, anywhere but at you. You feel the coldness of rejection. You feel completely alone, exposed. You are nothing and no one. There’s no beauty in you, and nothing about you matters.

Now, answer me this:

Which storyline comes closest to how you see God, and how you think God sees you?

What would it truly be like to have someone over-the-top excited to see you? It’s the same delight Jesus pictures in the parable of the pearl, where we discover the delight of being sought.

Who Do You Have to Be to Be Loved?

We are relational beings. We’re designed for connection, and the longing of our hearts is for closeness.

So what’s your story of connection been like? Have you looked for love and found rejection? Have you offered your very best, only to have it met with disdain? (If that’s you, God gathers up those who feel rejected.)

When that happens, we close up. We create, and retreat into, our own daydream worlds.

In your imagination, who do you have to be to get that beach-running kind of love?

Perhaps you have a checklist. A certain height, weight, hairstyle, clothing, income, car, a certain smile. (If that checklist sounds like trying to earn love, you can’t earn love here. And if it grew out of constant comparison, there is a refuge from being put to shame.)

Maybe it’s that you have to be clean. Free of body odour, and soul odour. There’s a standard of purity you think you must reach before you’d be acceptable, before anyone would want to touch you.

The daydream takes you to an imaginary land where the checklist has already been met. There, you’re seen as perfect in every way.

Here’s the thing, though. Your daydream knows what you were made for: to be someone’s delight. It just got the address wrong. The longing isn’t the problem. The belief underneath it is: the real me isn’t enough to be loved. Beliefs like this are often sentences we carry from words spoken over us.

Review your inner world

Here are some of the inner worlds people describe, and the need each one is trying to meet.

The inner world	What it often looks like	The need underneath
The admired self	Famous, gifted, applauded: a singer, athlete, star or brilliant speaker	To be seen and valued
The better-looking self	Prettier, thinner, stronger, taller, or a different body altogether	To be acceptable and attractive
The hero or rescuer	Saving people, solving the crisis, being the one everyone depends on	Significance; to matter
The rescued one	Being found, protected or carried by someone strong and kind	Safety; to be cared for
Hurt and comforted	Being ill, injured or in trouble, then tenderly looked after	Comfort and nurture without having to ask
The perfect romance	An ideal partner who adores, understands and chooses them	Intimacy; being chosen
The sexual world	Being desired, or in control, in imagined or porn-fuelled scenarios	Intimacy, being wanted, comfort or control, without the risk of real relationship
The ideal family	A different mother or father, a home where they’re the favourite, or a family that finally notices them	Belonging; parental love
The friend group	A circle of close friends, often fictional, where they’re liked and included	Connection; not being alone
The spiritual self	Being especially holy, devoted, or favoured by God	Approval; earning God’s love
Vindication	Proving the doubters wrong, or confronting someone who hurt them and finally winning	Justice; restored dignity
Power and control	Being in charge, untouchable or feared	Safety after powerlessness
Somewhere else entirely	Another country, another era, a fantasy realm, or a favourite book or film’s world with themselves written in	Escape from a life that feels small or painful
A different person altogether	A different age, name, personality or life story	Freedom from a self they feel ashamed of
Rehearsed conversations	Replaying arguments or imagining the perfect reply	Being heard; regaining control

I can identify with a few of these. These are worlds I easily drift into.

We all have some of these inner worlds, worlds we’d never share with anyone. God’s delight reaches there too. If you notice yourself resisting even looking at them, that’s normal; it’s part of the ancient path to your true self.

Soiled, Defiled, and Sung Over

Prophets speak truth. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable truth we need to hear. But sprinkled into the mix, like salt that brings out the flavour, there’s often a deeper truth.

The prophet Zephaniah spoke to the people of Jerusalem and Judah. He begins chapter 3 by naming a reality they probably didn’t want to acknowledge. Their city was “soiled, defiled” (Zephaniah 3:1).

In Zephaniah’s day, that defilement came from the people’s own wrongdoing. But I’ve talked with enough people who have been abused, especially sexually abused, to know there’s another kind of soiling. It comes not from what you did, but from what was done to you. There’s a dirtiness that settles in, where you don’t feel human any more. It’s what happens when a life is opened too early.

As one person told me, “You’re just something for someone to do something to.”

There’s no beauty in you. No delight. You’ve lost something of yourself. You’re just a something.

So you build a reality far, far away from that place. A fairy tale. But at the core of who you are, the defilement remains. You loathe yourself, and you dismiss any thought that someone could jump for joy when they see you walking down the beach. Shame like this grows in secret, which is why sitting with shame alongside a safe person matters so much.

Yet into that soiled and defiled city, Zephaniah speaks this:

The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

I see God looking down the beach and seeing our soiled and defiled state. And God leaps up and runs with wide-open arms, rejoicing, dancing and singing.

Notice that God is the warrior here. Some of us think of our inner worlds as a battle we have to win by gritting our teeth. But the victory is God’s to give. He fights for you, not you against yourself.

Notice too: “he will renew you in his love.” Renewal comes inside this flow of love. It’s what Paul means when he says we’re transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). The old beliefs are slowly replaced by the truth of how God sees us.

This is the excitement of the father in the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32). The son comes home empty, penniless, smelling of pigs, and hoping for mercy. Instead, he finds his father running to greet him, restore him, and throw a party. As I’ve written before, every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Whether the dirt came from what you did, or from what was done to you, the Father still runs.

This love was always there for you.

God isn’t waiting for the better version of you. God is singing over this one.

Setting Your Thinking Compass

What stirred in you when you read those two beach stories? The one who sees you and runs excitedly towards you, or the one who sees you and turns their face away?

Whichever one feels truer, here are four steps for this week. (New to the idea? Here’s how to build a thinking compass for a foggy, stressed mind.)

Find your world. Look over the table above. Which inner worlds do you drift into? Look at the need beside each one. That need is real, and it matters to God.
Name your checklist. Finish this sentence honestly: “To be loved, I’d have to be…” Write it down.
Choose a truth. Next to your checklist, write one truth from Scripture to set your thinking compass by:
- God delights in me as I am (Zephaniah 3:17)
- I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)
- I am precious and honoured in God’s sight, and loved (Isaiah 43:4)
- There is no condemnation for me in Christ (Romans 8:1)
- I am called a child of God, and that is what I am (1 John 3:1)
Walk the beach. When you notice yourself drifting into your inner world, pause. Picture the first beach scene instead: the real you, walking towards God who is already running to meet you. Then say your truth aloud.

This isn’t about beating yourself up for daydreaming. It’s about giving your heart’s longing a truer home.

There’s a Party Going On

Here’s something to imagine.

Imagine walking through your week with that first beach picture in your mind. Not the frowning face turned away, but God who is running towards you, singing. That’s what it means to be sitting in God’s joy over you.

Imagine not needing to be someone else to feel loved. Imagine the energy you pour into your inner world being freed for your real life: real friendships, real work, real joy. Learning to embrace the self God uniquely made is part of that freedom.

Imagine a group of friends where you welcome each other as you are because that’s how God welcomes you.

There’s a party going on, and you’re invited.

Not the better version of you, but you as you are right here right now.

If You Need Support

If your inner world is costing you your sleep, study, work or relationships, you don’t have to work it out alone. Talking with a counsellor, alongside your faith community, can really help.

1737, Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737, any time, to talk with a trained counsellor.
Safe to Talk. If you’ve been affected by sexual harm in any way, call 0800 044 334 or text 4334, 24/7.

Part of the Glory Days in the Mind Series

This post is part of a series on maladaptive daydreaming. Read the other parts:

Maladaptive Daydreaming: When a Daydream Becomes a Place to Live – Everyone daydreams, but for some it becomes a place to live. A Christian look at maladaptive daydreaming and hope.
The God Who Sees Me: Rewriting the Beliefs We Formed as Children – Childhood rejection shapes what we believe. Hagar’s story and a journaling exercise help you rewrite old beliefs.

Quotes to Consider

The compelling vision is . . . maybe, because of our conversations, we can want God more than we want any lesser blessing. Larry Crabb
Imagine conversations where we’re known, explored, discovered, and then touched. Where another person moves into our lives with the power of the Spirit. Larry Crabb
We think — wrongly — that God can only love perfect things. What a tiny and weak God that would be. Richard Rohr, Job and the Mystery of Suffering
It is the unrivaled wonder of the gospel of Jesus Christ that no other God has wounds. Os Guinness
I think that is God’s plan – to meet me where I am, in all my ugliness, not where I pretend to be or wish I were; to meet me in my weakness and shame and fear and to give me hope that God loves me, that He can change me, and that He can use me. Dr Larry Crabb, Real Church
In the moments of insecurity and crisis, “shoulds” and “oughts” don’t really help; they just increase the shame, guilt, pressure, and likelihood of backsliding. It’s the deep “yeses” that carry you through. Focusing on something you absolutely believe in, that you’re committed to, will help you wait it out. Richard Rohr, When Things Fall Apart

Questions to Answer

Which beach storyline comes closest to how you think God sees you?
Who are you in your daydreams, and what does that version of you have that you believe you lack?
Whose measure of worth are you still trying to meet?
Which truth will you set your thinking compass by this week?

About the Author

Barry Pearman has spent almost 30 years as a mental health support worker, community chaplain, and pastor, and has walked through depression himself. His training includes SoulCare Foundations under Dr Larry Crabb, a Bachelor of Applied Theology, spiritual direction training, and certificates in CBT interventions, pastoral therapy, and integrated mental health care. Turning the Page offers a grace-filled path to mental wholeness through faith and hope.

Photo by Y S on Unsplash

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The Self I Imagined and the Self God Loves