Nirit Soffer-Dudek

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev | bgu · Department of Psychology

A strong and specific link between obsessive-compulsive disorder or symptoms (OCD/S) and a tendency for dissociative experiences (e.g., depersonalization-derealization, absorption and imaginative involvement) cannot be explained by trauma and is poorly understood. The present theoretical formulation proposes five different models conceptualizing th...

Background and aims: Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) is a suggested syndrome where individuals become addicted to fantasizing vividly for hours on end at the expense of engaging in real-world relationships and functioning. MD can be seen as a behavioral addiction. However, a paucity of longitudinal research means that there is no empirical evidence co...

Objective: Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) is a compulsive form of daydreaming that causes distress and functional impairment. We present the first treatment trial for MD. Method: We tested the effectiveness of an eight-session internet-based self-help training for mindfulness and self-monitoring and compared three groups across three measurement p...

Recent works in personality and psychopathology emphasize both trait and state self-criticism as transdiagnostic risk factors for mental disorders. Yet, common screening and intake measures do not include assessment of state self-criticism. We provide a reanalysis of data from nine samples (total N=1,442), with the aim to identify and validate a st...

Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) is a distinct clinical condition entailing an extensive addictive-compulsive immersion in vivid fantasy featuring complex scenarios, which causes distress or interference with daily functioning. It is often activated while listening to evocative music and accompanied by stereotypical movements. MD is strongly related to...

Objective: The terms dissociative absorption and flow describe tendencies to experience immersive consciousness states, yet dissociation is sometimes considered maladaptive whereas flow is typically considered to be adaptive. We explored their trait and state associations with psychopathology, game task performance, and mood, and examined the hypot...

Background: Despite a robust consensus regarding the potentially negative implications of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), research investigating risk and protective factors-particularly among well-functioning young adults-is scant. Dissociation is one of the major maladaptive outcomes of CSA. Nevertheless, CSA explains only about 10% of the variance...

Background: Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) is a recently identified psychological disorder, 28 characterized by excessively and addictively engaging in vivid, narrative, intensely emotional fantasy 29 activity, at times with the aid of music and/or repetitive movements, causing distress and functional 30 impairment. Over 100,000 self-diagnosed indivi...

Objective: Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) entails excessive immersion and engagement in complex fantasy worlds, causing distress and impairing functioning. Maladaptive Daydreamers often report that existing diagnostic labels are unhelpful for them. Previous studies reported high rates of comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among...

Recent works in personality and psychopathology emphasize both trait and state self-criticism as transdiagnostic risk factors for mental disorders. Yet, common screening and intake measures do not include assessment of state self-criticism. We provide a reanalysis of data from nine samples (total N=1,442), with the aim to identify and validate a st...

Reality shifting (RS) is a trendy mental activity that emerged abruptly following the flare-up of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and seems to be practiced mainly by members of the post-millennial generation. RS, described as the experience of being able to transcend one’s physical confines and visit alternate, mostly fictional, universes, is discuss...

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between depression and certain daydreaming factors on daily positive and negative emotions experienced by individuals with maladaptive daydreaming (MD). MD intensity, MD frequency, depression, daydreaming themes, and positive/negative emotions were measured daily for 14 days in a sample of 10...

Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) is a newly proposed mental disorder characterized by excessive, vivid fantasy activity impairing functioning. There is a high comorbidity of MD with Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Symptoms (OCSS), yet the mechanisms responsible for this relationship are still unclear. The present study set out to explore the relationship...

Severe dissociation is trauma-related, but a range of dissociative experiences are also prevalent in clinical populations that are not necessarily trauma-based (e.g., depression, anxiety disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorders). These remain poorly understood as the dominant etiological model for dissociation relies on trauma. Importantly, di...

General Sleep Experiences (GSEs) are a group of unusual dream and sleep-wake transition phenomena, representing altered nocturnal consciousness. They have been repeatedly strongly correlated with psychopathological distress, which led them to be considered as arousal permeating the sleep state and a possible clinical marker of such distress. Howeve...

Background and aims: Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) is a proposed mental disorder, in which absorption in rich, narrative fantasy becomes addictive and compulsive, resulting in emotional, social, vocational, or academic dysfunction. Most studies on MD were carried out on aggregated international samples, using translated versions of the of the Malada...

Objectives Depersonalization–derealization (DEP‐DER) is a dissociative experience which is related to psychopathology and distress. Yet, the aetiological factors leading to DEP‐DER are not sufficiently clear. In this study, we suggest rumination as one possible antecedent. Thus, the goal of the study was to explore the longitudinal relationship bet...

Dissociative absorption (DA) is a tendency to become completely immersed in a stimulus while neglecting to attend to one’s surroundings. Theoretically, DA implies automatic functioning in areas that are outside the focus of attention. This study examined whether high absorbers indeed act more automatically, i.e., with decreased meta-consciousness f...

People high in dissociative absorption had a deficient ability to recognize their own words from a free writing task. Their deficiency was specific to self-generated content.

Objective: Dissociative absorption is a tendency to become absorbed in imagination or in an external stimulus (movie, book) to the point of obliviousness to one’s surroundings and reduced self-awareness. It has been hypothesized to play a role in the maintenance of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. However, because absorption is a trait of reduced att...

Several short-term pathways have been implicated in relation to dissociative experiences, among them are daily stress, sleepiness, and rumination. In addition, it has been claimed that mechanisms contributing to dissociative experiences may differ, according to specific psychopathological symptoms. Accordingly, this study had two aims. The first wa...

Teeth dreams (TD), i.e., dreams of teeth falling out or rotting, are one of the most common and universal typical dream themes, yet their source remains unknown and they have rarely been studied empirically. They are especially enigmatic as they do not readily fall under the rubric of the “continuity hypothesis”, i.e., dreams of current and salient...

Dissociative “absorption and imaginative involvement” is a tendency to become immersed in a stimulus while neglecting one’s surroundings, engage in vivid imagination, confuse fantasy with reality, and act automatically. We aimed to identify the specific impairments and benefits in cognitive functioning which may characterize dissociative absorption...

Objective: Dissociation refers to a disintegration between psychological elements; common manifestations are embodied in "absorption and imaginative involvement", a propensity for being immersed in a stimulus while oblivious to the environment, and acting without awareness. Trait dissociation was hypothesized to relate to lower EEG signal connecti...

Rumination and dissociation are considered maladaptive cognitive-emotional responses to distress, which prevent its proper processing. The goal of the study was to explore the relationship between rumination and dissociation and possible mechanisms responsible for it. We hypothesized that rumination may exert influence on dissociation via four poss...

Background: Maladaptive Daydreaming (MD) characterizes individuals who engage in vivid, fanciful daydreaming for hours on end, neglecting real-life relationships and responsibilities, resulting in clinical distress and functional impairment. Sufferers have embraced the term MD in cyber-communities devoted to this problem because it seemed to unique...

Synesthesia is a condition that involves atypical binding between two seemingly independent sensory modalities. The neural origin of this condition is controversial: While some claim that synesthesia originates from stable anatomical irregularities, others suggest that its occurrence relies on functional properties of brain dynamics. In the current...

Lucid Dreaming (LD) is awareness that one is dreaming, during the dream state. However, some define and assess LD relying also on controlling dream events, although control is present only in a subset of lucid dreams. LD has been claimed to represent well-being, and has even been used as a therapeutic agent. Conversely, LD is associated with mixed...

A tendency for experiencing unusual dream and sleep-wake transition phenomena (e.g., recurrent dreams, hypnagogic hallucinations, and confusion upon awakening), labeled general sleep experiences (GSEs), is linked with stress as well as psychological distress, explicit as well as covert. We hypothesized that alexithymia may moderate the relationship...

The term “sleep experiences”, coined by Watson (2001), denotes an array of unusual nocturnal consciousness phenomena; for example, nightmares, vivid or recurrent dreams, hypnagogic hallucinations, dreams of falling or flying, confusional arousals, and lucid dreams. Excluding the latter, these experiences reflect a single factor of atypical oneiric...

Objective: Dissociative experiences are associated with several psychopathological symptoms, and are a hindrance to therapeutic gain. Depersonalization-derealization (DEP-DER) is positively associated with stress and anxiety, while absorption and imaginative involvement (ABS), a tendency for total, immersed attention, is commonly referred to as “no...

Daydreaming, a common mental activity, can be excessive and accompanied by distress and impaired functioning in daily life. Although currently not formally identified by diagnostic manuals, daydreaming disorder (maladaptive daydreaming-MD) is a clinically well-defined phenomenon. However, research is lacking regarding the diagnostic reliability of...

In order to determine the comorbidity profile of individuals meeting criteria for a proposed new disorder, Daydreaming Disorder (more commonly known as Maladaptive Daydreaming, MD), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders were administered to 39 participants who met criteri...

In order to determine the comorbidity profile of individuals meeting criteria for a proposed new disorder, Daydreaming Disorder (more commonly known as Maladaptive Daydreaming, MD), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders were administered to 39 participants who met criteri...

In recent years, a labile sleep-wake cycle has been implicated as a cause for dissociative experiences, and studies show that dissociation is elevated following sleep deprivation. Dissociative individuals may find it harder to regulate sleepiness in the face of sleep disruption. Although there is significant variability in reactions to sleep depriv...

Unusual sleep and dream experiences-such as elevated dream recall, nightmares, hypnagogic hallucinations, flying dreams, or waking dreams-constitute a trait of atypical nocturnal cognitions that has been associated with life stress and psychopathological distress, as well as terrorism-related stress. In the present study, this trait was explored as...

Sleep patterns and temperament in the first year of life are closely related. However, research utilizing objective, rather than subjective measurements of sleep and temperament is scarce and results are inconsistent. In addition, a relative lack of longitudinal data prevents inference of causality between the two constructs. In this study, infant...

Dissociative experiences predict increased symptoms, poor adherence to treatment, and poor prognosis in several psychiatric conditions, including panic disorder (PD), obses-sive– compulsive disorder (OCD), and depression. Nevertheless, dissociative experiences have been extensively studied and reviewed primarily in relation to the disso-ciative dis...

Dissociation is an alteration in consciousness that is viewed as an avoidant or repressive coping style in response to distress. Previous literature suggests that stressful life events (an external source of stress) bring about dissociation, and that dissociation is correlated with psychopathological symptoms (an internal source of distress). We ex...

Unique dream patterns are related to psychopathological distress in adults. In adolescence, this was investigated almost exclusively regarding nightmares. This longitudinal study examines developmental trajectories of various adolescent-reported dream patterns, and their associations with parent-reported psychopathology (internalization and externa...

Self-criticism is implicated in a wide array of psychopathologies. The authors examined its role in vulnerability to psychopathology in the face of terrorism-related perceived stress. Three independent longitudinal studies were conducted on 67 undergraduates, 78 young adults, and 55 chronic pain patients, respectively. Assessments were employed pri...

There is deepening understanding of the effects of sleep on emotional information processing. Emotion information processing is a key aspect of social competence, which undergoes important maturational and developmental changes in adolescence; however, most research in this area has focused on adults. Our aim was to test the links between sleep and...

The construct General Sleep-related Experiences (GSEs, such as elevated dream recall, vivid or bizarre dreams, flying dreams, hypnagogic hallucinations, nightmares, and recurrent dreams) has been previously linked to various forms of psychopathology in nonclinical populations. The aim of this pilot study was to explore this relationship in the cont...

Building on the previously documented effects of stress and dissociation on sleep and dreaming, we examined their interactive role in general sleep-related experiences (GSEs; e.g., nightmares, falling dreams, hypnagogic hallucinations; see Watson, 2001). Stress, sleep quality, and GSEs were assessed daily for 14 days among young adults. Baseline as...

The relationship between resilience and lucid dreams, which involves awareness of the experience of dreaming, was examined in 79 Israeli young adults. Psychological distress and lucid dreams 3 years prior to exposure to terrorism, and exposure levels and psychological distress 1 week following exposure, were assessed. Both indirect exposure through...

General sleep-related experiences (Watson, 2001), including special dream states such as elevated dream recall, nightmares, hypnagogic hallucinations, flying dreams, and waking dreams, have been shown to be associated with life stress and psychopathological distress (Soffer-Dudek & Shahar, 2009). In this study, we attempted to examine these associa...

Sleep-related experiences [Watson, D. (2001). Dissociations of the night: Individual differences in sleep-related experiences and their relation to dissociation and schizotypy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 526-535] refer to a host of nocturnal altered-consciousness phenomena, including narcoleptic tendencies, nightmares, problem-solving dre...

Whereas both Blatt (1974) and Beck (1983) postulated the existence of two basic cognitive-personality vulnerabilities to depression—sociotropic/anaclitic and autonomous/introjective—recent research and theorizing suggest that self-criticism is a third dimension of vulnerability. To examine the supposition that sociotropy, autonomy, and self-critici...

We examined associations between self-reported childhood maltreatment and depressive risk (sociotropy, autonomy, and self-criticism), and resilience (self-efficacy). Students (N = 203) reported childhood emotional abuse (CEA), emotional neglect (CEN), psychological distress, cognitive Vulnerability, and resilience. CEA and CEN constitute separate p...

Mental health services in Israel are about to undergo a major, and quite controversial, reform. Yet both those advocating these reforms and those opposing themrefrain from resorting to empirical science in arguing their respective cases. In the present article, we present findings concerning the central role of patients' individual differences in t...