Dromomania

Dromomania ( (from Greek dromos, meaning "running", and mania, meaning "madness"), also travelling fugue, is an uncontrollable psychological urge to wander. People with this condition spontaneously depart from their routine, travel long distances and take up different identities and occupations. In the common English vernacular this is often rendered simply as 'wanderlust' (directly from the German), although dromomania does imply a psychological compulsion, usually on one's own and often without one's conscious knowledge, rather than a more generalised desire to travel.

The most famous case was that of Jean-Albert Dadas, a Bordeaux gas-fitter. Dadas would suddenly set out on foot and reach cities as far away as Prague, Vienna or Moscow with no memory of his travels. A medical student, Philippe Tissie, wrote about Dadas in his doctoral dissertation in 1887.

Jean-Martin Charcot presented a similar case he called automatisme ambulatoire, French for "ambulatory automatism", or "walking around without being in control of one's own actions."

More generally, the term is sometimes used to describe people who have a strong emotional or even physical need to be constantly traveling and experiencing new places, often at the expense of their normal family, work, and social lives.

Dromomania was introduced in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 2000. The manual describes it as follows: "Sufferers have an abnormal impulse to travel; they are prepared to spend beyond their means, sacrifice jobs, lovers and security in their lust for new experiences."

See also

• Dissociative fugue
• Hypermobility (travel)

Bibliography

• Mad Travellers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses by Ian Hacking (ISBN 1-85343-455-8)