Dromomania was a historical psychiatric diagnosis whose primary symptom was uncontrollable urge to walk or wander.[1] Dromomania has also been referred to as traveling fugue.[2]Non-clinically, the term has come to be used to describe a desire for frequent traveling or wanderlust.[3][4][5]
The term dromomania is derived from combining the Greek dromos, meaning "running" with the root mania. The term has sometimes been clinical and pathologizing, and other times been descriptive of unusual enthusiasm without negative or medicalizing connotations, reflecting the diverse uses of the term mania itself.[6]
In the 17th century, the term mania came to be used to describe any show of great enthusiasm for a specific activity or object. Later, it came to be used as a suffix for Greek words to refer to an irrational obsession, such as in the words hippomania, and nymphomania. At the same time emerged the French -manie, such as in bibliomanie, which was borrowed into English as bibliomania. The original sense of enthusiasm without the sense of irrationality continued, as can be seen in Coleridge's late (1772–1843) use of the term scribbleomania.[5]
Dromomania was a historical psychiatric diagnosis whose primary symptom was an irresistible urge to aimlessly wander, travel, or walk.[7][8] Dromomania has also been referred to as traveling fugue.[2]
Some authors describe patients with this diagnosis as being "in an automatic state" as they traveled,[9] experiencing partial amnesia of the events of their journeys.[7] Other symptoms included a "loss of sense of personal identity, ... and impulses to homicide and suicide."[9]
Dromomania was regarded as a kind of impulse control disorder similar to kleptomania or pyromania.[10][8][11]