[5] Dromomania was a historical psychiatric diagnosis whose primary symptom was an irresistible urge to aimlessly wander, travel, or walk.
[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.
[12] Modern bioethicist Henk A. M. J. ten Have regards dromomania as equivalent to the DSM IV diagnosis of dissociative fugue and the historical diagnoses of Wandertrieb [de] (German) and automatisme ambulatoire (French).
Dadas would suddenly set out on foot and reach cities as far away as Prague, Vienna or Moscow with no memory of his travels.
[13] 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".
[15][16] In the early 20th century, dromomania was classified as one of a number of criminal manias, which were understood to involve irresistible compulsions to act without any motivation and sometimes against the preferences of the actor.
[26] 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.
[27] In a 1977 book, cultural theorist Paul Virilio criticized modernity for acculturating people to become insanely addicted to pursuing the future and unable to stop, which he characterized as "dromomania".