daydream believer

flickr photo by: andi♥

i've always believed in our need for down time, as epitomized by bertrand russell:

"time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

so i'm delighted to see we're finally seeing science back this up. in fact in this recent boston globe article on daydreaming they're going one step further. not only is the time not wasted, it's necessary:

In recent years...scientists have begun to see the act of daydreaming very differently. They've demonstrated that daydreaming is a fundamental feature of the human mind - so fundamental, in fact, that it's often referred to as our "default" mode of thought.

...Every time we slip effortlessly into a daydream, a distinct pattern of brain areas is activated, which is known as the default network. Studies show that this network is most engaged when people are performing tasks that require little conscious attention, such as routine driving on the highway or reading a tedious text. Although such mental trances are often seen as a sign of lethargy - we are staring haplessly into space - the cortex is actually very active during this default state, as numerous brain regions interact. Instead of responding to the outside world, the brain starts to contemplate its internal landscape. This is when new and creative connections are made between seemingly unrelated ideas.

if that last statement leads you to think that daydreaming might stimulate creativity, you'd be on the right track:

Many scientists argue that daydreaming is a crucial tool for creativity, a thought process that allows the brain to make new associations and connections.

...In a forthcoming paper, Schooler's lab has shown that people who engage in more daydreaming score higher on experimental measures of creativity, which require people to make a set of unusual connections.

flickr photo by: carf

"when I became a man, I put away childish things" might describe the passage into adulthood, especially in the western world, but it now seems applicable to children:

Teresa Belton, a research associate at East Anglia University in England, first got interested in daydreaming while reading a collection of stories written by children in elementary school. Although Belton encouraged the students to write about whatever they wanted, she was startled by just how uninspired most of the stories were.

"The tales tended to be very tedious and unimaginative," Belton says, "as if the children were stuck with this very restricted way of thinking. Even when they were encouraged to think creatively, they didn't really know how."

probably because like adults, they aren't practicing enough:

"The capacity to daydream enables a person to fill empty time with an enjoyable activity that can be carried on anywhere," Belton says. "But that's a skill that requires real practice. Too many kids never get the practice."

however it's not just any kind of practice that's required. as a former teacher of mine used to proclaim, "practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect". if you practice something poorly you'll only be perfect at doing it wrong. apparently it's likewise with daydreaming. if want to use it as a tool for developing your creativity, you'd better stay focused:

However, not all daydreams seem to inspire creativity. In his experiments, Schooler distinguishes between two types of daydreaming. The first type consists of people who notice they are daydreaming only when asked by the researcher....The second type, in contrast, occurs when subjects catch themselves daydreaming during the experiment, without needing to be questioned. Schooler and colleagues found that individuals who are unaware of their own daydreaming while it's happening don't seem to exhibit increased creativity.

so the next time you're caught gazing off into space, tell 'em you're working.

"When you don't use a muscle, that muscle really isn't doing much of anything," says Dr. Marcus Raichle, a neurologist and radiologist at Washington University who was one of the first scientists to locate the default network in the brain. "But when your brain is supposedly doing nothing and daydreaming, it's really doing a tremendous amount. We call it the 'resting state,' but the brain isn't resting at all."

flickr photo by: digiart2001

h/t: mindhacks.com