7/29/2019 In Praise of Daydareaming
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Y MOST vivid memorY ofschool is sitting at the backof the class
looking out thewindow at the rice fieldsseveral floors below,
heat-ing the occasional bark of a dog, the dis-tant slam of a car
door, and being lulledinto a semi-hypnotic state by the
slowwhirring of the electric fan' My mindwould wander, between
reaiitY anddream, concentration and distraction'For such
indulgences I was often re-warded by detention after school. In
uni-versity I continued to be a back-of-the-class student, not
irritating the iecturerby talking to friends, but generally
day-dreaming, Nothing consequentiai, justidly letting my mind roam.
Nowadays Ido this whenever I fly; I iook at the cloudsand observe
their shapes,Without the threat of detention fromschool teachers, I
indulge in letting ran-dom thoughts form like soap bubbies,bumping
into one another, bursting orsimply floating away.I had never
reaily thought about day-dreaming. But neuroscientists are
discov-ering that daydreaming actually involvescomplex mental
processes. Far from be-ing empty, our minds are actually moreactive
when we daydream than duringother "thinking" hours.Our minds
usually wander when weare engaged in routine tasks that, due
totheir famitiarity, do not require focusedattention. The "default
netlvork" of thebrain is usually engaged at this time,when we are
not entireiy focused on the-externai world or the task at hand. It
deac-tivates when we switch to goal-orientedbehaviour, and
decreases in activity whenother parts of the brain used to process
ex-ternal visual stimuli start up. It is essen-tially a network of
brain regions usedr.^,'hen we are in a self-referential,
intro-spective mode of thinking, when we form
works are engaged in daydreaming.This is what neuroscientist
KalinaChristoff has to say: "People assumed
7/29/2019 In Praise of Daydareaming
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show that problem-solving by- when you suddenly feel the piec--
requires both a higher degreedifferent pattern of neurai
resourc-niethodical, iogical thinking, Day-seems to br a
fundamental ba-for insight. More than just a pleasantto pass the
time, it allows "transitin betrveen the more straightfor-of our day
for new associa-to form.that creative insight is
primarilyrealisation of unusual connections be-disparate concepts,
day-offers the mind space to ex-these possibilities. Ironically,
these
insights often materialise without warn-ing, through an
unconscious shift in men-tal perspective, a sudden
comprehension.The lack of conscious awateness andaccompanying
mental freedom is key: ArtFry was bored by a church sermon
andmulling over the repetitive problem of pa-per scraps, used as
bookmarks, faliing outof hymnal pages when he first conceivedof
Post-it notes. George de Mestral waswalking his dog in the Swiss
Alps whenhe noticed the way burrs stuck to hispet's coat and linked
this to the idea ofVelcro.It is when my youngest son walks al-most
absent-mindedly yet obsessively
round and around our house, tracing thesame route, that he finds
inspiration forhis poems and stories.But our culture today still
discouragesseemingly pointless, open-ended time.Class schedules are
packed back-to-backwith activities; office agendas are filledwith
meetings and deadlines. Goal-orient-ed thinking is considered
primary. Butwhat this new research suggests is thatreaching loftier
goals and even surpassingthem requires not focusing on the
stepsalong the way.The recently formulated concept
ofneuroplasticity - the brain's ability tochange both its structure
and function -suggests that the brain can change bystrengthening or
expeinding oft-used cir-cuitry and minimising those less used.The
implications are startling: What wethink can change how we think -
andvice versa.Experiments that map the brainwavepatterns of
meditating monks find thatthe most accomplished practitioners
withthe most hours of meditation - 10,000 to50,000 hours was the
range - have moreunusually powerful and fast-moving gam-ma waves
than novice practitioners. Thegamma waves of the more advanced
monks were also better organised and co.ordinated. This intense
brain pattern is as-sociated with the ability to knit
togetherdisparate brain circuits, and therefore pro-ductive of the
kind of perceptive insightsthat cannot be accessed through
ploddinglogic.Essentially, meditation is simply amore intensive and
disciplined way ofdaydreaming. It frees the mind of con-scious
thoughts in order to allow the sub-conscious to surface and resolve
issues inways that the conscious, rational mind isnot capable
of.What - and how - we know will nodoubt continually evolve, We are
learningthat mental activities considered idle andwasteful in the
past actually have pro-found funciions. At the same time, weare
discovering that these functions donot normally occur within out
consciousgrasp.Yet, the possibilities to change andtrain the powers
of our minds remainopen. Whatever the case, daydreaming isnot an
activity anyone will, or can, giveup. For now, we would do well to
cherishthat transit space, when we are in the sus-pended period
between problem and solu-tion, origin and destination.Th* writsr !s
ch*irmna: of thc h*ard o{ tr$*tees a*t}l*l $i*gapcr* Mamagar*emt
tJellv*rsity. Think"Talllqis a w**kiy c*ia:mm r*tatcd ame*g elg9tt
l*adi*gfigures {n*m S[ngaX**r'*'s ertiary cltd
res*ar**tinstitut$*ms.
