Daydream

• In Elastic, Leonard Mlodinow describes the daydream state as “the brains default mode of thought.” For a long time it was assumed that in this state, the brain wasn’t really doing anything, but it’s now understood that the unconscious mind is still quite active.

• The Default Mode Network (DMN), which is the term used to describe the connected parts of the brain that are active during daydreaming, sometimes gets some bad press. The assertion is that letting your mind wander or daydreaming makes you less happy. The reasoning is that, in that state, you tend to dwell on the past and the future rather than the present, and your inner critic can be heard loud and clear. It may be that you don’t want to dwell in daydreams all the time, but they have their uses.

• The part of the brain that is active during daydreaming is generally not active during other forms of thinking, so you need to stop doing other more taxing thinking processes to reap the benefits of the DMN. The DMN seems to be important in self-reflection and self identity as well empathy and emotional intelligence.

• Distraction gets in the way of daydreaming. More so than ever, if our minds are idle, we look for some kind of entertainment to distract them, like the TV, news or any of the millions of distractions provided by our mobile phones. For daydreaming to work best, you need to let your brain be idle.

• Your default mode may be easier to access if your executive brain functions are exhausted. To access it, you could exhaust your executive functions on purpose by doing some difficult mental activity, like calculating pi to the twentieth decimal place, or just wait until the time of day when they’re probably already exhausted. Just make sure you avoid the distractions you normally turn to.

Therefore: