The Lost Art of Daydreaming

When was the last time you had a really good daydream? As a former therapist, it's a question I wish more therapists and counselors would ask clients. It turns out that daydreaming frequency may be a good barometer of mental health. In fact, daydreaming and creativity have similar cognitive and neural processes. Unfortunately, the lost art of daydreaming was lost precisely because society vilified it as an idle, lazy habit for far too long. 

If you're like me, you grew up with adults telling you to stop daydreaming. As a result, I have a reflexive habit of catching myself whenever I'm letting my mind trail off without being "productive." As texting and screens became a bigger part of my life, I would reach for my phone to check email or go over my calendar whenever I needed a break from a tough cognitive task. Meanwhile, I wondered why I constantly suffered from brain fog and decision fatigue. I was choosing distraction over daydreaming because I thought it made me a better person. I've learned since then.

What Is Daydreaming?

While often thought of as whimsical or childish, daydreaming is simply a mental process that involves our minds drifting toward internal thoughts and feelings. While some daydreams involve intricate imagined scenarios or fantasies, others are little pops of wistful or wishful thinking. The fun part about daydreams is that they can bring us to the past, the present, or a future that has not yet arrived! 

Unlike nighttime dreams that are dictated by subconscious and involuntary imagery, daydreaming keeps up in the driver's seat to craft and steer scenarios. That's why daydreams are generally pleasant, optimistic, and aspirational. Daydreams are also different from rumination and worry in this way. Let me go on a quick detour before circling back to more of the reasons why I'm pro daydream.

If you're curious about the impact of daydreaming on mental health because you feel plagued by excessive daydreaming, you may actually be dealing with something called maladaptive daydreaming. Also known as excessive daydreaming, maladaptive daydreaming happens when a person experiences excessive daydreaming that interferes with daily life.

Daydreams can be intense, disruptive, and unwanted. It can even feel like your mind is slipping into vivid, detailed daydreams that you get lost in with no sense of control. This is not the type of beneficial, therapeutic daydreaming I'm discussing. Maladaptive daydreaming is often a coping response to stress that needs to be worked through with a therapist. You may be more likely to experience maladaptive daydreaming if you have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), an anxiety disorder, depression, or a dissociative disorder.

One big reason why I believe we need to restore the art of daydreaming is that our busy, digitally driven lifestyles have contributed to a decline in daydreaming. One of the benefits of boredom historically is that it boosted human creativity.

While most of us can grasp what dreaming looks and feels like, we may not be aware of what's actually happening in the brain when this type of mental wandering takes place. Daydreaming is part of the brain's default network that includes regions more active during passive tasks compared to tasks that demand focused external attention. Daydreaming may provide much-needed mental breaks from boring, difficult, or tedious tasks. Daydreams can be like little brain "refreshers."

One study that looked at mental wandering's impact on creative incubation found that people who allow their minds to wander experience boosts in creative problem-solving. In addition, a 2015 study on mind wandering's role in forming alternative creative solutions found that participants who mind-wandered performed better on a creative task. Interestingly, this study found that mind-wanderers were able to access answers in a flash instead of needing to participate in methodical testing of different solutions.

More recently, researchers have been able to map brain activity during daydreaming spells. As part of a study published in 2023, researchers tracked activity of neurons in the visual cortex of the brains of mice while in a quiet waking state. What they found was that the neurons fired in patterns similar to the ones created when mice looked at actual images. Assuming that mice were thinking (daydreaming) about the image, researchers could then use those activity patterns to predict how the brain's response to the image would evolve over time. What this shows is that daydreams have the potential to shape the brain's future response to things it sees. For humans, this could mean that daydreaming has enormous implications for brain plasticity and the brain's ability to remodel itself in response to new experiences.

Daydreaming and Mental Health Benefits

Imagine any kind of spiritual or meditative practice that was shown to reduce stress and anxiety, boost problem-solving skills, and enhance creativity. Doctors, gurus, and all of your favorite celebrity influencers would surely be screaming about its benefits from the rooftops. Meanwhile, studies show that daydreaming actually does all of these things!

While research on exactly which parts of the brain come alive during daydreaming is still emerging, one thing we do know is that daydreaming utilizes diverse parts of the brain. Think of it like a workout that has your brain's executive problem-solving network and creativity network simultaneously pumping iron. In addition to strengthening individual areas of the brain, daydreaming can also help to strengthen communication and connection between different parts of the brain.

The Decline of Daydreaming

Why don't we daydream any longer? If you thought that daydreaming was simply something that fades away in adulthood, you may be a victim of the era you're living in. Unfortunately, many of us are in the habit of reaching for a screen during the times when generations before us would have simply allowed their minds to wander naturally. Just think of the scenario I'm about to share with you.

You're struggling to solve a problem at work. You rub your eyes, take a deep yawn, and look away from the computer screen you've been staring at for hours. Your mind is just about to "check out" for a moment when you're suddenly pulled back in by the "ding" of an email arriving in your inbox, a text alert on your phone, or a Facebook notification. Rather than following your mind to where it was about to lead you, you're now tapped into a long message or video. I call this daydream, interrupted.

So many of us don't have time to daydream because screens and technology are directing our streams of consciousness instead of allowing our brains to follow their own paths. In fact, it's so common nowadays for us to instinctively reach for our screens whenever there is a lull of any kind in our workflow. 

We are simply too distracted to daydream. What's more, digital distractions can act like a type of counterfeit daydream. We get the feeling that we "escaped" or "drifted off" from our task for a bit. However, we don't actually get the creativity boost or mind "refreshment" that we'd get if the parts of our brains associated with daydreaming were actually activated. We actually come back more fatigued.

How to Reclaim the Art of Daydreaming for Mental Health

Therapeutic daydreaming starts with giving our minds permission to wander. If you're struggling to daydream, chances are high you're not giving yourself the space to do it. Consider these questions: 

●     Were you chastised for daydreaming or "not paying attention" by teachers or parents as a child? You may be so convinced that "good" kids don't waste time daydreaming that you instantly distract yourself with something that feels more productive whenever you begin to feel your mind wander.

●     Do you logistically have opportunities to daydream? Let's think about turning off alerts on your phone or logging off from email when we decide it's time for a brain break.

●     Do you feel fundamentally uncreative or unimaginative because you're not letting play into your life? When was the last time you read a book just for fun or did a puzzle? By bringing more play into our lives, we can activate creative areas of the brain that can make daydreams more vivid and useful.

If daydreaming isn't happening organically, consider using some prompts. For example, push away from your work desk for just a minute to picture where you'd travel if you could anywhere in the world, think of what it would be like to suddenly pop into a scene from a movie you recently saw, or simply picture a painting you love to see where your mind takes you. Don't be surprised if you suddenly have answers to problems or creative strategies for work that have nothing to do with your actual daydream scenario when you pop back into reality.

Consider This Your Permission to Daydream

If you're in a creative, mental, or problem-solving rut, consider this your permission to take a mind break to dive into a daydream. In my experience as a therapist, daydreaming provides many of the mental health and neuroplasticity benefits of play that we enjoyed as kids. It all adds up to daydreaming being much better for your mental health than the digital distractions we've all come to rely on instead.