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VANCOUVER: Contrary to common opinion, daydreaming is not slacking off because when the brain wanders it is working even harder to solve problems, new research has shown.
Scientists scanned the brains of people lying inside magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, as they alternately pushed buttons or rested.
The scans showed that the "default network" deep inside a human brain becomes more active during daydreaming.
Complex problem-solving
But in a surprise finding the scans also revealed intense activity in the executive network, the outlying region of the brain associated with complex problem-solving, said neuroscientist Kalina Christoff.
"People assume that when the mind wanders away it just gets turned off – but we show the opposite, that when it wanders, it turns on," said Christoff, co-author of the study, and head of a neuroscience laboratory at the University of British Columbia in Western Canada.
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest daydreaming might be a better way to solve problems than intense focussing.
"People who let themselves daydream might not think in the same focussed way as when performing a goal-oriented task, but they bring in more mental and brain resources," said Christoff.
Spontaneous thoughts
She argued that now people might change their attitudes towards daydreamers.
"Within ourselves, we have absorbed that attitude that mind wandering is a bad thing. We're harsh on ourselves, if we catch ourselves mind wandering," she said. "A more playful attitude might allow you to call in more resources."
People typically spend one-third of their waking time daydreaming. "It's a big part of our lives, but it's been largely ignored by science," Christoff said.
The study is the first to use MRIs to study brain activity during "spontaneous thoughts and subjective experiences," said Christoff. "Until now the only way was to use self-reports that were not always reliable."
Daydreamers and solving problems
This is something that has been known for hundreds of years. Just think of the so-called absent minded professors who just seemt to wander off in their own world and then come up with theories. The same as someone saying they will sleep on a problem and wake up half way through the night with an answer. I will quite often go away and do something else when trying to solve a problem or remember something. More often than not the answer will just pop into my mind. I put this down to the subconscious continuing to work away and finding the answer somewhere in the recesses of the mind.
John Compton
In my experience
While the daydreaming brain must have previously been absorbed in a project and have developed a set of facts related to it, there doesn't necessarily have to be a recognized problem. In fact, many times my daydreaming has resulted in the recognition that a problem exists with some aspect of the project that I was previously unaware of!
Dick Heintz
Edison
Daydreaming is indeed a well known process for solutions. Thomas Edison used to sit in a chair and hold a large weight in one hand. He would then daydream. When he drifted off sufficiently that he dropped the weight, it would bang on the ground and rouse him. He would then write down what he had been dreaming about at that moment.