The study found that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. It also found that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving – previously thought to be dormant when we – are in fact highly active during daydreaming episodes.

“Mind wandering (and daydreaming) is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness,” says lead author, Professor Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. “But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks.”

Subjects were placed inside an fMRI scanner, where they performed a simple routine task of pushing a button when numbers appeared on a screen. The researchers tracked subjects’ attentiveness moment-to-moment through brain scans, subjective reports from subjects, and by tracking their performance on the task.

The findings suggest that daydreaming – which can occupy as much as one third of our waking lives – is an important cognitive state where we may unconsciously turn our attention from immediate tasks to sort through important problems in our lives.

Until now, the brain’s “default network” – which is linked to easy, routine mental activity and includes the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), the posterior cingulate cortex and the temporoparietal junction – was the only part of the brain thought to be active when our minds wander.

However, the study finds that the brain’s “executive network” – associated with high-level, complex problem-solving and including the lateral PFC and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex – also becomes activated when we daydream.

“This is a surprising finding, that these two brain networks are activated in parallel,” says Christoff. “Until now, scientists have thought they operated on an either-or basis – when one was activated, the other was thought to be dormant.” The less subjects were aware that their mind was wandering, the more both networks were activated.

The quantity and quality of brain activity suggests that people struggling to solve complicated problems might be better off switching to a simpler task and letting their mind wander.

“When you daydream, you may not be achieving your immediate goal – say reading a book or paying attention in class – but your mind may be taking that time to address more important questions in your life, such as advancing your career or personal relationships,” says Christoff.

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Source: ScienceDaily

Zoning, spacing out, building castles in the air… How many critical terms do we attach to the idea that daydreaming is a waste of time? And how many school kids have been warned by a teacher to wake up and focus…. and even been threatened with medication.

Until recently daydreaming was considered not merely a waste of time but almost pathological: Old psychology textbooks warn that excessive daydreaming can propel one into insanity. And during WWI a United States army questionnaire included the statement *I daydream frequently* to screen out assumed neurotic recruits. Even today well-meaning doctors medicate kids who are prone to daydreaming.

But psychologists and neuroscientists claim that most of us we spend from 15 to 50 percent of our waking hours daydreaming — straying away from tasks or external stimuli to instead focus on our inner thoughts, fantasies, and feelings. And there’s also research evidence that when our brains have nothing else to do, they switch to a special neural network dedicated to reviewing what we already know. In other words, we daydream.

Daydreaming appears to be a vital function of our psyche — a resource of creativity, and an arena for rehearsing social skills. And judging from the amount of time we spend doing it, perhaps daydreaming could even be the backbone of our consciousness. So should we really medicate daydreamers? Humm. Maybe what we all need is MORE time to let our minds wander and dream.

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