Daydreaming Is Really Complex Problem-Solving

beefsprocket writes "ScienceDaily reports that 'A new University of British Columbia study finds that our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (abstract), finds that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. It also finds that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving — previously thought to go dormant when we daydream — are in fact highly active during these episodes. "Mind wandering is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness," says lead author, Prof. 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."'"

Comments

Mutually exclusive?

[Leibel]

"Mind wandering is typically associated with negative things like laziness..." and "our brains are very active when we daydream"

These aren't mutually exclusive. It just means our brains are very active on other topics

Re:Mutually exclusive?

[TheRealMindChild]

Why does it have to be another topic? I could be daydreaming about what I am at that moment. Just so much so that my ability to function with the surrounding environment has gone down a noticeable level.

Is this really surprising to you?

[cowscows]

Daydreaming is basically shutting off (or at least ignoring) the bulk of the sensory inputs into your brain, and letting your imagination run the show for a period of time. Is it really surprising that having to create an ongoing reality that replaces a bunch of those ignored sensory inputs requires the brain to do some serious work? Especially when compared to performing a routine task that you've already done hundreds of times?

Laziness isn't really connected in any meaningful way to how hard your brain is working. I could give my brain a pretty serious workout by staying home, sitting on the couch, and doing crossword puzzles until next thursday, but that's still a pretty lazy way to spend a week.

Unfortunately, my boss isn't impressed by general problem solving as much as he's impressed by the solving of the specific problems that he's paying me to figure out.

Of course the problem solving centers are active

[Chris Burke]

Figuring out the sequence of events by which Natalie Portman suddenly acquires an acute allergy to clothes and is driven into my house where we discover that the only cure is hours and hours of passionate woopie and hot grits is a lot more complicated than it sounds!

Re:This won't go over well

[CorSci81]

I find this to be true for myself a lot. I generally find solutions to hard problems I'm working on at completely random times like zoning out on my commute home or out walking around. I get more of the hard/creative part of my job done outside of work hours when I'm not trapped in a boring office and then spend my working hours writing and coding whatever my brain came up with when I get there.

Daydreaming, introversion and associative horizon

[blahplusplus]

I wonder how common daydreaming is in introverts vs extroverts and those with a large associative horizon.

I'd imagine having a good imagination and constantly working it can lead to impressive creativity and novel ways of viewing problems... but it could also lead to not accomplishing a lot at all because it is just so enamoring.

Screensavers are cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

So when I made a joke once about a day dream being like when the screensaver kicks on... I was scientifically or technically correct? Stuff is still happening in there, you just cant tell based on whats being displayed?

Problem solving.

[MrCrassic]

I thought that daydreaming, or dreaming in general, was the period where problems that occurred during the day re-manifested themselves...

When I daydream, I usually think of solutions to problems that go on throughout the day.

Re:This won't go over well

[unlametheweak]

I daydream while driving. At first when I realized this it scared the living bajeebus out of me. Eventually I got over it. So this really is not surprising in the least.

What you are experiencing when you drive is probably highway hypnosis which is very common for people to experience and quite normal. It's also one of the reasons that planners and engineers put bumps and gravel on the edges of highways; to "wake" people up if they drift off too much. It's also one of the reasons why seemingly straight roads have slight curves designed into them; so as too not make the driving experience too repetitive. Doing repetitive tasks puts part of your brain in "automatic", which psychologists call "automaticity".

Re:This won't go over well

[fractoid]

That was on a quiet, rural road in New Hampshire. Unfortunately, this could never happen here in California, since the other drivers do stupid, unpredictable things so often that if you're not "actively driving" 100% of the time, you'll be killed to death.

I'm not so sure it couldn't. I often don't remember exact details of my journey home, and it's 45kms sharing roads with Perth drivers, but multiple times I've been tootling along with my brain switched off and snapped out of it to find the car already braking at the limit, or having swerved into another lane (after checking blind spots, even) to avoid some retard who's pulled out in front of me. My guess is that the bits that do the driving are all working perfectly and my brain just doesn't bother recording the run-of-the-mill stuff.