One moment you are highly focussed at work, the next your gaze wanders off and goes nowhere. In our performance-orientated society, daydreams are often dismissed as laziness and idleness, as wasted time that could be used much more efficiently. But what exactly are daydreams? How do they come about and do they possibly have a deeper meaning?
What are daydreams?
We have all daydreamed at some point in our lives while we sleep. We immerse ourselves in fantasy worlds, recapitulate the events of the day or experience something completely new. Dreams can contain a wide variety of scenes and scenarios. They are often pleasant, sometimes with negative connotations. These sleep dreams are usually random and cannot be influenced or controlled. Lucid dreaming is an exception to this rule. When you dream during sleep, this primarily happens in the dream phase, which is also known as REM sleep and is characterised by rapid eye movements.
Daydreams, on the other hand, take place while awake, during the day or in the evening just before falling asleep. They can occur quite suddenly or be induced and controlled voluntarily. As a result, daydreams differ significantly from dreams during sleep in terms of the situations and circumstances in which they occur. Daydreams can also be very imaginative and vivid and take us into previously unknown corners of our imagination.
Daydreams are creative moments
Daydreams often differ in content from dreams during sleep. They usually deal with realistic topics such as everyday life, the past or the near future of the daydreamer and thus give them the opportunity to reflect on and rethink certain issues and events. Daydreams often give rise to spontaneous ideas and solutions, which is why they are often regarded as a source of creativity.
How do daydreams arise?
You sit comfortably in an armchair or on the terrace in a deckchair, ideally with a billerbeck neck pillow, which is an excellent way to relax, and your thoughts gradually drift away. The gaze goes into the void. Daydreams occur particularly frequently in moments when we are not focussed and concentrated on a specific task or work. A daydream can be described as a kind of mental retreat into the inner world, a momentary turning away from the world around us with all its far-reaching influences. We seem lost in thought and fall into a relaxed, almost trance-like state. But even if the daydreamer gives a rather absent and passive impression in these moments, the brain is highly active during this phase.
Less focus, more daydreams
Researchers from the USA and Scotland found in studies that daydreams occur more frequently when the test subjects were occupied with less varied and monotonous things that did not pose any particular mental challenge for them, or when they had no tasks to do at all. The less concentration was required, the faster the thoughts began to drift off and the test subjects immersed themselves in the world of daydreams.
The researchers were able to determine that completely different areas of the brain were activated in the daydreaming phase of the test participants than during activities that required focussed work. A network of different zones is active in the daydreaming brain, which the researchers refer to as the default mode network.
Why do we daydream?
Daydreams are nothing more than visual, non-directed thinking in complete calm and relaxation, in which certain areas of the brain are highly active. Researchers have been able to find out which areas of the brain correlate with daydreaming, but not the reason and cause of daydreams. There are various theories, but they have not yet been scientifically proven.
Daydreams – uncertain meaning and benefits
It is possible that daydreams are brief phases of relaxation for the brain, from which it can be activated immediately if necessary. However, it is also possible that there is no real reason or benefit to daydreaming, but that we can simply lose ourselves in our thoughts because our brain has the ability to do so.
Maladaptive daydreaming – can you daydream too much?
Daydreams are completely normal in and of themselves. We all have these moments when our thoughts wander, often several times a day. But as with everything, there is such a thing as too much. Anyone who loses themselves more and more in daydreams and possibly even has difficulty distinguishing between reality and the fantasy world may be suffering from maladaptive daydreaming.
This is an extreme form of daydreaming that is almost like an addiction. Those affected escape more and more, more intensively and for longer periods of time into the extraordinarily imaginative world of their imagination, possibly neglecting their job, everyday life and social life and increasingly isolating themselves. If maladaptive daydreaming is suspected, which is rare and often occurs after trauma, medical help should be sought.
