Y MOST vivid memorY of

school is sitting at the back of the class looking out the

window at the rice fields several floors below, heating the occasional bark of a dog, the distant slam of a car door, and being lulled into a semi-hypnotic state by the slow whirring of the electric fan' My mind would wander, between reaiitY and dream, concentration and distraction' For such indulgences I was often rewarded by detention after school. In university I continued to be a back-of-theclass student, not irritating the iecturer by talking to friends, but generally daydreaming, Nothing consequentiai, just idly letting my mind roam. Nowadays I do this whenever I fly; I iook at the clouds and observe their shapes, Without the threat of detention from school teachers, I indulge in letting random thoughts form like soap bubbies, bumping into one another, bursting or simply floating away. I had never reaily thought about daydreaming. But neuroscientists are discovering that daydreaming actually involves complex mental processes. Far from being empty, our minds are actually more

active when we daydream than during

other "thinking" hours.

Our minds usually wander when we are engaged in routine tasks that, due to their famitiarity, do not require focused attention. The "default netlvork" of the
-externai world or the task at hand. It deac-

brain is usually engaged at this time, when we are not entireiy focused on the
tivates when we switch to goal-oriented behaviour, and decreases in activity when ternal visual stimuli start up.

It is essentially a network of brain regions used r.^,'hen we are in a self-referential, intromediate environment - in other words, when we daydream. It was previously thought that only the defauit network was active during daydreams. But now, a new study by the University of British Columbia has found ihai during mind-wandering, the "executive network" of the brain - the part associated with high-leve1, complex problemsolving - also iights up. Previously thought to work in mutual exclusivity, both the default and the executive net-

other parts of the brain used to process ex-

works are engaged in daydreaming.

spective mode of thinking, when we form exttaneous thoughts unrelated to our im-

This is what neuroscientist Kalina Christoff has to say: "People assumed that when your mind wandered it was empty. But mind wandering is a much
more active state than we ever imagined, much more active than during reasoning with a complex problem." Neuroscientists were able to measure far more brain activity in volunteers who tried to solve a problem through insight than in those who applied logic. "We often assume that if we don't notice our thoughts they don't exist." said Dr Christoff. "When we don't notice them is when we may be thinking most creatively."

round and around our house, tracing the same route, that he finds inspiration for
his poems and stories.

But our culture today still discourages

seemingly pointless, open-ended time. Class schedules are packed back-to-back with activities; office agendas are filled with meetings and deadlines. Goal-oriented thinking is considered primary. But what this new research suggests is that reaching loftier goals and even surpassing them requires not focusing on the steps
along the way.

The recently formulated concept of neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to change both its structure and function suggests that the brain can change by strengthening or expeinding oft-used circuitry and minimising those less used. The implications are startling: What we think can change how we think - and
vice versa.

Experiments that map the brainwave

patterns of meditating monks find that

the most accomplished practitioners with the most hours of meditation - 10,000 to 50,000 hours was the range - have more unusually powerful and fast-moving gamma waves than novice practitioners. The gamma waves of the more advanced monks were also better organised and co. ordinated. This intense brain pattern is associated with the ability to knit together disparate brain circuits, and therefore pro-

ductive of the kind of perceptive insights that cannot be accessed through plodding logic.

Essentially, meditation is simply a more intensive and disciplined way of daydreaming. It frees the mind of conscious thoughts in order to allow the subconscious to surface and resolve issues in ways that the conscious, rational mind is not capable of. What - and how - we know will no
doubt continually evolve, We are learning

that mental activities considered idle and wasteful in the past actually have proStudies show that problem-solving by insight - when you suddenly feel the pieces click - requires both a higher degree and a different pattern of neurai resources

than niethodical, iogical thinking, DayJreaming seems to br a fundamental basis for insight. More than just a pleasant way to pass the time, it allows "transit space" in betrveen the more straightforward tasks of our day for new associa-

lions to form.
Given that creative insight is primarily
the realisation of unusual connections be-

insights often materialise without warning, through an unconscious shift in mental perspective, a sudden comprehension. The lack of conscious awateness and accompanying mental freedom is key: Art Fry was bored by a church sermon and mulling over the repetitive problem of paper scraps, used as bookmarks, faliing out of hymnal pages when he first conceived of Post-it notes. George de Mestral was walking his dog in the Swiss Alps when
Velcro.

found funciions. At the same time, we are discovering that these functions do not normally occur within out conscious
grasp.

Yet, the possibilities to change and train the powers of our minds remain
open. Whatever the case, daydreaming is

not an activity anyone will, or can, give up. For now, we would do well to cherish
that transit space, when we are in the suspended period between problem and solution, origin and destination.
Th* writsr !s ch*irmna: of thc h*ard o{ tr$*tees a* t}l*l $i*gapcr* Mamagar*emt tJellv*rsity. Think"Talllq is a w**kiy c*ia:mm r*tatcd ame*g elg9tt l*adi*g figures {n*m S[ngaX**r'*'s ertiary cltd res*ar**t
institut$*ms.

he noticed the way burrs stuck to his pet's coat and linked this to the idea of

lween seemingly disparate concepts, dayCreaming offers the mind space to explore these possibilities. Ironically, these

It is when my youngest son walks almost absent-mindedly yet obsessively