Sometimes it helps me to just lie down and daydream. Often, it helps me when I’m having difficulty writing a conversation between two characters, or don’t know what to write next. Maybe it helps you, too! Let’s explore the why and how of daydreaming.
Featured Photo: by Pixabay on pexels.com
Why daydreaming helps writers
As D.L. Fisher explains at Shop for Writers:
When you’re in the groove writing, and you’ve lost a sense of time and space—something all artists experience—you are receptive. You have reached the theta state—brain waves generated when floating in between sleeping and waking, daydreaming, and when you have left the normal world behind for the inexplicable world of creativity.
D.L. Fisher
I love this state of mind. Sometimes it does happen when I’m driving or showering too, or walking a path I’ve walked many times before. My mind drifts, and scenes and voices of my characters pop into my head. They say that J.K. Rowling saw Harry Potter in a sortof vision when she was sitting in the train on a long ride home. If that’s enough proof of how daydreaming works and can bring success for writers, what is?
Ninabobo on Writing Cooperative says that daydreaming is even just as important as writing!:
More often than not, they ripple to a desire for action. They demand to be appreciated and responded. And I do believe that this sort of unconscious processing is loud and clear in our head for a reason.
ninabobo on Writing Cooperative
Yes, this is exactly it. When I daydream, I often feel the urge to write down the ideas that came to me. I have to write them down right away often, otherwise I’ll lose the idea! Kindof like trying to recall a dream when you’ve just woken up, if I don’t write down a daydream right away, I may only remembers parts of it later on.
Good VS bad daydreaming
Ninabobo further points out in her article:
Daydreaming has been linked to creativity and was seen as a thought-provoking and thought-awakening activity that taps into your unconscious mind and brings it to the surface.
ninabobo on Writing Cooperative
Maybe we are doing something important and start to daydream. Maybe people get angry with us. Does it mean we should stop daydreaming? No! It works, it helps us in our creative efforts. Maybe we just need a find a less busy, more solitary time to daydream.
So what happens when we daydream? Here’s a picture that shows different parts of the brain lighting up:
And here’s another image that shows why it’s so important and effective; it helps us find answers to writer’s block and other creative struggles:
Some important differentiations made by @thehelpugive are that good daydreaming gives us ideas in how to achieve our goals, doesn’t take over our lives or time, and is more of a wandering mind than an obsessive immersion. Good daydreaming helps our brain tap into ideas and places that it would have otherwise not tapped into; it’s a creative tool or a stress relief, not an addiction, and not something we should use to be distracted from troubles in our real life.
Studies of daydreaming
One of the more prominent studies of daydreaming, linked from Ninabobo’s Writing Cooperative article, discusses Yale Psychologist Jerome L Singer’s 1950s study of daydreaming. Singer discovered that daydreaming is essential to good mental health. It can help us in constructive planning, and even our social skills!
A more recent study by writer Rebecca McMillan and NYU cognitive psychologist Scott Kaufman gives the 4 functions of daydreaming:
- Future planning which is increased by a period of self-reflection and attenuated by an unhappy mood
- Creativity, especially creative incubation and problem solving
- Attentional cycling which allows individuals to rotate through different information streams
- Dishabituation, which enhances learning by providing short breaks from external tasks
Conclusion
As always, I’d like to hear your thoughts, my fellow readers and writers. Do you ever daydream? Do you like it, or is it too distracting to your to-dos for the day? Has it helped you with writing or other creative endeavors? Please share in the comments.
Until next time,
Chaitanya
Typing Madly 