Nov. 15, 2011, 2:35 p.m.
Not long ago, when I told one of my friends that I love daydreaming and
spend a lot of my time daydreaming and wandering from topic to topic –
he laughed at me. He narrowed his eyes and looked at me surprisingly and
told me that I have ADD(Attention deficit disorder) and suggested
instead of escaping from reality I should consult a doctor and get it
treated properly. According to him, day dreaming will lead me nowhere
but to psychosis (
Wiki on Psychosis) – an abnormal
state of mind according to psychology. He also mentioned that even Freud
marked daydreaming as a childish and neurotic act.
I was sad. Really. When I talked to few others surprisingly I found many
of us consider daydreaming a waste of time or a pure escapism from
reality. I also found many parents advise their kids not to waste their
time in daydreaming but focus more on the reality.
From my childhood, when I had to read piles of boring texts books, till
my working life when stress became my best friend - daydreaming was like
a performance enhancing drug. I simply cannot imagine the journey
without it. I simply cannot fight with my stress without the help of
daydreaming.
So, of course, I was not ready to accept daydreaming as “childish act”,
in fact I wanted prove that lack of it actually can disbalance our life.
So, I started digging. To my surprise, “Benefit of daydreaming” in
Google returned over 1 million pages including a very cool article on
New York Times
(
NY Times article).
I found so many videos, interviews, blogs – so many people started
writing in favour of daydreaming. And, it seems it only started couple
of years ago.
Daydreamers FINALLY started getting a little respect after all these
years of negative treatment.
Psychologists like Jonah Lehrer believe that day dreaming not only
important for a healthy mind, but it is probably essential. Day dreaming
will
- Improve Your Memory
- Improved Creativity
- Lower Blood Pressure
- Boost Your Mood
- Brainstorm New Ideas
Jonah Lehrer actually mentioned that according to scientist &
psychologist Jonathan Schooler, people who are aware when they are
daydreaming score significantly higher in various tests of creativity.
Jonathan Schooler actually has a dedicated time for daydreaming everyday
and he talks about all the great ideas he comes up with during his
dedicated daydreaming time.
I guess one day we will have a mandatory daydreaming class in school?
Or, Weekly training on daydreaming in office? Or, Psychologist will
suggest daydreaming as a stress relief?
