Daydreaming
Daydreaming is a stream of consciousness that detaches from current external tasks when one's attention becomes focused on a more personal and internal direction.
[2] Psychologist Jerome L. Singer established three different types of daydreaming and their characteristics, varying in their cognitive states and emotional experiences.
These included positive constructive daydreaming, characterized by constructive engagement, planning, pleasant thoughts, vivid imagery, and curiosity; guilty-dysphoric daydreaming, marked by obsessive, guilt-ridden, and anguished fantasies; and poor attentional control, reflecting difficulty focusing on either internal thoughts or external tasks.
[7] A change in the daydreaming state can lead to dishabituation, a function that can be beneficial during a learning process as it renews attention and interest in stimuli that have become repetitive.
[14] Recent studies indicate that social daydreaming serves immediate socio-emotional regulation purposes,[15] particularly in fostering feelings of love and connection, suggesting its adaptive role in achieving goals.
Through the daydream, which involved many fantastical elements, characteristics such as a fear of men or a desire to subdue a selfish personality trait were often revealed.
[22][17] Eric Klinger's research in the 1980s showed that most daydreams are about ordinary, everyday events and help to remind us of mundane tasks.
Klinger's research also showed that over 75% of workers in "boring jobs", such as lifeguards and truck drivers, use vivid daydreams to "ease the boredom" of their routine tasks.
[23] Some of the major costs of daydreaming summarized by the review are worse performances with reading, sustained attention, mood etc.
One potential reason is the payoff of daydreaming is usually private and hidden compared to the measurable cost from external goal-directed tasks.
[1] Select research has argued that the mind is not idle during daydreaming, though it is at rest when not attentively engaging in external tasks.
Rather, during this process, people indulge themselves in and reflect on fantasies, memories, future goals and psychological selves while still being able to control enough attention to keep easy tasks going and monitor the external environment.
Thus, the potential benefits are the skills of internal reflection developed in daydreaming to connect emotional implication of daily life experience with personal meaning building process.
When daydreaming becomes too detached from reality or interferes with everyday functioning, it may be indicative of deeper psychological issues or neurotic conflicts.
[28] Individuals who are affected by maladaptive daydreaming often neglect their real-life relationships and obligations, leading to clinical distress and impaired functioning.
Research on daydreaming faces challenges due to the difficulty in observing and measuring it compared to other mental tasks.
[30] Instead of making broad conclusions about its benefits or drawbacks, researchers should focus on how the content and form of daydreams relate to specific adaptive outcomes.
