When your thoughts drift into daydreams, where do they take you? Some bring us on luxurious vacations, tuck us comfortably into perfect homes. Or show us our perfect beach-body shape. Maybe even driving around in that convertible with the top down to show it off.
Whether or not we notice when we’re doing it, almost all of us daydream. Some studies clock us at close to half our waking days spent with our head in the clouds.[1]
Sometimes our reveries rehearse eloquent monologues where we chew out of our incompetent boss, annoying co-worker or high school teacher who embarrassed us years ago. Or maybe they involve images of dessert. Like jelly donuts made by the enthusiastic French lady at the Caicos Bakery on Turks. Okay, that one’s mine, but you get the picture.
The problem is, if we’re not paying attention, daydreams can potentially be as harmful as scarfing down a half dozen of those pastries.
How can that be? Don’t we all fantasize about something awesome, like winning the lottery, standing up to a bully or getting a puppy? Who isn’t cheerier when they daydream about puppies?
A lot of us, it turns out.
Harvard researchers Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert found that study subjects reported less happiness and more worry when they daydream.[2] Apparently, our reveries don’t always provide a respite from day-to-day struggles. In fact, they are likely to add to them.
This supports a belief that has been widely held in the field of psychology for decades. That is, daydreaming represents a lack of mental control, one that leads to worry, rumination and anticipatory anxiety.
Yikes.
What about all those folk out there telling you to only imagine happy sunshine, pretty ponies and pixie dust? With a blissed-out smile they tell you to go read “The Secret”! Picture your dream and make it BIG! See it as though it were already true and happening right now, they say.
“I am Elmer J. Fudd, millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht!”
Apparently, that approach is not going to get you anywhere. Researchers like Gabrielle Oettingen have demonstrated that focusing only on the happy or pleasurable aspects of a wish actually makes it significantly less likely that you will achieve it.
That’s right, all that bologna you’ve been fed about looking only on the bright side and not “bringing negativity into existence” is just that. A lot of processed meat product that wouldn’t be fit for your daydream puppy.
Oettingen discovered that people who only positively fantasize about the future “relax and fool their minds into thinking they’ve attained their wishes.” [3] In other words, it waters down the motivation and effort you put into reaching your goals. She and her colleagues found that people achieved better results when rather than push their obstacles aside and focus only on the wishes, they “acknowledge both and bring them into contact with each other: first the wish, then the reality.”
In several different studies, Oettingen found that wishes were more likely to become a reality when they were in touch with a little, well, reality. By identifying and acknowledging obstacles in your path, you can strategize, work around or do something about them rather than trip over them pretending they aren’t there.
Put another way, daydreams become productive when you apply conscious awareness.
Although its meaning has gotten a bit diluted in recent years, cultivating conscious awareness is the core concept of what the Buddha offered as the practice of Mindfulness centuries ago. Its countless applications have made it a kind of catchword these days. Kind of like what’s happening with the attaching the term “neuroscience” to everything from architecture to multivitamins. (When did everyone become a neuroscientist, by the way? Clearly I was off daydreaming somewhere).
One of the reasons mindfulness is becoming a somewhat overused term is that it is straightforward simple to engage. No incense, gong or sitting cross-legged needed. Sure, those things add to the ambience making it easier to focus your intention. Mindfulness and meditation are related, but distinct terms. Not all meditation is mindfulness and not all mindfulness is meditation.
Mindfulness is solely about paying attention. It’s a way of examining the things in your life and the world around you.
For example, mindful eating just means you are paying attention to what you are eating. You can brush your teeth mindfully if you take the time to notice what you are doing throughout the experience. That’s all it takes.
When we apply it to daydreaming, we enter the realm of visualization.
From making a stellar presentation at work, to keeping your focus racing a triathlon to birthing a child, intentional daydreams can be functional, productive. Even essential.
I’m someone who daydreams. Frequently and contentedly. And not just about jelly donuts. Sometimes about horses, my inevitable future conversation with Oprah or pizza. I’m also someone who has spent a lot of time guiding clients through visualizations as an aid to goal achievement. Symbols and metaphors are crucial elements to visualization. Along with Mindfulness, they also happen to be the tools of my trade, as it were.
Perhaps that’s why my own daydreams feel like an infinitely expansive whiteboard, where I work out ideas and concepts. Musing helps me gain clarity, examine different viewpoints and empathically attune to my clients. I’ve been guided and learned myself how to harness the creative power of the daydream to inspire, motivate and mobilize myself personally and professionally as well.
Visualization can serve as a form of guided focus that accesses the creativity innate in daydreaming. It directs the mind toward subjects that promote better mood, increased happiness and improved performance.
And that right there is what makes the difference. Focus. When daydreams are undirected—that is, they are not in your conscious control, they can lead you into uncomfortable places. The creativity that fuels daydreams seems to need a focal point, an organizing principle, like the reality that Oettingen proposes. Otherwise, they appear to careen and skid into unpleasant neighborhoods in the mind.
By adding conscious awareness to that nearly half day we spend daydreaming, we can steer the flow of the unconscious sea of creativity that resides within us. And use it to our advantage.
It takes some effort at first, but once you get the hang of bringing your attention to what is happening right here, right now you can apply Mindfulness like Frank’s Red Hot sauce. Pour that stuff on everything.
And, trust me, I do. From riding my horse, Cannavaro or learning a new language or ballroom dancing, I cultivate conscious attention everywhere. It helps me identify patterns in behavior, see clear paths for my clients to reach their goals when they find themselves at sea.
Through a series of essays, starting with this one, I’ll show you how to do the same in your life, applying conscious awareness to the complex phenomenon we confront in contemporary life.
Like our complicated relationship to confidence, for example. Confidence can sometimes feel like a commodity, something we we must possess to be an upstanding citizen or estimable person. We yearn to be more confident, covet it in others. Even though we might be reluctant to admit it, we also often judge people for having too much or too little of it.
When we try too hard to act confidently, we come across as brassy or contrived or unconvincing. Making us even less confident. That’s because when you pretend to be a certain way, you’re also reminding yourself that you are not that way. That it is an act.
Confidence is an aspect your self-expression, one that is empowering and attractive when it flows naturally. That’s one of the reasons we’re so drawn to confident people.
In my next post, I’ll give you some tips about reducing some of the complexity and background noise that gets in the way of expressing confidence. I’ll also outline the three essential ingredients to help you discover and authentically embody your own.
Until then, pay attention to your daydreams. Try giving them a little direction. Point them where you want to go, identify potential roadblocks and set to work clearing the path to get there. Let me know how it goes in the comment section below.
[1] Killingsworth, M & Gilbert, D. 2010. “A Wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Science. 12 Nov 2010 Voll 330 Issue 6006, p.932 DOI: 10.1125/science.1192439. [2] Ibid. [3] Oettingen, G. 2014 Rethinking positive thinking: Inside the new science of motivation.” NY: Penguin.
I haven't daydreams since I was a teenager