Daydreaming

What Happens in the Brain While Daydreaming?

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Observations in mice hint at role of daydreams in remodeling the brain

An abstract, colorful image of a human profile with swirling patterns behind the face

At a glance:

  • During quiet waking, brain activity in mice suggests the animals are daydreaming about a recent image.
  • Having daydreams about a recently viewed image predicted how the brain would respond to the image in the future.
  • The findings provide a clue that daydreams may play a role in brain plasticity.

You are sitting quietly, and suddenly your brain tunes out the world and wanders to something else entirely — perhaps a recent experience, or an old memory. You just had a daydream.

Yet despite the ubiquity of this experience, what is happening in the brain while daydreaming is a question that has largely eluded neuroscientists.

Now, a study in mice, published Dec. 13 in Nature, has brought a team led by researchers at Harvard Medical School one step closer to figuring it out.

The researchers tracked the activity of neurons in the visual cortex of the brains of mice while the animals remained in a quiet waking state. They found that occasionally these neurons fired in a pattern similar to one that occurred when a mouse looked at an actual image, suggesting that the mouse was thinking — or daydreaming — about the image. Moreover, the patterns of activity during a mouse’s first few daydreams of the day predicted how the brain’s response to the image would change over time.

The research provides tantalizing, if preliminary, evidence that daydreams can shape the brain’s future response to what it sees. This causal relationship needs to be confirmed in further research, the team cautioned, but the results offer an intriguing clue that daydreams during quiet waking may play a role in brain plasticity — the brain’s ability to remodel itself in response to new experiences.

“We wanted to know how this daydreaming process occurred on a neurobiological level, and whether these moments of quiet reflection could be important for learning and memory,” said lead author Nghia Nguyen, a PhD student in neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.

An overlooked brain region

Scientists have spent considerable time studying how neurons replay past events to form memories and map the physical environment in the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped brain region that plays a key role in memory and spatial navigation.

By contrast, there has been little research on the replay of neurons in other brain regions, including the visual cortex. Such efforts would provide valuable insights about how visual memories are formed.

“My lab became interested in whether we could record from enough neurons in the visual cortex to understand what exactly the mouse is remembering — and then connect that information to brain plasticity,” said senior author Mark Andermann, professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and professor of neurobiology at HMS.

A checkerboard pattern of gray and black and white squares that morphs into another, similar pattern
During the experiments, mice repeatedly looked at one of two images, shown here, with one-minute breaks in between. The images were selected based on their ability to elicit a strong response from neurons in the visual cortex.

In the new study, the researchers repeatedly showed mice one of two images, each consisting of a different checkerboard pattern of gray and dappled black and white squares. Between images, the mice spent a minute looking at a gray screen. The team simultaneously recorded activity from around 7,000 neurons in the visual cortex.

The researchers found that when a mouse looked at an image, the neurons fired in a specific pattern, and the patterns were different enough to discern image one from image two. More important, when a mouse looked at the gray screen between images, the neurons sometimes fired in a similar, but not identical, pattern, as when the mouse looked at the image, a sign that it was daydreaming about the image. These daydreams occurred only when mice were relaxed, characterized by calm behavior and small pupils.

Unsurprisingly, mice daydreamed more about the most recent image — and they had more daydreams at the beginning of the day than at the end, when they had already seen each image dozens of times.

A grayscale image showing a cloud-like group of neurons lighting up
Between images, mice spent a minute looking at a gray screen. During this time, neurons in the visual cortex of the brain, shown here, occasionally fired in a pattern similar to one seen when the mice were looking at an image, suggesting that mice were daydreaming about the image.

But what the researchers found next was completely unexpected.

Throughout the day, and across days, the activity patterns seen when the mice looked at the images changed — what neuroscientists call “representational drift.” Yet this drift wasn’t random. Over time, the patterns associated with the images became even more different from each other, until each involved an almost entirely separate set of neurons. Notably, the pattern seen during a mouse’s first few daydreams about an image predicted what the pattern would become when the mouse looked at the image later.

“There’s drift in how the brain responds to the same image over time, and these early daydreams can predict where the drift is going,” Andermann said.

Finally, the researchers found that the visual cortex daydreams occurred at the same time as replay activity occurred in the hippocampus, suggesting that the two brain regions were communicating during these daydreams.

To sit, perchance to daydream

Based on the results of the study, the researchers suspect that these daydreams may be actively involved in brain plasticity.

“When you see two different images many times, it becomes important to discriminate between them. Our findings suggest that daydreaming may guide this process by steering the neural patterns associated with the two images away from each other,” Nguyen said, while noting that this relationship needs to be confirmed.

Nguyen added that learning to differentiate between the images should help the mouse respond to each image with more specificity in the future.

These observations align with a growing body of evidence in rodents and humans that entering a state of quiet wakefulness after an experience can improve learning and memory.

Next, the researchers plan to use their imaging tools to visualize the connections between individual neurons in the visual cortex and to examine how these connections change when the brain “sees” an image.

“We were chasing this 99 percent of unexplored brain activity and discovered that there’s so much richness in the visual cortex that nobody knew anything about,” Andermann said.

Whether daydreams in people involve similar activity patterns in the visual cortex is an open question, and the answer will require additional experiments. However, there is preliminary evidence that an analogous process occurs in humans when they recall visual imagery.

Randy Buckner, the Sosland Family Professor of Psychology and of Neuroscience at Harvard University, has shown that brain activity in the visual cortex increases when people are asked to recall an image in detail. Other studies have recorded flurries of electrical activity in the visual cortex and the hippocampus during such recall.

For the researchers, the results of their study and others suggest that it may be important to make space for moments of quiet waking that lead to daydreams. For a mouse, this may mean taking a pause from looking at a series of images and, for a human, this could mean taking a break from scrolling on a smartphone.

“We feel pretty confident that if you never give yourself any awake downtime, you’re not going to have as many of these daydream events, which may be important for brain plasticity,” Andermann said.

The Dark Side of Daydreaming

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The compulsive, complex fantasy disorder that dominates some people’s daily lives

Some—but not all—maladaptive daydreamers may use daydreaming as a coping strategy.(Shutterstock)

Some—but not all—maladaptive daydreamers may use daydreaming as a coping strategy.

Despite what we’re often taught to believe, daydreaming can be immensely useful. Not only can it be a source of pleasure and a way to relieve boredom, but research shows that our ability to mentally escape the present can also boost creativity, problem-solving, and planning, as well as provide an antidote to loneliness.

Daydreaming, when defined as thoughts that aren’t tied to what you’re currently doing, occupies a good chunk of our waking lives—an average of around 30 percent of the time if you randomly probe people. It’s part of our everyday conscious experience. You might even think of it as our default mode, which we return to, especially when doing things that don’t require a lot of brain power; for example, mundane tasks such as hanging out laundry.

But it’s estimated that 2.5 percent of adults experience a type of excessive daydreaming that’s defined as the disorder “maladaptive daydreaming.” So-called maladaptive daydreamers compulsively engage in vivid fantasies and daydreaming plots so excessively that it interferes with their ability to function in daily life.

What’s Maladaptive Daydreaming?

Maladaptive daydreaming differs from typical daydreaming in several ways.

Unlike typical daydreams, which can be fleeting (lasting seconds), maladaptive daydreamers can spend several hours at a time in a single daydream. According to one study, maladaptive daydreamers spent an average of at least half of their waking hours immersed in deliberately constructed fantasy worlds. These invented worlds are often rich and fantastical, with complex plots and intricate storylines that evolve over many years.

Maladaptive daydreamers’ fantasy worlds are vivid and rewarding, and the need to continue the fantasy can be compulsive and addictive. With maladaptive daydreaming, there’s a strong urge to daydream and a consequential annoyance when this isn’t possible or when the daydreaming is interrupted. Most also find it difficult to stop or even reduce the amount of time they spend daydreaming.

But prioritizing spending time in alternative, imagined realities at the expense of physical and social needs can create problems at work, at school, and in maintaining close relationships. Many people with maladaptive daydreaming report experiencing psychological distress, difficulty sleeping, and feelings of shame about their daydreaming activity—something that they may hide from others.

It’s important to note that immersive daydreaming and vivid fantasy activity aren’t by default maladaptive. What makes daydreaming “maladaptive” is when it becomes difficult to control, when the time to daydream takes precedence over real life, and when the compulsion to daydream interferes with important life goals and relationships.

Why Does It Happen?

Researchers suspect that people who struggle with maladaptive daydreaming may have an innate ability for immersive imaginative fantasies. Many discover this ability early on in childhood, realizing fantasy and daydreams can be used to regulate distress. By creating an inner world of comfort, they’re able to escape from reality.

Some—but not all—maladaptive daydreamers may use daydreaming as a coping strategy. For example, daydreaming activity can distract them from an unpleasant reality, helping them cope with trauma, difficult life events, or social isolation. But doing so can lead to a vicious cycle of compulsive fantasy, where using fantasy to avoid negative emotions exacerbates the urge to daydream.

In many ways, daydreaming becomes an addictive behavior that fuels the very problems it was intended to alleviate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, maladaptive daydreaming tends to occur alongside other disorders, the most common being ADHD, anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

There seems to be a strong relationship between OCD and maladaptive daydreaming. One study found that more than half of participants with maladaptive daydreaming also exhibited signs of OCD. This may suggest possible shared mechanisms between the two disorders, including intrusive thoughts, dissociation, and a lack of cognitive control.

Though maladaptive daydreaming has been garnering an increasing amount of attention online and through social media, it’s not yet formally recognized in psychiatric diagnostic manuals.

This means many health professionals may be unaware of the condition, leading to misdiagnosis or dismissal of symptoms, creating further distress, isolation, and shame for maladaptive daydreamers. Many instead turn to online forums for peer support and recognition.

The fact that maladaptive daydreaming isn’t recognized as a psychiatric condition also means we know little about treatment options. There’s one documented case study published in a peer-reviewed journal showing that a 25-year-old man was able to cut the time he spent daydreaming in half—from nearly three hours daily to less than 1 1/2 hours. This was done over the course of six months using a combination of psychological treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness.

Although treatment didn’t affect how rewarding his daydreaming felt, he reported improvements in work and social functioning as well as in underlying obsessions. It’s hoped that with increasing recognition and understanding of maladaptive daydreaming, more treatment options will become available for sufferers.

The Psychological Benefits of Daydreaming

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“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” ~ Langston Hughes

When we daydream we can lose ourselves in a self-generated flow of consciousness. We can do anything, go anywhere within the privacy of our minds. It is a means to escape the outer world, to face our fears, to entertain ourselves, and to explore our inner world, ideas, and scenarios. But those who like to indulge in reverie are often negatively labelled dreamers, dawdlers, or space cadets.

Memory, Focus, Creativity - The Psychological Benefits of Daydreaming

When we consider that we live in a consumer based, economically driven world that worships productivity and efficiency, it is no wonder that daydreaming has long been portrayed in a negative light. Daydreaming, the act of allowing our thoughts to flow spontaneously without an agenda or particular destination, is generally seen as a lazy habit, a waste of time and a distraction from the things that really matter. Sigmund Freud declared daydreaming to be a sign of mental illness, a neurotic and infantile tendency indulged in by those who were unfulfilled. However, more recent research is suggesting that daydreaming has many important benefits that have long been overlooked.

One of the important matters to come to light is that though daydreaming generally encourages a relaxed state of mind, when we float down our inner stream of consciousness our brains actually become highly stimulated, with many areas, including the pre-frontal lobe and executive centre becoming active. According to Marcus Raichle, a neurologist and radiologist at Washington University, “When you don’t use a muscle, that muscle really isn’t doing much of anything… But when your brain is supposedly doing nothing and daydreaming, it’s really doing a tremendous amount. We call it ‘resting state,’ but the brain isn’t resting at all.”

Some of the notable benefits of daydreaming that research has explored include:

Enhanced Memory

Likely to the surprise of many, a recent study published in Psychological Science by researchers from the University of Wisconsin and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science found a correlation between daydreaming and an enhanced degree of working memory. Working memory is defined by cognitive scientists as the brain’s ability to retain and recall information when distractions are present. The study found that participants who more often indulged in daydreaming demonstrated a better ability to remember a series of letters when distracted by mathematical problems than those who were less inclined to daydream.

It would appear that daydreaming helps develop and maintain the neural networks that assist memory. So, though daydreaming during a lecture may not be the best way to succeed on a test, daydreaming in the right context could ultimately be beneficial.

Empathy

Research published in Psychological Bulletin suggests that people who more frequently indulge in daydreaming are more likely to have higher levels of empathy. Researchers observing a group of Israeli high school students found that students with high scores on the daydreaming scale demonstrated more empathy than students who scored low on the scale.

This makes sense when we consider how daydreaming allows us to explore different scenarios from different perspectives. The better our ability to imagine being in another person’s shoes, the more likely we will be able to understand their position.

Increased Creativity and Problem Solving Ability

In a study published in Psychological Science, led by Benjamin Baird and Jonathan Schooler at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the team found a correlation between participants daydreaming and creative problem-solving skills. In the study, participants were asked to come up with as many alternative uses for common objects. Researchers created two scenarios, one that encouraged people to daydream and one that didn’t. The people in the daydreaming group were found to be more likely to have higher scores than those in the group without the opportunity to daydream.

When we consider how daydreaming can encourage our brains to produce the relaxed alpha brainwaves that promote creative thought patterns it makes sense that the ability to generate a free flowing stream of consciousness assists us to access the deeper creative levels.

“He does not need opium. He has the gift of reverie.” ~ Anaïs Nin

Memory, Focus, Creativity - The Psychological Benefits of Daydreaming - daydreaming by eljtheelf @deviantart.com
Image: “Daydreaming” © eljtheelf.deviantart.com

Incubation

According to Scott Barry Kaufman, NYU psychology professor and author of ‘Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined’, daydreaming is a way to access our unconscious. One way daydreaming can do this is by providing our minds with valuable down-time, which provides the space for unconscious information to surface. Often when we return to a task after a short period of daydreaming we will find that answers that eluded us only moments before suddenly appear clear and obvious. Indeed, many of us would have noticed that it is often when our brains are occupied with non-demanding tasks that elusive answers pop up into our awareness. I’m sure nearly all of us have experienced a time when we were actively searching our minds, trying to remember the name of something, then later, after having given up, when we’re doing something completely unrelated, like engaging in relaxed daydreaming, the name we were looking for suddenly surfaces.

I suspect that many of the benefits of daydreaming have to do with its ability to help connect us to our unconscious. The unconscious is like our own personal super computer. While our conscious memories are limited, our unconscious records everything we come into contact with. It is the place of genius and inspiration where our deeper self resides. Because daydreaming uses the inherent language of the subconscious mind (imagery, metaphors and feeling), it allows us to both receive and communicate valuable information in a way that the subconscious mind can understand. The more vivid and detailed the day dream is, the more parts of the brain will be involved in the process, which helps to build new synapses in the brain and positively affects our ability to see from different perspectives and uncover solutions.

Focus

It is interesting to note that both daydreaming, which is using the mind to distance ourselves from the present moment and external reality, and mindfulness which is about immersing ourselves in the present moment of our external reality, contribute to healthy functioning and wellbeing because the better we get at both the better we become at filtering out distraction.

“Television is simply automated daydreaming.” ~ Lee Loevinger

Because today so much of our world is automated, and we are constantly flooded with external distraction, I believe the ability to daydream is even more important than ever. Today it is so easy for us to turn to our phones to fill in the blank periods of boredom that we used to fill with daydreams. In a culture obsessed with busyness and goals indulging in a bit of free-flowing, internally generated imagery can undoubtedly contribute to a balanced, healthy lifestyle. The important things to remember when daydreaming are to keep the content constructive and positive, and to practice in the right time and place.

“Reverie is not a mind vacuum. It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul.” Gaston Bachelard