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We Daydream Half Our Waking Hours – Except During Sex

Posted by majestic on November 12, 2010

Daydreaming_GentlemanThe Times of India says that the best way to avoid daydreaming is to have sex. Okaaaay!:

Mind-wandering turns out to be extremely common – users reported daydreaming almost 50 per cent of the time – mostly during brushing their teeth or doing other grooming, reports New Scientist.

During only one activity – making love – did the frequency of mind-wandering drop below 30 per cent.

Crucially, episodes of mind-wandering tended to precede bouts of low mood, but not vice versa, suggesting that the former caused the latter.

Matthew Killingsworth and colleague Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University conducted the study, and found that daydreams about pleasant things were linked to improvements in mood, but only slight improvements.

Thinking about neutral topics while mind-wandering was linked to a similarly modest drop in happiness, but daydreams about unpleasant topics coincided with a sharp drop.

But the claim that mind-wandering causes unhappiness needs to be further evaluated, they said, because he and others have shown the effect can run in the opposite direction.

“It’s difficult to make causal claims. But it’s undoubtedly the case that negative mood and mind-wandering are inextricably linked,” Jonathan Smallwood at the University of California, Santa Barbara…

[continues in the Times of India]

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  • Gregory

    Well, this is why so many people appear to be “busy” all the time, because when they let their minds wander, their consciousness is trying to tell them that everything is fucked up, which is a real downer. Dude, conscience…you’re harshing my buzz. Much better to have our faces in a electronic device or watch teevee or play video games or do drugs like likker and wacky backy or join the Republican Party than to actually contemplate our situation. The gov’t and the corporations don’t want you to let your mind wander, they want to own your mind and program what you think.

    So…if you don’t want harsh realities knocking on your door…indeed…keep track of your fantasy football scores on your portable tri-corder and continue to worry about vacuuming the carpet and all your bills and whether or not that mole is getting bigger or not. Yes, keep trying to raise awareness for breast cancer while hundreds of Haitians die from actually treatable diseases.

    Keep your mind on anything but the truth because THEY want to make sure you understand that it only hurts, and never sets you free

    huff huff huff

    fiat lux

  • DeepCough

    So we humans aren’t any different than computers: even though we are switched on, we’re for some reason
    always in screensaver mode.

  • DeepCough

    Hey, troll, either say something witty, interesting, or explanatory, or go the fuck back to PrisonPlanet where
    you belong.

  • Anonymous

    Sometimes during sex I day dream about sex….

  • http://dmipr.com/ Donovan Moore

    You must be dreaming.

  • Dan Mcelreavy

    It’s not the daydreaming itself that decides my post daydreaming mood–it’s the situation in the reality I return to after being checked out. First, there is little time nor space for daydreaming in most modern schedules. Our time is not our own. We are supposed to be thinking certain things, performing task, etc., which our daydreaming often interferes with. Second, the corporate, hierarchical system neither respects nor desires the creativity that arises from the daydreaming of commoners, i.e.; the work force. That’s part of the reason we have public school, Ritalin, and Adderall.

    On a more positive note, my daydreaming elates my mood when inspiration, ideas, and creativity come through. I work out problems. I write novels. I practice language. I hear the voices of the subconscious. Greater dreamers than I invent light bulbs, the theory of relativity, ways of harnessing electricity, etc.. May we ever dream on.