Awake To The Power Of Daydreams!
Dreams are precursors to the realities that we are about to experience - Author Unknown
We were all day dreamers once. Who can forget sitting in class in the middle of a hot summer afternoon, daydreaming about the previous year’s cool mountain vacation, or which games we would play when we got back home. We daydreamed about what we wanted for our birthdays; how cool we would look in the new pair of jeans, and sometimes even how somebody who looked and behaved exactly like Raj of DDLJ would come over and sweep us off our feet.
Well, those were just daydreams you would say, especially because it wasn’t something to be proud of. Weren’t we told that daydreaming meant that you were absolutely lazy, inattentive and bored and had nothing better to do with your life? Well, well, all of us daydreamers are going to be absolved of the ‘lazy tag’ thanks to a recent study by a group of University of British Columbia researchers. The study led by Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology, suggests that daydreaming is in fact, an extremely active, cognitively complex mental state of our brain.
Until now, the brain’s “default network” which is linked to easy, routine mental activity and includes the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), the posterior cingulate cortex and the temporoparietal junction, was the only part of the brain thought to be active when our minds wander. However, the study finds that the brain’s “executive network” associated with high-level, complex problem-solving and including the lateral PFC and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, also becomes activated when we daydream. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. It also finds that brain areas associated with complex problem – solving, previously thought to go dormant when we daydream, are in fact highly active during these episodes.
The findings suggest that daydreaming is an important cognitive state where we may unconsciously turn our attention from the tasks at hand to sort through more important problems in our lives. “When you daydream, you may not be achieving your immediate goal – say managing the account book or paying attention in class – but your mind may be taking that time to address more important questions in your life, such as advancing your career or personal relationships,” says Christoff.
In simple terms, daydreaming is a fundamental feature of our minds, quite like the brain’s default mode of thought. Many scientists are validating the fact that daydreaming is a vital tool for creativity, a thought process that allows the brain to make new associations and connections thereby enhancing creativity.
The ability to think abstractly that flourishes during daydreams also has important social benefits. Mostly, what we daydream about is our essential social and personal interactions, our career goals, etc. While we are playing out these scenarios, the mind retrieves memories, contemplates “what if” scenarios, and thinks about how it should behave in the future.
Think about it, while we go through our days on auto-pilot, we are mostly responding to events, many a times not giving any thought to our reactions. Daydreaming in this situation can become an effective feedback and therapeutic tool. Many of us have had episodes when we have said or done something we are not particularly proud of and then while replaying the scene in our minds have conjured a different, more pleasant outcome. The immediate benefit is an immediate sense of relief, well being and emotional freedom. What’s fascinating is that often, the situation does turn out the way we envisioned it to be. In this sense, the content of daydreams often resembles a soap opera, with people reflecting on social interactions both real and make-believe. We can leave behind the world as it is and start imagining the world as it might be, if only we hadn’t lost our temper, or had listened to our intuition. Or, just as well, we could be sipping an iced latte in a café in New York (I’ve even taken long walks in Central Park).
It is this ability to tune out the present moment and reflect on the make-believe that gives the human mind its uniqueness. In case your wondering how daydreaming changes reality, look at it from the law of attraction or energy matrix point of view. The universe does not distinguish between what is real or what is make believe, it only responds to our thoughts and its underlying emotions.
A daydream is an emotionally charged fantasy experienced while awake, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions. For those of us who have difficulty attaching emotions to our thoughts while we visualize future outcomes, a guided form of daydreaming can and will do wonders. It helps us align ourselves to the energy flow by offering vibrations of high intensity which will only then attract experiences which are vibrating at similarly high frequencies. Are we not more creative when we are relaxed? Don’t we get ideas when we just go with the flow; well a guided daydream is just the process to get into that flow.
Research suggests that people typically spend a third of their waking time daydreaming and if we are able to guide our thoughts and emotions toward more positive outcomes, we are in a position to turn those dreams into our waking reality.
For those of you who have forgotten the art of daydreaming, just close your eyes, take a deep breath and think of a situation you would like to be fulfilled today. Then daydream about how you would like it to feel, get in touch with the emotions you would have, hold conversations, and see yourself living the outcome NOW. For example, you are neck deep in work with the deadline around the corner. Now imagine yourself asking your co-worker for assistance, him saying yes, and the work getting done on time. The first benefit of this short exercise is that you feel relaxed and calm almost immediately.
Beginning the day with even five minutes of a guided daydream will help you to ‘turn on’ your feel good vibes and you can start your schedule of activities on the right note. A quick five minute session in the evening will help in the course correction of the events that didn’t make you happy. A guided daydream is your best visualization tool for the future and a good therapeutic tool for past events, so go ahead, dream on. The more you can daydream, the more creative you will feel. Daydream your way into reality and live the life of your dreams !!
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