I Miss My Insomnia for One Reason
Those long hours of unleashed brain activity
As soon as I crawled under the covers, my mind took off. Once freed, it got carried away into an endless stream of thoughts and worked to digest all the information I received daily. This was both the cause and consequence of my inability to sleep.
So much so that bedtime had become a stressful time. I wanted to sleep so badly. So I took matters into my own hands. I identified what was causing my insomnia (over-thinking), and learned how to turn off my brain.
I became very good at it. I can now fall asleep in less than 5 minutes most of the time. But this is not without consequences: those long hours of unleashed brain activity now have nowhere to go.
They are crucial for all human beings. But this should not be taken lightly. Daydreaming can be very powerful. Both positively and negatively.
It’s like opening the clasp on your dog’s leash.
What is the first thing you do after eating?
…
Digest. This is how your body processes the food you have ingested and transforms it into energy, i.e. how your body benefits from it.
Daydreaming is the digestion of the mind. You need it to process the flow of information that comes to you daily.
One of the similarities with digestion itself is that you don’t have to do anything about it. It’s a “passive” activity. All you have to do is hand your mind back its freedom. Think of it as walking your dog. As soon as you enter the undergrowth, you bend down and open the clasps of its leash, to let it go as it pleases in a safe space.
Mind-wandering brings clarity, ideas, and solutions.
At least that’s what mine does.
Clarity, because it’s digestion
Once things are dealt with, once the juice has been squeezed out, your mind can get rid of it and grasp another thought.
If you never take the time to process the inputs, your mind gets overwhelmed. I can literally feel it when it happens. My brain seems to weigh tons. I can’t see things clearly anymore. My focus and perspective are much narrower.
When I feel like this, two solutions are available to me: either I go for a thinking walk, or I go for a run. It depends on the circumstances and the nature of the feeling.
Ideas, because it’s about making connections
“Neuroscience research has shown that mind wandering lights up connections across a series of interacting brain regions known as the default mode network (DMN). The DMN helps us to connect remotely associated ideas, a process known to help with creative ideation.” (Source: Future Minds Lab)
Letting your mind wander allows it to make connections. That’s where your a-ha! moments come from. See, you don’t have anything active to do. It just happens. As long as your mind travels freely.
Solutions, because the software runs in the background
“Mind-wandering allows one part of the brain to focus on the task at hand, […] while simultaneously processing other information and making connections. Christoff (2009) at the University of California, Santa Barbara has evidence that people whose minds wander a lot are more creative and better problem solvers”, as explains Susan Weinschenk in her book “100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People”.
This is also a matter of connections. But not creativity-related connections. Rather problem-solving-related connections. Daydreaming allows your mind to turn the problem over and over again until it sees it from another angle. That’s where your solution lies.
Tony Crabbe talks about “opening a file”.
The process does the work for you while you’re working on something else, just like software running in the background. That’s what Tony Crabbe explains in his book “Busy”.
When you have a task to accomplish in the next few days, he suggests that you spend 5-10 minutes the night before actively thinking about it. If it’s a complex article you have to write or a presentation you have to make, then you could think about a few bullet points to include or how you might structure the whole thing. Just think about it very lightly. Then go on with your day.
What happens then is that your brain has “opened the file” for this task. Your mind starts wandering around in the back of your brain, without you even noticing. The next day you’ll start the task much more easily, thanks to your 10 minutes of reflection but especially by all the work done by your mind since you “opened the file”.
But be careful not to fall into the trap.
The process can either take you up or down.
First of all, don’t confuse it with active thinking. Mental wandering is passive. You free your mind, you open the window, and it does its things. Just stay open to the thoughts that are going to emerge. Let your mind work on them. You have nothing else to do. Except for one thing.
Close the window when you’re done.
This is the #1 rule to follow if you don’t want it to be counterproductive
“Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects’ mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.”, explains Daniel Gilbert, author of “Stumbling on Happiness”, in the Harvard Gazette.
Be aware of when your daydreaming moments occur. This allows you to keep them under control and make sure they don’t happen 24/7. You decide when it starts and when it stops. If you don’t, you’ll end up like me, unable to sleep. Or worse. It could poison your life.
Daydreaming means you’re no longer in the present moment. You might end up with stressful thoughts, because that happens in everyone’s life. Or you could also end up being constantly absent from your life. There are times when my daydreams fill me with energy and positivity, ideas and projects, and I feverishly fill out notes on my phone. Other times, it leaves me stressed or preoccupied with a problem.
That’s why you need to refocus afterward. Remember: this is a window of time allocated to free-thinking. The basic principle of windows is that they can be closed and opened whenever you want.
You can turn it into a ritual
I am barely able to sit still. I always end up having an idea and getting up to do something. That’s why I usually take advantage of long car trips or undisturbed walks to let my mind digest. In both cases, I am in such circumstances that I cannot do anything about the ideas I have. Except keep thinking. And take notes on my phone. That’s why I don’t have a daydreaming ritual: I let it happen when it’s necessary.
But you can decide that coffee-time is daydreaming-time. Or you can think of it like meditation: every day, for 10 to 20 minutes, you sit in that chair or outside on your terrace, and it’s time for mind wandering.
Schedule it or not. Just make sure it happens. And that it’s intentional daydreaming: you decide when it starts and when it stops.
Final thoughts
I like to see it as another form of meditation. It’s the opposite in purpose, but it’s similar in posture, as in both cases you’re alone with your thoughts. The difference is: the goal of meditation is to do your best not to catch the clouds of thoughts that pass through the window of your mind. As you daydream, you let your mind grab those thoughts, and dig them out.
If you don’t intentionally open these windows of time, one of two things will happen. Either it will invade your mind at every turn and fill you with negative thoughts. Or it will seldom happen. You’ll keep jumping from one activity to another (including reading), and end up missing out because your mind will feel cluttered.
Daydreaming slows down the flow. It puts it on pause.
I thought moving my body was enough for that, but it turns out it’s not. Sport offers mental space and clarity, but it doesn’t allow you to step back from your life. Make the distinction.
Mental wandering is useful after you’ve finished reading a book, when you’ve had a deep conversation with someone, or when something important has happened to you. It’s a way to acknowledge the event, to let it blossom and bear fruit.
If you don’t, those insights will disappear in the whirlwind of your daily life.
