When I was putting together this website I was asked to describe what I like to do. I put hiking and learning, both of which are true but what I wanted to put was daydreaming. My logical brain, which for those of you who know me understand that it rules my life, said “you can’t put that! Who would want to go to a doctor that spends her spare time with her head in the clouds. ” But I knew this is where my best ideas come from. When I keep my logical brain out of it, float on the water, close my eyes and let whatever wants to bubble through emerge breakthroughs happen. I turn off the constant input of information and let my brain untangle the what it’s been given and it will sometimes give it back to in a nice neat package with clarity. What I’ve been researching, reading and learning from others is in my brain already.
To appease my logical mind I decided to look at the science. To no surprise the “doing” part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex(ACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(dlPFC) are active during daydreaming. These areas of the brain are the two main executive areas of the brain. The ACC is involved in error detection and conflict resolution! Perfect! It monitors error, evaluates the degree of the error and then suggests the appropriate action the body should take to correct the error. It is also involved in motivation and attention. Some of the activities of the dlPFC are involved in working memory, attention and reward evaluation.
Daydreaming is believed to boost productivity and help you ground your beliefs more clearly. It helps your brain work out the details of something it wants to achieve. Daydreaming seems to be the bodies way of sorting it all out and imagining what the best course of action for one self is. Not what the author of the next best seller thinks is right for you. Or what one more course is going to
teach you. I believe it helps you get to your core values, instincts and desires. So with that being said, you should definitely go to a doctor that daydreams.
She’ll probably be very good at detecting errors and coming up with the solution that no one else could have imagined. So I guess I can say on my website that I resolve conflicts, detect errors, ahhh while I am floating on my raft looking at the clouds…
