Do You Still Daydream?
“The little girl spent most of her hours of leisure in the branches. When her family did not know where to find her, they would go to the trees, the tall beech to start with, the one that stood to the north above the lean-to, for that was where she liked to daydream.”
I can be standing in the shower, sitting at my desk, staring at my garden, or lying awake in bed when my mind wanders. For 5 minutes, an hour, and sometimes more, I will disappear into my head. As a child, I was a daydreamer, living in my own little world, but now that I am older, I spend more time in the present moment. My mind may drift off these days, but I would not call my thoughts daydreams. What about you? Where does your mind go when it wanders? Do you still daydream?
Do you remember the daydreams of your childhood? Daydreaming for me was walking into the many books I loved to read. As a child, I was as adventurous as Pippi Longstocking, snuck food like Arietty Borrower, and lived with gnomes and fairies in the forest. As a young teen, I lost myself in fantasies of living like the women in the historical novels I devoured.
In my late teens, my daydreams would drift to a cabin somewhere in the woods, where I lived alone and self-sufficient. There was always a big dog by my side, chickens, goats, and a big garden. And there was always a prince, a rugged, outdoorsy type who would come upon me bathing naked in a waterfall - and we would fall in love. Or, walking along a trail, I would stumble upon a stranger, delirious with fever, who I would nurse back to health - and we would fall in love. By my early twenties, my daydreams were full of solo travel, heading off to explore the world. But those daydreams evaporated as the weight of societal expectations steered me to marriage, children, and a career. (Don’t get me wrong, I also loved being married to an amazing man, having two delightful daughters – and I still can’t believe I actually got paid to do the work I loved!)
My girls were born; and my mind drifted to foreboding joy. I have written about this before. I remember looking at my babies sleeping in their cribs; my heart would fill with an all-consuming joy. Then my mind would drift to crib deaths and toxic cleaning products and all the other things that could harm them, and I would be consumed with fear. Brené Brown calls this foreboding joy; afraid we are feeling joy too intensely, we begin dress-rehearsing tragedy.
As a working mother, my thoughts were consumed by the practicalities of life. I would balance our monthly budget in my head, schedule car-pooling to softball practices, and plan weekly menus. There seemed little time for drifting off, and my daydreams diminished.
The girls became more independent, I went from working a 9-to-5 job to consulting, and time again expanded, allowing me to venture further, both outward and inward. Rather than daydreaming, my mind drifted to possibilities and bucket lists. I planned solitary trips in my head and then made them come true.
Around this same time, my thoughts were also overshadowed by darkness. While menopause left me relatively unscathed, I began waking in the early hours. I understood Elizabeth Gilbert’s words when she wrote, “Like many of us, I have a mind that is a very dangerous neighborhood. Left unattended, my mind will fester, rot, and roll me over the brink into anxiety and depression.” A visit to my naturopath helped, but eventually, anxiety reared its ugly head. Waking nightmares were the norm, I would wake up at 4 am every morning and the stories I created in my head were terrifying. I knew, without ever having been diagnosed, that I struggled with depression, but I had been too ashamed to admit it. (This is a blog post in itself, one I will write one day.) Eventually, I was diagnosed with dysthymia, a mild, chronic depression that I know I have lived with since my early teens. My doctor prescribed an anti-depressant, and since I have been on it, my anxious thoughts have subsided.
I very seldom daydream these days. Days are so precious; I enjoy being in the present moment. My mind still wanders; I will follow a flittering butterfly or swoop through the air with our barn swallows. I lose myself in music, enjoying notes strung together and voices harmonizing. And, I write stories in my head, following trails of thought, stringing words together, and searching for the exact adjectives to describe a moment. My blog posts and life stories are often written in my mind before the words are committed to paper.
Is it good to daydream, as we get older? I’m not sure. Research suggests that daydreamers have more efficient brains and that people whose minds tend to wander may be smarter and more creative. However, there is also research linking daydreaming to Alzheimer’s. When people concentrate on a task such as reading, talking or solving problems, the brain uses one set of regions, but during down time it switches to a default mode. The study found Alzheimer's mostly affects the brain's "default state" regions, used when musing, daydreaming or thinking pleasant thoughts. So I suppose the question is, to daydream or not to daydream?