Here’s an article you’re about to start reading. Your mind clings to it, turning small icons on your screen or in your journal into words. Putting them together creates meaning in your mind. If your concentration falters, your train of thought may deviate. Also, what will your mom think of the gift you chose for her birthday?
This article focuses on mind wandering, a phenomenon known in scientific literature as “mind wandering.” These are the moments when our mind wanders when it starts to wander. Sometimes without our knowledge, sometimes of our own free will. And for about 25 years, these daydreams have piqued the curiosity of neuropsychologists, who are beginning to understand them.
The topic is particularly important because the technologies available to us reduce mental wandering. “I think there’s a risk in never letting our minds wander,” says Nathan Spreng, director of McGill University’s Brain and Cognition Research Laboratory, which studies the brain networks involved in focusing attention, memory, and social interactions are.
What do our lanterns illuminate when we take the time to slow down and let our minds breathe? The light of our knowledge tries to penetrate the future. She focuses on the past to better understand it. Our brains are dedicated to the people in our lives; It explores the thorny terrain of the relationships that bind us to them. The wandering mind sometimes ventures into the field of brooding; from time to time he dwells on the side of happy projections.
“Our minds are constantly vacillating between different cognitive representations of the people in our lives, our goals, what we’re going to do tomorrow, or even today. We can constantly request these latent representations to adapt our behavior to complex situations. That’s probably why the human mind has the experience of wandering,” says Jonathan Smallwood, a professor at Queen’s University in Ontario and a specialist in wandering minds.
The discovery of a network
When the mind wanders, it is not idle. In the 1990s, scientists discovered that certain areas of the brain shut down when a subject focuses their attention on a specific task to be performed. On the other hand, when we dream, imagine the future, or delve into the past, these zones—dubbed the “Default Mode” network (MPD) since 2001—buzz with activity. You had to suppress that brooding in your brain before you could start reading this text.
Researchers have a few strategies for studying daydreams. You can ask participants to complete a task before unexpectedly interrupting them and asking what they think. Some of these experiments are done using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to see where it’s sizzling in the volunteer’s brain.
“The way to get activity on the network in standard mode is to ask people to let their minds wander,” Spreng says. Or we can suggest that they reflect on events from their past. Traveling back in time and trying to think about where you’ve been, your feelings, and the people around you strains your brain network. »
“Most of the time, it’s difficult to quantify the value of mental wandering,” the McGill professor continues. Certainly not in economic terms! You may sometimes feel like you don’t get something out of it right away, but it’s important to allow room for that digression. It evokes moments of clarity. You can make discoveries. All the information may already be in your head, but new connections are made and creative ideas emerge. Those moments when we let our mind wander are very restless in today’s society. »
A few years ago, scientists asked professional writers and physicists to note when the most creative idea of the time came up. In one out of five cases, this happened at a moment that had nothing to do with the problem to be solved. On average, ideas born out of moments of daydreaming were more likely to help break a dead end and were associated with a “ha ha!” moment. “.
When inappropriate, mind wandering can also cause problems. It reduces reading comprehension, makes attending lectures more difficult and increases reaction time at the wheel. Knowing how to master this wild horse (particularly through mindfulness meditation) has clear benefits. In Smallwood’s studies, the brightest participants were able to stop rambling on a difficult task and engage more in a simple task.
And the mice?
Studies show that we spend between 25% and 50% of our waking hours thinking thoughts that come from the “here and now.” However, today’s Homo sapiens quickly pulls out his smartphone in the five seconds he’s waiting for the elevator. Modern life, lined with screens as powerful as a black hole’s gravitational pull, stifles daydreaming. But does containing the wandering mind cause cognitive problems?
“It’s complicated,” replies Herr Spreng. The MPD brain network is implicated in certain psychiatric disorders (in which trivial thoughts become obsessive and anxiety-provoking), but it also serves “critical functions” in healthy people. “Heavy use of computers and phones is a constant distraction that keeps us from the normal train of thought. These habits more systematically remove the network from the MPD. The consequences are not really known at the moment,” explains the specialist.
Our mind’s fondness for Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok is no stranger to its penchant for wandering. In either case, thought delights in navigating the complex web of social interactions. Participants in “Wandering Mind” experiments very often say that their minds naturally wandered to their friends.
According to Mr. Smallwood, the human tendency to plan things well in advance (and therefore inevitably to dream) has been a major contributor to our species’ success on Earth. Do the minds of other animals wander? Even mice have to orchestrate their lives beyond the present moment, he points out. In their brains, too, we observe brain activity that roughly corresponds to the MPD of humans. “We don’t know at all if the mice are daydreaming,” notes the Queen’s professor, however. There is so much to discover: The craftsmen of this young science can dream!