I spend more time daydreaming than I like to admit. Subjects range from the everyday—what an upcoming trip to Seattle will be like—to the absurd—when I win the lottery…
While knowing I’m not the only one to engage in this secret delight, I also feel a trifle sheepish for wasting time thinking about things that are 99.9% impossible or unknowable. On the other hand, I take such pleasure from these daytime dreams. I can’t resist the lure, even if only for a minute or two. Sounds like an addiction.
One friend, describing his fascination, nay his addiction, to social media (e.g., Twitter, blogs, etc.), wonders how someone with an alcohol or drug addiction can function on a daily basis. He’s struggling with controlling his appetite for bytes while meeting his regular responsibilities. So much so, he’s going cold turkey for a few weeks in the hopes of spending his time more productively.
I still don’t know if my daydreaming falls in the addiction category. Even if it did, I’m not sure how one stops daydreaming. I try to rationalize the daydreaming, playing “what if,” by telling myself that if that particular moment or chain of events occurs, I’ll be prepared.
Some times, my daydreams are outlets for the things I’ve read or the conversations I’ve remembered. Like a scene from a movie, I’ll try to work out the dialogue, the positioning of the cast. Then, I’ll roll forward or backwards in time, looking for the perfect moment to start the action.
So why all the nattering about daydreams? I think, despite my difficulty in avoiding the temptation, we’re forgetting how to do it and the valuable role it can play in our lives. We’ve become obsessed with things on screens. Whether it’s the internet, video games, movies, etc., we’re choosing to let the images in our minds fall to wayside. In our search for “new,” we’ve focused on the outward instead of the inward. When was the last time you had a really good conversation with yourself?
Sounds crazy, but do you really know what you think, what you believe, and can you verbalize it? In this brave new world described in 140 characters, we’re risking our ability to share a complete, perhaps complex, thought. For the people (potentially anyone 30 and older) who remember a world before the internet, we’ve had some experience, but what about the people whose entire lives have been digital?
Maybe encouraging people to daydream, to converse with themselves, isn’t as sexy as the latest iPhone app or video game, but it’s a skill to value nonetheless. Because if we stop being able to dream when the lights are on will we’ll start missing our cue to act.
