User:Editingenchilada/Daydream

Article Draft Daydream
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the mental activity. For other uses, see Daydream (disambiguation) and Daydreaming (disambiguation).Not to be confused with Waking dream. Daydreaming is the stream of consciousness that detaches from current, external tasks when attention drifts to a more personal and internal direction. There are various names of this phenomenon including mind-wandering, fantasy, spontaneous thoughts, etc. When thoughts move to a different place while daydreaming it is referred to as mind-wandering. Daydreaming is the term used by Jerome L. Singer, whose research laid the foundation for nearly all the subsequent research today. The terminologies assigned by researchers today puts challenges on identifying the common features of daydreaming, and on building collective work among researchers.

There are many types of daydreams, and there is no consistent definition among psychologists. However, the characteristic that is common to all forms of daydreaming meets the criteria for mild dissociation. Also, the impacts of different types of daydreams are not identical. While some are disruptive and deleterious, others may be beneficial in some way.

This phenomenon is common in people's daily life shown by a large-scale study in which participants spend 47% of their waking time on average on daydreaming. This commonality affects individuals 50% of the time while awake.