As a kid, I never questioned daydreaming. Nobody ever told me that I shouldn't spend my time daydreaming either.
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Being homeschooled, I had the luxury to escape into my own world often. I didn't find it odd that I spent hours walking around the quarter mile track in my backyard, or how I spent that time escaping deeper into imagining certain scenarios or thinking about goals I wanted to accomplish. Sometimes I would walk and think about things until the sun started to set, and I would find my dad sitting out on the back deck, waiting for me. My parents never discouraged me from having an active imagination, and they never questioned my need to spend time alone.
I readily admit that I sometimes prefer slipping into my imagination rather than socializing with other people. A lot of people would argue that, that's unhealthy. That it's not normal for someone to want to isolate themselves and escape the world. Excuse me, have you seen the world lately?
Now that I'm older, I hear that people are taught that daydreaming is bad. I've even heard that daydreamers are categorized as unproductive people.
They say, "You'll never accomplish [insert your dreams and goals here] if you spend all of your time to daydreaming."
Sure, yeah, if you spend all of your time daydreaming.
In some extreme cases, people suffer from a condition where they daydream so much that they have difficulty interacting with other people, and, in order to cope, these daydreamers rely heavily on their daydreams to the point where they aren't able to live their lives fully. They condition is called maladaptive daydreaming. However, this is a psychological concern as it may or may not be linked to a person's need to escape the world as a result of emotional neglect or abuse. While it's not an official condition, it should not be dismissed or taken lightly.
I agree that there can be unproductive daydreamers. However, I don't believe that it's 100 percent true that all daydreamers are unproductive people. Daydreaming doesn't beget a lazy, unproductive person. I think that daydreaming is even essential if you're an artist or someone with a creative profession.
Why?
Daydreaming has been said to be conducive to building a stronger memory and improving your imagination.
Studies have shown that daydreaming also makes you smarter. People who have a tendency to let their thoughts wander while they're doing tasks are actually developing their minds. This is because their mind is working on thinking of more than one thing at a time, which, in essence, is building the mind.
Daydreams are a way to escape the mundane, monotonous and stressful parts of life. But they are also a way to sort out problems. It has been said that the problem solving part of the brain is activated while daydreaming. So, then, why does daydreaming get such a bad rap?
