Ambiguity of the Wandering Mind

“Dissociation can be broadly understood as alterations in consciousness where integrated processing of psychological and/or sensory information is disrupted” (Dorahy, M. J., & Lewis, C. A. (2001). Dissociation as a symptom in fact holds the bragging rights to an entire category of mental disorders that include Dissociative Identity Disorder, Depersonalisation-Derealisation Disorder and Dissociative Amnesia. Now let’s look at the definition of a term, or rather state of mind, that could very well be a cousin of dissociation– daydreaming. ‘Daydreaming mentally transports people to another place or time’, something dissociation also does – often as an attempt to cope with traumatic experiences. At their core, traumatic experiences are instances in people’s lives that they often wish to forget completely.

“Many daydreams are similar in content to the thoughts that people generate when they intentionally try to forget. Thus, thoughts like those generated during daydreaming can cause forgetting of previously encoded events.” (Delaney, P. F., et.al. (2010). As is evident through their definitions alone, these two terms seem to have a lot in common. But is there a definitive distinction that lets us know when daydreaming teeters on the edge of becoming dissociation? The answer may lie within the source that creates the need to daydream, it may be a coping method to grasp at freedom and liberate oneself from the hold a traumatic event has on them. It may also very well just be the freedom provided by mentally checking out.

Thomas Hoccleve, a clerk, court poet, and a key literary figure in the 15th century, was also a victim of severe episodes of mental illness, including insomnia. Hisashi Sugito discusses the insomniac’s creative process that is in part reliant on his daydreaming: “Hoccleve, afflicted with melancholic thought, describes his feelings as dull and heavy, and the dullness makes his mind asleep even when he is awake”, unable to connect while truly awake he dreams to conjure the wit for his work. “Hoccleve develops the dream vision tradition to a paradoxical extreme: while he remains in reality, he reaches a dreamworld with his daydreaming mind” (Sugito, H. (2014). This is the perfect account of a successful daydreamer to study, for he has both components of what we are attempting to scrutinise under the lens of reality. There are many of us who have to resort to rather creative methods to stay focused. For Hoccleve this was daydreaming, and indeed it worked for him as is evident in his historic success; but he also had a history of being inflicted with bouts of mental illnesses, so how do we know his daydreaming would still help him had he never had an episode of mental illness? There are many studies that would suggest daydreaming on its own without any other affliction greater than a lack of concentration would still elevate productivity, such as an interesting piece of research that summarises this old versus new opinion on the matter: “Daydreams have usually been associated with idleness and inattentiveness. Now, however, through an empirical research program, their general function and adaptive possibilities are being elucidated.” (Singer, 1974).

Now that we have observed daydreaming and its dissociative potential, we can discuss the possibility of the wider implication of its controversial nature. What are the cultural limits of its rationality? There is no evidence of daydreaming being a universal phenomenon, and perhaps the philosophical musings surrounding escapism and existentialism play a far more important role in modern psychology (Solomon,1992). These concepts were new and metaphorical for their time but in the context of daydreaming and dissociative disorders we have a grey area which we can utilise to understand the concept of using these methods to theorise trauma. While avoidance and denial are harmful in the long run, daydreaming begets the peace of one’s own mind, which we are mostly in control of. This would be a positive method of coping. Although this theoretical rationalisation gives way to a completely different argument of free will versus determinism, there is sufficient evidence of free will in psychology to suggest the mindscape does to some extent bend to our will (Baumeister, R. F. (2008), (ULLRICH, D. W. (2011). Certain people were found to be more susceptible to daydreaming and dissociation in the context of self-preservation and trauma suppression, and a wide portion of this demographic includes survivors of childhood trauma and sexual abuse. These survivors according to the ‘trauma betrayal theory’ learn how to compartmentalise their traumatic experiences from conscious awareness by dividing attention using methods such as dissociating (Giesbrecht & Merckelbach, 2009). Such data and studies support the concept of theorising trauma that was mentioned earlier.

Whether you’re a child with a chronic need to constantly escape the boring reality of your literature homework, or if you’ve reached adulthood and are tested by that same escapist temptation that interferes with your ability to meet deadlines in the unforgiving corporate world. Or maybe you are one of the few we can generalise the findings of controversial ‘daydreaming boosts productivity’ studies to. The bottom line is that daydreaming is a part of your routine. Whether it helps you or makes you your own worst enemy, whether you are wholly unaware of it even happening – it is completely situational. Nobody daydreams the same and no two daydreamers would have the exact same reason for doing so. Self awareness is not a metaphor or crutch to justify digging deeper into the mechanisms of daydreaming, it is a means to tether you to yourself as is evidenced by the concept of free will. We must retain it in order to use daydreaming and dissociation as a positive coping mechanism. While such a statement is rather conflicting in nature, it’s important to understand that the liberation we attempt by drifting into our own minds is constituted by the very belief of free will and freedom of mind. In the account of yourself as a wanderer you must assign it purpose: “Mind-wandering is unguided attention: accounting for the “purposeful” wanderer” (Irving, Z. C. (2016).