Daydream your way to creativity

Editorial: “Small sparks of creativity are worth celebrating too”

BELIEVE me, I will try my hardest, but I cannot stop what is going to happen to you in the next 5 minutes. It might be a memory that takes you away… a place that you knew, or an idea you once had. It could be hunger. It could be sex. It could already be happening now.

As you read these sentences, your mind will almost certainly wander at least once – just as mine is drifting as I decide how best to phrase these words so that they hold your attention. In fact, according to some estimates, we may spend nearly 50 per cent of our lives drifting away from the present moment into the world inside our heads.

Sigmund Freud considered such zoning out “infantile”; others feared it could lead to psychosis. Today, we know it is instead the sign of a healthy mind, allowing us to plan for the future by imagining different events, for instance. One particular virtue might even transform how we work, teach children, operate business and nurture ideas.

Drifting, it seems, is a sure sign that our creative juices are flowing. When it comes to arriving at brilliant ideas, the ability to concentrate is overrated. If a person’s mind is wandering, they outperform their peers …