On cloud nine

Whether a holiday, your Miss Right or even an overdue promotion, daydreaming, we were told, is a waste of time. Shiva Kumar Thekkepat finds out that actually it is not. It is, in fact, the first step to reaching that goal

"When I was a teenager, I wanted to be Homecoming Queen, a title every girl aspired for in school," says Kathy Williams, mother of two and an amateur psychologist.

"I spent many days daydreaming about winning the title. I daydreamed about how I would look, how I would feel when my name was called, etc. I did this everyday. Of course I campaigned too, but I daydreamed and dreamed about it all the time. Guess what? I won!

"I think the daydreaming had a lot to do with my winning. Over the years, I have read articles about daydreaming and I have learned that people who daydream about specific goals achieve them more consistently than people who do not daydream at all."

Daydreaming is often a disregarded and neglected aspect of dream study. The activity is often considered an indulgence in fantasy with no roots to penetrate ground reality.

Not any more. Psychologists now say the meanings to your nightly dream symbols are also applicable to your daydreams. The contents of your daydreams provide an insight to your true feelings and help you reach your goals.

According to psychologists, daydreaming occurs when you are semi-awake and it is the spontaneous imagining or recalling of various images or experiences in the past or future.

You, more or less, let your imagination run away from you. When you daydream, you are accessing your right brain which is said to be the creative and feminine side of our personality.

Even worrying can be classified as a form of daydreaming. When you worry, you are visualising an unwanted or negative outcome to a situation.

By repeating these negative images in your mind, you are more likely to make them happen. Hence, psychologists insist, the emphasis on the power of positive thinking.

All our lives we are told to 'focus, concentrate and stay on the task'. This probably makes us very responsible and even successful.

The downside could be that it may stress us out, make us difficult and perhaps even dull people. Some psychologists advise spending free time getting lost in our daydreams, which they say makes helps us to relax, stay creative and perhaps be just as successful as you are when you are in the 'focused' mode.

"Daydreams are mental pictures that the individual uses to escape from a particular vexing situation or to overcome a frustrating experience, or even to simply indulge in some wishful thinking, says Ximena Guinguis, psychodynamic counsellor, Dubai Herbal and Treatment Center, Dubai.

"Daydreams are generally a healthy and natural component of the mental process. An average person spends one-third of their thoughts while awake, daydreaming.

"This however does not make the person irresponsible; on the contrary, it may become a helpful tool for improving concentration on an objective as the momentary escape to fantasy land tends to refresh the mind and overcome mental fatigue, making the person more efficient when he refocuses on his task. However, it is important to remember not to get carried away and forget the task."

Lisa Biasini, psychoanalytical psychotherapist, Human Relations Institute, Dubai, says that even if daydreaming is not advised during work, every moment of intense concentration should be followed by a small break, sufficient enough for you to relax before you can refocus.

"It has been proven that an indvidual's attention span (or his ability to concentrate on any one thing) is for a limited period only," she says.

"Some people manage to concentrate for three continuous hours, while others cannot go beyond 45 minutes. But in between (these parameters) you can allow yourself to think about your preoccupations and probably daydream about them."

Just as your worrisome daydreams can unwittingly come true via mental repetitiousness, this very same repetitiousness can be harnessed by replacing negative outcomes with positive ones.

You can utilise your daydreams as a technique to envision what you want, and hope, to happen.

Many athletes, musicians and business leaders utilise their daydreams to envision success. They anticipate or imagine landing the perfect jump, closing a deal, or making that hit single. Tiger Woods, for one, is said to use daydreams to improve his golf game.

Are daydreams always about an ideal future?
"Daydreams are not only oriented towards the future as in plans or scenarios; they also bring along reminiscences of the past (in the mind)," says Guinguis. "

The unconscious (state of mind) will use this mental process as a means to express itself through spontaneously encoded images, hence bringing to consciousness particular messages."

Biasini feels daydreams quite often possess the ability to shape our future. "For example, you can daydream about what you haven't done in the past and what you wish to do instead of what you are doing right now.

"In daydreaming, some degree of unconscious (daydreaming) comes from the fact that a thought pops up unexpectedly and you find yourself thinking about it. This could be because it might be telling you that some issue in a particular area of your life is not yet resolved and needs your attention."

Does daydreaming help us take decisions that we may want to subconsciously, but elude us in our conscious state of mind?
"When you daydream, you are imagining a situation. Part of that process of imagining can be anticipating something that can help you explore all possibilities in a certain issue, and therefore help you arrive at a decision," says Biasini.

"But be careful. It does not mean that you can control a situation that way because you always have to give yourself space for the unexpected in life."

Guinguis believes that daydreaming, in some cases, can help us explore situations without boundaries.

"In other words, we allow ourselves to see situations from different perspectives, playing with different scenarios and outcomes. This may help us better understand the actual situation, in order to make an appropriate decision."

A recent study by Dartmouth College in the US found that when we daydream, our brain is not only still quite active, it's also processing important stuff as well.

The study concluded that daydreams could be a vehicle that move forward experiences from a person's past or present into his future. In other words, they could of crucial help in shaping the individual's future.

"When you daydream about the past or present, you analyse a situation (and your role in it)," says Biasini.

"This allows you to assess whether what you did was right or otherwise. As long as you become conscious about what you want to change, by daydreaming or through introspection, you will be able to define the path you want your future to take," she adds.

Guinguis sees daydreaming as self-to-self communication.
"What we need to learn though, is to decode these messages (that come through daydreaming), understand and learn from them so that they can help us deal with similar situations in a different way in the future."

Eyes wide open ... and happy dreams!

What it all amounts to is that when people daydream and imagine possible futures, they actually become happier. Something like, 'what the mind can conceive, the body can achieve'. When you daydream, you motivate yourself and build your confidence.

"Positive reinforcement about one's self helps you stay positive," says Biasini. "That is what we teach in psychotherapy to people who cannot seem to see "(the light at) the end of the tunnel".

If daydreaming can help you arrive at solutions to get out of painful situations, or guide you through a rough patch, where's the problem? Hope is an important element in life.

You need to believe that you are going to have better days.
This keeps you going. But a word of caution from Biasini.
"(You should not allow) daydreaming to make you believe that the reality you are imagining is the reality you are living in."

Visualisation is a form of daydreaming. "Indeed, visualising yourself in a situation that is your goal helps your mind and body to direct the energy, motivation, passion and behaviour towards the successful outcome of that goal," says Guinguis.

Not surprisingly, psychologists believe that happiness and a can-do attitude - which is often the result of daydreaming - has the power to relieve stress. It has the power to help us physically too.

"Nowadays, we tend to look at the human being as a complex interaction between mind, body and soul," says Guinguis.

"In general, if there is a positive mental attitude, the body is better prepared to deal with physical distress. On the other hand, a negative mental attitude makes the body react in a similar way.

"For example, a person who is clinically depressed looks at life through a clouded lens; hence his attitude will have a direct impact on his physical state.

"Usually when your mind is negatively preoccupied, your body is stressed," says Biasini. "What's more, some people express their anxiety by having psychosomatic concerns. Therefore, if you manage to relieve your mind of negative thoughts, your body will follow suit."

Visualising as a goal is an important part of sports coaching. It can be, however, extended to life in general as well to help us succeed. "Having a goal is important as it helps us stay motivated," says Biasini.

"If you do not know what you are aiming at, what the purpose of your actions are - whether at work or in relationships - you will find yourself lost. Or you may not move forward. Plus you won't be as motivated because nothing will interest you to go further.

"In a motivated person, goals are the carrots at the end of the stick, they push you to stay focused."

Psychologists liken daydreaming to a kind of brainstorming and in their opinion, those who daydream tend to be good problem solvers too.

"Daydreaming boosts productivity," agrees Guinguis. "As we let our mind wonder, we create space within which to imagine, create, challenge, explore problems from different points of view. These tendencies spill over in life too, driving us on to solve problems."

Time to stop and smell the flowers
Another important aspect of daydreaming is that it allows you to pause and reflect. It gives you a chance to take stock of a situation that needs your attention, says Biasini.

"After all, daydreaming is less about dreaming and more about thinking." But she adds: "It is always good to think before doing something especially when it's an important task or a decision (to make)."

But at the same time, overthinking or letting your mind get into an imaginative overdrive with hundreds of possible outcomes or 'doomsday scenarios' is a waste of time.

"You end up more confused, discouraged or scared to take a decision!"

Is there a time and a place to do it?
Biasini believes that "every time you feel that reality, a moment, or a situation does not suit you, you will find yourself thinking about something else, just to escape or to shelter yourself in your own self.

"Research says that we daydream every 90 minutes," says Guinguis, "and that there is no specific time of the day or place to do it. Reflective walking can trigger the mind to daydream, like in the case of Beethoven who would normally take a walk to free his creative spirit."

Can you actually tailor your daydreams into an effective tool to achieve what you want?
"Daydreaming is a tool, among others, that helps us deal with life," says Guinguis. "On its own, it can help us to achieve certain goals, but we may need to use it together with other tools to accomplish other objectives.

"Sometimes, daydreaming can develop into an obsessive characteristic that may interfere with the daily functioning of a person. In turn, this might become a symptom of a psychological problem."

Biasini is pragmatic. "Let's be realistic. Even if you imagine something very hard, it does not mean that you will have it," she says. "Daydreaming ... will not make the final decision. Life is full of unexpected moments and you have to learn how to deal with them, not lose yourself in them. That's the reality."

Daydreams are said to provide hope.

But hope can be false or misleading. On the other hand, is hope the first step towards making a dream come true?
According to Biasini, it can be both. "You need hope to continue, to pursue your goal: you need to tell yourself that one day you will have what you hope for. But you also need to ask yourself if what you are dreaming of is realisable; in other words, am I wishing for something that can truly happen, based on the reality I live in, and not the one I wish for?

"That is why in psychotherapy, I generally make the patient understand that it is better to set small and reachable goals than big and, sometimes, unrealistic ones."

Guinguis agrees: Daydreams can be thought as both, providing hope or false hope. Whichever way we would like to see it will depend entirely on the outcome of the situation."

Though the scripts you encounter in everyday life may be different from those you play out in your mind, you will tend to approach life in character with the role your mind is accustomed to playing.

Is your approach to life that of hero or victim? Are your daydreams an asset or a liability? If you enjoy the roles you play in your daydreams, they are assets which will help you better prepare yourslf for what life has
in store.

Remember Kathy Williams at the beginning of this feature who daydreamed herself into winning the crown? She sums it up: "Daydreaming gives me a warm happy feeling inside. In my mind, I am achieving something I have always wanted to achieve. I have worked hard (for it). All that remained was the promotion, or the award.

"Seeing myself obtain that special something, feel the gratification, the satisfaction, the varied sensations of achievement, seems to push me over the top.

"I tell myself I'm in my element."