Summer Day-Dreaming

Summer is a great time of year to let the day-dreaming take you over. The sun is out, there’s a nice breeze floating past you as you relax in the shade and enjoy a cool beverage. There might be voices drifting through the air trying to include you in a conversation. Maybe you’re involved and listening, or maybe you’ve tuned into your internal radio and have become lost in your thoughts.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been known to become lost in my thoughts. I’m so good at it in fact, that as far as I know I’m the only one who ever realises that I wasn’t paying attention to what anyone was saying. I have a talent for jumping back into the conversation at the right moment and nodding my head at the right parts. The only problem comes when somewhere down the road, someone asks if I remember when they said that thing from six weeks ago about some possibly important stuff, and I don’t remember. I have a good memory; I probably just wasn’t “fully present”. My day-dreams were much more important. Sometimes, it’s the only way to get through a conversation, plan a vacation, take my business to the next level, or to make sure the grocery list gets made.

Many introverts are naturally experts at day-dreaming. We dream at night too, but we’re just as good (and in some cases better) at day-dreaming. So who better than a natural-born introvert to write an article about the art of day-dreaming? Day dreams can be about pretty much anything, and can be categorized. Sometimes, they need to be categorized and subsequently written down in a notebook because of how important they are, or because whilst daydreaming the funny introverts thought of something funny to say or write later. I’ll list some of the categories and topics for you below. I won’t go into much detail, unless of course I start day-dreaming about them during the writing of this article and want to write them down.

Categories of Day Dreams

Daydreams tend to be about:

• Work or career
• Co-workers
• The next vacation – including where, when, how, with whom, and whether you’ll need to buy more sunscreen
• How to earn more money
• The next blog article topic
• Weekend activities, and what kind of beer would go best with them
• Why the sky is blue, and what if it were a different colour?
• Which game-show I’d be best at and why
• How life would be so much better if your boss were a completely different person
• The Best Business Idea of All Time/ If I won the lottery I would…
• My (or your) next Netflix Comedy Special (be sure to carefully concentrate on the right entrance song for you to enhance your day-dream)
• What should I do after I’m done doing this?
• Who is this person, and why am I still standing here listening to them?
• Your current life/ romantic partner
• Your ideal romantic partner (grab your notebook and make some sketches, just in case some robotics engineers are willing to design and build it for you “as an experiment”)
• Something to add to the current conversation, and instead opting to go back to a real day-dream

It may seem like day-dreaming is all about distraction. Sometimes it is, but there are some benefits that I’ve noticed. It’s possible some researchers have too. I didn’t do any research for this article other than looking inside my own brain, so don’t go looking for it in here.

Benefits of Day-Dreaming

I was just about to start writing this paragraph, when I started to day-dream. Anyway, I’m back now. Some of the benefits of day-dreaming (not backed-up by research in any way) include:

• Giving your brain something interesting to do
• Making your grocery or other type of shopping list
• Tapping into your creativity
• Starting to get a handle on what you really want out of life
• Getting an early start on a nap
• Finishing that awesome dream from last night, thus putting a smile on your face
• Inspiring yourself (to write another article or other creative pursuit, or do that thing you are literally dreaming of)
• When you win that aware, or the lottery, you’re already decided what you’re going to say
• You end-up with at least ten perfect come-backs pre-written and memorized for future use
• You’re more likely you’ll take action on a day-dream than a night-dream because technically, you’re already awake and may even be standing up

Drawbacks

As you can imagine, there are some drawbacks to day-dreaming, even in the summer. Obviously you can’t do it all the time because there are important things you need to hear or otherwise pay attention to. Sometimes, you may even get caught day-dreaming when you were supposed to be listening and this could result in embarrassment, or missing out on doing something more fun than day-dreaming.

Successful Daydreaming

Successful Daydreaming is when you are able to fully experience the benefits of day-dreaming while not getting caught doing just that. You may need to keep the conversation in your periphery as you daydream, and set your conscious mind to be alert for key words such as your name, and the phrases “Hello! Is anybody in there?” or “Earth to _______”. Thinking of some key words to alert your attention to during key-conversations or specific situations such as important meetings, could be worthwhile for you to do because once someone gets to “Earth to ____”, it’s too late to avoid embarrassment.

Since there are many benefits to day-dreaming, don’t let one little embarrassing situation stop you from doing it.  All you need to do is practise, and hone your skills a little bit. Set your internal and external alarms if you need to, and keep day dreaming!