How good is daydreaming ?!

The mental workspace that allows the brain to handle multiple thoughts simultaneously is called working memory. The more working memory a person has, the more daydreaming they can do without forgetting the task at hand. The study researcher Jonathan Smallwood  of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science, said in a statement : ""Our results suggest that the sorts of planning that people do quite often in daily life — when they're on the bus, when they're cycling to work, when they're in the shower — are probably supported by working memory.Their brains are trying to allocate resources to the most pressing problems."


When our minds run out of working memory, these off-topic thoughts can take the main stage without us consciously meaning them to; for instance, arriving at home with no recollection of the actual trip, or suddenly realizing that they've turned several pages in a book without comprehending any of the words.

"It's almost like your attention was so absorbed in the mind wandering that there wasn't any left over to remember your goal to read," study researcher Daniel Levinson, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, a part of the Waisman Center for Brain Imaging and Behavior, said in a statement.

People with overall higher working memory were better able to stay focused when the task at hand required it. Those who had low working memory often had their thoughts drift away from the task, and did less well at it.

The findings add to past research suggesting these mind drifts can be positive moments. For instance, daydreaming has often been associated with creativity — researchers think that our most creative and inventive moments come when daydreaming. It's likely that the most intelligent among us also have high levels of working memory, Levinson noted.