The science of a wandering mind

In situations of low stress and safety, mind-wandering will be a gift, a pleasure, a creative force. In situations of high stress or danger, mind-wandering will be a torment.

our minds are wired to wander. Wandering is their default. Whenever our thoughts are suspended between specific, discrete, goal-directed activities, the brain reverts to a so-called baseline, “resting” state—but don’t let the word fool you, because the brain isn’t at rest at all. Instead, it experiences tonic activity in what’s now known as the DMN

But as two prominent psychologists recently noted, “Not all minds who wander are lost”—in fact, the mind’s wandering is vital to imagination and creative thought.

While mind wandering may hurt our immediate focus on some task at hand, some portion of the time it operates in the service of solving problems that matter for our lives.

task. Mind wandering is valuable because it allows people to disengage from their bad ideas—the ideas that entrenched them in the first place—freeing them to consider new, possibly subtler ideas.