Daydreaming is more than spacing off, it might also have some beneficial effects, according to a study published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts. The researchers found that two specific types, personally meaningful daydreams and fantastical daydreaming, were associated with heightened creativity and inspiration.
“Individuals more often engaging in meaningful daydreaming reported having accumulated more artistic creative behaviors and achievements over their life and reported greater levels of daily inspiration over the course of the experience sampling period. More often engaging in fantastical daydreaming, on the other hand, was predictive of higher quality creative writing in the lab and reports of daily creative behavior,” wrote the authors.
The study recruited 65 college students from the University of California-Santa Barbara. Participants performed the alternate uses task where they had 90 seconds to come up with realistic and unusual uses for a tin can and a cardboard box. This rated divergent thinking, the ability to generate a list of ideas on a topic in a short period of time. The compound remote associates task then tested problem-solving skills. In 30 seconds, participants came up with a fourth word that could make a phrase with three other words.
After both tasks were completed, participants filled out 3 surveys measuring their typical type of daydreams, how often they daydreamed, inattentive behavior, and creative activities unrelated to schoolwork. Participants were then given 20 minutes to complete a creative writing assignment about a character’s who suddenly gained great power. The essays were scored on a participant’s ability to evoke mental imagery, narrative voice, and story originality.
Some participants opted into a follow-up study that sent daily messages via a smartphone app. Questions ranged from if a user was daydreaming, rating their recent daydream, creative behavior, and inspirational motivation.
Results found daydreaming took up 63.44% of a person’s time. Participants who typically engaged in fantastical (supernatural or a different world) and meaningful (something of great value to the person, problem-solving) daydreams showed more creativity. Meaningful daydreams were also associated with more creative achievements in life and higher levels of inspiration.
Interestingly, while planning daydreams (thinking about things to do) were not associated with creative behavior; people who frequently had these daydreams exhibited increased motivation for turning ideas into action.
The study was published, “What types of daydreaming predict creativity? Laboratory and experience sampling evidence”, was authored by Claire M. Zedelius, John Protzko, James M. Broadway, and Jonathan W Schooler.