Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Daydream Power!

I'm an unreformed daydreamer ...

Surprise! Daydreaming Really Works The Brain.

"Contrary to the notion that daydreaming is a sign of laziness, letting the mind wander can actually let the parts of the brain associated with problem-solving become active, a new study finds."

I wish I could send this to one teacher in particular, from 6th grade, I remember her saying "where are you now, India?!" Well, for a minute, I wasn't stuck in a room with her under fluorescent lights having to attend to something that didn't interest me and might have been developmentally inappropriate. And I MIGHT have been letting my mind work on real problems! Sure glad I unschool my kid (and myself) nowadays!

Here's to the imagination.

P.S.: this is just a quibble, perhaps, but looking over this post again I see the term "problem-solving" and I recall once seeing the phrase "to problem solve" and wondering what happened to the ability to just solve problems. I google "to problem solve" and there are a ton of hits (literally!). Language evolves despite the efforts of hypercorrect grammarians--perhaps that's an example of institutional counterproductivity. I remind myself that I'm a descriptivist, not a prescriptivist, though my stint as a proofreader in a legal office with The State impressed grammar deeply into my brain. Here's to universal relocaldiversification. Mutually intelligible dialects for all!