Letting Minds Wander

Through this daydreaming keynote, psychologist Jonathan Schooler considers the possibilities created from mind-wandering. First, Schooler shows how science is at a risk of hubris by often treating people as objects leading us to disregard the internal thoughts and feelings of those they study. What often goes unstudied and unacknowledged because of this is the ubiquitous form of mental cognition which is mind-wandering. This happens when people are engaged in thoughts that have nothing to do with what is going on.

Schooler demonstrates that people who have a meta-awareness of their own mind-wandering turn out to be especially creative individuals. It is often during these daydreaming periods that ideas occur to us, yet in order to make them useful, people need to notice that it turns into an important source of innovation. This daydreaming keynote exposes that these moments of distraction encourage the creative capacity of the mind.