Is there any benefit to daydreaming?

1

You have won £4m on the lottery – how will you spend it? Before you know it, that’s 10 minutes gone on daydreaming. Since an estimated 30%-50% of our waking time is spent daydreaming, isn’t this worrying? What if your dentist is having that lottery daydream while drilling your teeth?

drill  [dr?l]

n. 訓(xùn)練；鉆孔機(jī)；vt. 鉆孔；訓(xùn)練；

譯： 你中了400英鎊的彩票—你會(huì)怎么花呢?在你知道之前，你已經(jīng)做了10分鐘的白日夢(mèng)了。我們醒著的時(shí)候估計(jì)有30% - 50%是在做白日夢(mèng)，這難道不令人擔(dān)憂嗎?如果你的牙醫(yī)在你打孔的時(shí)候夢(mèng)到了那個(gè)中彩票白日夢(mèng)怎么辦?

2 The solution

Some studies suggest daydreaming makes us unhappy because we are not focusing on what is around us, but are instead thinking about the past or future. A paper in Science concluded that the “wandering mind is an unhappy mind” because you find happiness by living in the moment. But a study this month in the journal Neuropsychologica finds that people whose minds wander the most may score higher on tests that measure intellectual and creative ability.

intellectual [,?nt?'lekt???l ]

adj. 智力的；聰明的；理智的；n. 知識(shí)分子；

譯： 解決方案

一些研究表明，白日做夢(mèng)使我們不快樂(lè)，因?yàn)槲覀儾魂P(guān)注我們周?chē)氖挛?，而是思考過(guò)去或未來(lái)?！犊茖W(xué)》上的一篇論文總結(jié)道，“漫游的頭腦是一種不快樂(lè)的思想”，因?yàn)槟阃ㄟ^(guò)活在當(dāng)下來(lái)找到幸福。但本月在《神經(jīng)心理學(xué)》雜志上發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，那些大腦漫游最多的人在測(cè)試智力和創(chuàng)造力的測(cè)試中得分最高。

3

The researchers measured the brain patterns of more than 100 people while they lay in an MRI scanner, focusing on a dull, stationarypoint for five minutes. Those who said their minds wandered the most scored higher on intellectual and creative ability tests and had more efficient brain systems measured in the MRI machine.

stationary ['ste??(?)n(?)r?]

adj. 固定的；靜止的；n. 不動(dòng)的人；駐軍

wander['w?nd?]

vi. 徘徊；漫步；離題；vt. 游蕩，漫游

譯： 研究人員測(cè)量了100多人的大腦模式，讓他們躺在核磁共振掃描儀上，專(zhuān)注于一個(gè)枯燥、靜止的地方5分鐘。那些說(shuō)自己的大腦漫游最多的人在智力和創(chuàng)造力測(cè)試上得分更高，核磁共振成像機(jī)顯示，他們的大腦系統(tǒng)也更加高效。

4

An example of being efficient at mind-wandering is if you can zone in and out of conversations or tasks and then naturally tune back in without missing important points or steps. There is a distinction between mind-wandering, where you think of things other than the task you are doing, and daydreaming when, for example, you are on a train doing nothing and detach yourself from the world around you.

detach [d?'tæt?]

vt. 分離；派遣；使超然

distinction  [d?'st??(k)?(?)n]

n. 區(qū)別；差別；特性；榮譽(yù)

譯： 如果你能在談話或任務(wù)中隨意撤出，然后又能自然地調(diào)整回來(lái)，而不遺漏任何關(guān)鍵要點(diǎn)或步驟，那么說(shuō)明你在走神時(shí)大腦效率很高。在走神的過(guò)程中，你會(huì)想到其他事情，而不是你正在做的事情。例如，你在火車(chē)上無(wú)所事事，把自己從周?chē)氖澜缰蟹蛛x出來(lái)去做白日夢(mèng)。

5

Christine Godwin, the lead author of the latest study from the School of Psychology at Georgia Institute of Technology, says that if you are focusing on difficult tasks, your performance will drop if your mind wanders. “But when tasks are easy and you are doing something that’s not demanding, people who have high cognitive ability can let their minds wander because it does not affect their performance.

demanding [d?'mɑ?nd??]

adj. 苛求的；要求高的；吃力的

performance  [p?'f??m(?)ns]

n. 性能；表演；執(zhí)行；表現(xiàn)

譯： 喬治亞理工學(xué)院(Georgia Institute of Technology)心理學(xué)學(xué)院(School of Psychology)最新研究的主要作者克里斯汀·戈德溫(Christine Godwin)說(shuō)，如果你把注意力集中在困難的任務(wù)上，如果你的思維渙散，你的表現(xiàn)將會(huì)下降。“但是當(dāng)任務(wù)很簡(jiǎn)單，你做的事情并不苛求的時(shí)候，那些具有高認(rèn)知能力的人可以讓大腦走神一會(huì)，因?yàn)檫@并不會(huì)影響他們的變現(xiàn)。

6

You may be thinking about upcoming goals or problem-solving and come up with a solution. These are some of the positive attributes with mind-wandering.” What mind-wandering seems to be best at is coming up with new solutions to old problems. So, it’s not a waste of time at all.

attribute [?'tr?bju?t]

n. 屬性；特質(zhì)

vt. 歸屬；把…歸于

譯： 你可能正在考慮著即將到來(lái)的目標(biāo)、思考著如何去解決問(wèn)題。這些都是大腦走神帶來(lái)的一些好處。“走神”似乎是解決老問(wèn)題的新方法。所以，這根本不是浪費(fèi)時(shí)間。