TAKING ON HARVARD IN DAY-DREAMING

When it comes to me versus Harvard, odds will always be in favor of Harvard. But maybe not this time.

In a recent New York Times article by Harvard dream researcher Matthew Killingsworth, he reports: "People's minds are elsewhere 47% of the time. Tracking 2200 volunteers on what they were doing at various times of the day, we found that everyone caught daydreaming expressed the same degree of unhappiness with what they were doing at the time."

The research conclusion: "The rate of mind-wandering is lower when engaged in enjoyable activities,"

If I may be so bold, two problems with Harvard here: (1) It shouldn't take expensive research to prove the obvious; day-dreaming is the mind escaping whatever you're doing at the moment (2) if recent research on "lucid dreaming" is valid, perhaps there's such a phenomenon as "lucid day-dreaming"

Lucid dreaming is learning how to achieve a state of partial consciousness during one's dreams, in order to learn from these dreams. For some of us, lucid day-dreaming is pretty much the same thing. With practice, a person can learn how to conjure up pleasant memory-bursts anywhere, anytime. Little dreamscapes of past places, people and events that have given you pleasure.

I don't have 2200 volunteers to rely on here. Just one. My experience has been that conjuring up such little explosions of mental pleasure can afford some of the same rewards as a puff of marijuana or a shot of whiskey. But without the after-effects. The mind is an astonishing instrument which can defy the laws of space and time, swooping us into little scenarios of private pleasure without anyone around us even suspecting.

And while the mind often engages in such occasional flights-of-fancy, the challenge here is to train it to do it on demand. In times of danger, stress, or boredom, this cerebral flying carpet can be snatched for whatever ride you command. Best only when for a few moments at a time, but always lucidly so your consciousness is working enough to draw out the pleasure from the memory-bursts.

It's the old pleasure/pain syndrome of life. Seeking to minimize the pain and maximize the pleasure. And in the case of lucid day-dreaming, it's not only free. It's anytime, anywhere, and with any degree of functional pleasure you need.

Come to think of it -- this is how the celebrated Count of Monte Cristo did it. And look, he ended up getting his very own novel and movie out of it...!