A FABULOUS article by Christina Frank!
Call someone a daydreamer and you may as well just call them a flake, a space cadet, or a slacker.
Why are we so down on daydreaming?
Many years ago I had a falling-out with a girlfriend that proved so painful, I can hardly talk about it today. My friend (let's call her Mary) was a colorful television personality and had the world at her feet. She was engaged to a handsome European, and her face was plastered across the newspapers. I was working for 60 Minutes at the time, and we often met for lunch. Then one day her show was canceled and she asked me - casually, as though it didn't really matter...
"Daydreaming is looked upon negatively because it represents 'non-doing' in a society that emphasizes productivity," says John McGrail, a clinical hypnotherapist in Los Angeles. "We are under constant pressure to do, achieve, produce, succeed."
But daydreaming can be beneficial in many ways and, ironically, can actually boost productivity. Plus, it's something almost everyone does naturally. Psychologists estimate that we daydream for one-third to one-half of our waking hours, although a single daydream lasts only a few minutes...
Daniel Ridgway Knight "Daydreaming"
Daniel Ridgway Knight "Daydreaming"
