What Happens in the Brain While Daydreaming?
The researchers tracked the activity of neurons in the visual cortex of the brains of mice while the animals remained in a quiet waking state. They found that occasionally these neurons fired in a pattern similar to one that occurred when a mouse looked at an actual image, suggesting that the mouse was thinking — or daydreaming — about the image. Moreover, the patterns of activity during a mouse’s first few daydreams of the day predicted how the brain’s response to the image would change over time.
Another downside to having phones (or screens of any kind) always on us is that we’ll no longer daydream.
I wonder if this is why I love the mountains and my cross-country drives: I can’t reach for my phone and thus my mind wanders.