Spencer and Peter explore how daydreams—like Peter’s childhood mental decoupling or Spencer’s "time-compressed" conflict simulations—act as rehearsals for future decisions, refining wit or problem-solving under stress. Studies link excessive daydreaming to compulsive disorders, while violent fantasies raise legal concerns if detected in digital scans. Though most scenarios remain unrealized, miscalibrated rehearsals could fuel revenge or harmful behavior, yet for many, daydreams sharpen creativity and intuition by pushing beyond current reality. [Automatically generated summary]
The podcast would have a better name if they weren't all taken.
So I'm Spencer.
I'm here today with a special guest today.
Peter, how are you?
Well, I think it fits to our topic, if I say living the dream.
Oh, yes, of course, living the dream.
And of course, it does fit the topic we're going to talk about.
It's a little odd for this podcast, but I promise it's relevant.
Daydreams and fantasies.
And more specifically, a question.
Are daydreams actually rehearsals for future moments in our lives?
So I have this idea that, I mean, while we daydream, is our brain actually trying to refine our future reactions to decisions to streamline and improve those decisions?
If we daydream about things of a specific type, say daydreams about committing acts of violence, does that mean we are more likely to be making decisions that are violent in the future?
Or the other way around, if we are trying to be less violent, if we daydream about an outcome or whatever that's less violent than the one, is that an intentional thing on some level for us?
I think that's a really interesting question.
And we're here to talk about it right now.
So Peter, what's your first take on this?
Well, at first, let me introduce a little bit about myself and what I'm my experience with daydreaming.
And that basically started in my childhood.
And it was a way to deal with things that are out of my control or with negative things in my life as a child.
And it was a tool actually to get a little bit decoupled from reality.
But on the other hand, it sometimes showed me some ways out of difficult situations as well for the future.
Right.
So you had a level of escapism there, right?
Absolutely.
I agree to that.
Yes.
That makes sense.
The things you were specifically thinking about in those moments were things that perhaps were likely to come up for you again.
Am I reading that right?
Yes, it was in a way, it was preparation for something that could happen in the future in a certain scenario where the outcome would be different than it was in the past for me, where I was looking pretty bad or compromised.
Right.
When I first thought about this topic, I kind of thought to myself, I mean, everyone's had those moments where you're not as witty as you'd like to be.
You're thinking of something that someone said to you in some past moment, maybe earlier that day or the day before or something, and you're thinking about, oh, that would have been something very witty to say at that moment.
I could have said this and it would have been so much more funny or effective or really put them in their place maybe, or everyone would have laughed.
And everyone has those moments where they think back and they think, oh, well, maybe that's something I could have said.
And I thought to myself, is this my brain's way of trying to practice being witty?
What do you think?
Is this a thing that your brain just does?
Well, it's certainly an exercise, but the problem with all these daydreaming scenarios is, especially as a youth, where it's less complicated than what you practice nowadays when you're daydreaming.
But all these different scenarios, they are certainly not turning into reality for, I would say, 90% of the time.
It could be that they turn into reality.
And I think, personally, I think that's what you call a deja vu moment at this time.
If something like that, that you daydream before, and this scenario comes up in a way when you have this feeling of a deja vu.
That's what I think when a scenario is coming and the outcome is exactly the same as you dreamed it up.
But for 90% of the time, I think it's not true.
But I think this daydream is preparing you for future, let's say, conversations, incidents, events a little bit better.
And the more scenarios you have in your toolbox for future events, the better it is for you.
Right.
When I think about things like intuition, for example, intuition is sort of happening entirely in the background by design.
But there are some people who think that we can influence the way our intuition calculates things and makes decisions.
There's actually a huge number of like very small things that are happening in the intuitive place in our brain.
There's things that by nature, we have very poor intuition about, like the volume of cups, for example, is notably humans are terrible at this, looking at two different cups and trying to determine which of the two has more volume.
You pour from one to the other and all of a sudden you're overflowing.
Everyone goes, oh, I didn't expect that at all.
But you can gain experience, of course, with cups of different shapes and sizes, and you can get, you know, very good at this thing.
It wasn't because you were born with it or your brain was naturally good at that.
It was because you sort of exposed it to the right data that let your brain come up with the right calculation then.
And so getting into a sort of an evolutionary perspective here, if you are an organism that is making decisions and those decisions are improving your life, being able to make those decisions faster is a system that's going to be better for you.
And therefore, decisions that are very complex are very difficult to make very, very quickly.
But if you rehearse those decisions in advance, it might be possible that you are, that your brain is coming up with a way of time compressing those split second decisions that you're going to need in some future moment.
I think there's a reason why a lot of people daydream about conflicts, for example, about moments of high stress and that sort of thing.
It's because our brain is picking those moments as a way to, it's almost like a post-mortem on that event to try to say, you know, if we were going to do this again, how would we do it better?
Because we might come up with a situation like this again and we might need to do it better because we could get a better outcome.
And a better outcome is always better.
No one disagrees with that.
What do you think about this evolutionary take on this?
That this might be part of the programming, like a feature?
I think it's absolutely true.
And I would call it, it's more or less on the creativity side of human beings because you create something new out of that.
And I think daydreaming is a powerful tool to actually introduce creativity to certain tasks and to certain events in the future.
And on a more practical way, I would think that the ideas that you generate out of a daydream, for me, it's a process that's unconscious.
I'm daydreaming and I'm coming up with some solutions, whether they are completely science fiction, fantastic, or not real at all.
It doesn't matter, but it helps my conscious business to get an idea and to be creative and get to some real world solutions.
It doesn't matter how fantastic my daydream was.
Most of the time, these daydreaming fantasies, for instance, are circling around practical things.
You're talking about socializing, for instance.
You're talking about certain situations in your work life.
Certain technical problems as well, I think a lot of about in daydreaming.
For instance, what would happen if I could develop a device like that?
And if I have a device like that developed, which is a complete fantasy product, but how would I display, let's say, some measurements of this device for other people?
And one of the idea for me that came out of it was imaging some curves, for instance.
And that was basically a function of me daydreaming up a complete fantasy.
But intuition did lead to a creation and to an idea that actually materialized in the real world.
Yeah.
Most conversations about imagination are that it's useless because it's not practical.
There's certainly a lot of things that are just imagined that aren't practical, but it doesn't even matter.
Like we are able to imagine such a great volume that it wouldn't even matter if only 2% of it was practical and useful.
That would still be 2% more than we would have without that amount of imagining.
And imagination is taking up so little of our overhead that we should welcome this instead of just dismissing it all.
Because if we dismiss actually all of it, we'll lose that 2% if that's the percentage, right?
Yeah, there's a famous quote of one of the German chancellors that was Helmut Schmidt in the 90s.
And he basically said, if I have visions, I go to a doctor.
So when you're looking at the effect of daydreaming itself and you're looking at the scientific community about that, and so there's certainly a certain amount of negativity involved with that as well, because some people just think that's not efficient and it distracts you from the real task.
But at the same time, it can have a good outcome in the future for certain tasks.
So for some people in our modern world, it's not a good thing to daydream, but for people that actually can use it and turn it into a practical invention, it's something that is absolutely useful.
So you've said a word a couple of times here that is kind of, it's too linked to this to not mention it.
It's fantasies themselves.
And I consider daydreams and fantasies to be like occurring in the same space in your brain, but they're sort of different.
Kind of like how Western movies are different than comedies, but they both come from the same place.
Hollywood makes them, they appear on the screen.
Fantasies are necessarily unrealistic.
They are always pushing the envelope for us.
In our modern age, this is kind of usually seen as like sexual fantasies, but fantasies of every type, fantasies of violence, fantasies of survival in extreme conditions, or fantasies of the next some drug dealers or drug users, rather, they have a fantasy about the next high they'll get and it's way higher than all the other highs.
You get the comical expression of the pothead from the 70s who's going to make a bong that's actually a whole motorbike and he fires a thing up and drives it down the road while he's getting high.
You know, I mean, this is how fantasies work is that they're always outside the realm.
They're like the rainbow and it's there.
You can get some idea of it, but you can never reach it.
And what we've seen in our modern life is that anytime people reach a level that match their fantasies, their brain has already come up with a new fantasy that vastly supersedes it.
So it might be that as a kid, you have a fantasy about owning a Lambi.
But if you ever reached a point in your life where you owned a Lambhini, before you ever got it, before we ever got the keys and stepped into it, you would already have a fantasy about, you know, some other fancy car or a bigger garage to put it in or more cars or whatever along the lines of what you had.
Maybe it's the same car, but it's modified in some extra special way that's even better than what it is to make it more unique than all the other cars.
I mean, this is always how it works.
And I think that along the same lines as daydreams, the fantasies are there to keep us pushing for something more.
What do you think of this idea?
Well, I don't think you can separate fantasy and the imagination that you have in a daydream on a more practical level.
I think it's a floating target.
Okay.
It's going from, okay, I'm dreaming something up here in my daydream on a practical level that is still in the first place out of reach, but it could be realistic.
And then we have, on the other hand, pure fantasy.
Like you said, you're dreaming about a car and a car is a more practical approach to it, because even a Lamborghini is sort of reachable.
They exist in the world.
They exist.
But I mean, why not going up onto the level of a spaceship?
That's what you would say, okay, that's now pure fantasy because I would like to travel faster than light in this spaceship.
So in between, there are many levels of fantasy and the more practical thing.
And so I think it's a floating target.
And the fantasy imaginations are part of the daydreams as well, and not something completely different.
The other interpretation of this daydream is, I mean, you could say it's some form of trance as well.
And when you're talking about total fantasies as well, that's when you sleep in your dream.
Then your body and your brain comes up as a total fantasy world that doesn't have any relationship with the real world.
And that's the fantasy world you probably are talking about.
Yeah.
Well, no, actually.
I mean, dreams to me are radically distinctly different than either daydreams or fantasies.
Yeah, they are.
They are.
At no point in my dream do I ever wonder how I got there, for example.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I might be in a courthouse, but at no point do I think, you know, two minutes ago, I was just lying in my bed.
What were all the steps between there and here?
And at no point am I confused about the fact that I'm in a courthouse?
And if the courthouse then changes instantly to being in a Lamborghini, I'm not confused at all that just a moment ago I was in a courthouse.
Somehow there's this other thing that's happening there that's disassociating me from my real self in a way that allows me to not be confused in any of those moments.
But in a daydream or like a fantasy, I am me and I know I'm me.
And if I'm going from one place to another in that spot, I want to have steps that lead from one place to the other.
And it's a lot more what might be called logistically sound.
Yeah, it's causal because you're going from one step to the other and you are as a person are aware that you are a person moving in a world.
Right.
Whereas in a dream, I might easily be a ghost.
I'm not even aware of my own body most times.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's absolutely free floating.
It's a free floating fantasy and it's subconscious.
While the daydream is conscious and it involves yourself as a person most of the time, maybe sometimes not.
Depends on your daydream.
But even when you're talking about your fantasies, so what would you like to do?
You would like to draw a line between pure fantasy in a daydream or just say pure fantasy and completely unrealistic fantasies and images can be part of a daydream.
Maybe I'm trying to draw too concrete a line between these two things.
Because for me, when I think too much about them, they're doing different things.
And maybe that's my problem is that I'm thinking too much about them.
To me, fantasies seem to be about driving me to get to new things and to reach new levels, whereas daydreams seem to be more like a mechanic just working on the car and making sure it's working to its utmost level.
But it might be that they are as similar as two different genres of movies that sometimes overlap.
There are Westerns that are meant to be humorous.
They're meant to be comedies.
And there's comedies that are just set in Western times.
And this is, you know, where you draw the line between these things is very difficult.
I watched a movie called Shanghai Noon once.
It was at once a comedy and a Western and a martial arts movie.
And no one knows where to put it, right?
And it might be that I'm thinking too deeply on this or I'm trying to generalize too much between these things.
And that's confusing the point.
That could easily be.
Yeah, it's as people that have a lot to do and know much about science itself, it's always a try to put even things like imaginary daydreams into a framework.
Yeah.
And that's where it's probably going to get difficult because we are talking about unreal things.
Yeah.
And to put a framework around that and what actually the outcome is out of a daydream, I don't think you can put that into a framework and say, okay, this is the limit.
I'm talking to use your mechanical picture there.
I limit myself in my daydreams to get actually a solution to a real problem.
And that's actually, I don't think that's any more daydream because now you are into a territory where you say, okay, I am here to think about a solution and not just let my spirit flow freely in a daydream.
And that's not anymore, in my opinion, it's not anymore daydream or a fantasy in your daydream.
That's something you would do as a solution process.
Problem solving.
Problem solving.
So troubleshooting, something like that.
And I don't think that's the reason for daydreaming.
The daydreaming is more about getting into some sort of fantasies that are still attached to a real world pitcher and get some solutions out of it that you never thought about it before.
And that's when it's coming from your intuition.
And I think that's initiated by these daydreams that you are thinking outside the framework of solution solving processes.
You are free flow.
That's why I call it trance, for instance.
You let it free float.
And if it's working out good, you're coming up with an idea or a creative process that you never thought about it before.
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things.
I mean, the buzzword in problem solving now is thinking outside the box.
I think all outside the box thinking is attached to imagination in some way, without a doubt.
Yeah, and I think that's part of a daydream.
That's where you where you need that.
And it also helps you in certain situations.
For me, for instance, it helps me in certain situations when you're in extremely boring situations for a long time.
Like driving?
Yeah, you just can wander about with your mind and thinking about something completely out.
Dire driving is some of these things as well.
And I sometimes just catch myself and drifting away because, I mean, it's you're an autopilot, really.
Yeah.
Extremely boring task.
And that's one of the things I talked before and you called it escapingism.
Yeah.
And that's what it is.
And it can help you even to survive certain situations.
There's been one or two times that I've read about it's usually men who have had fantasies about, for example, killing their wives and then wrote those down into notebooks.
And then those notebooks were found.
And then there was great big hullabaloo about it.
And obviously it is, we wonder what's happening there and whether the spouse is really safe with this person.
But what always seems to come out of it is that these are, it said that these are just fantasies and that this person has committed no actual crime of any kind.
And they haven't ever made any action to enact any of these things.
They're just things they think about.
I should try to find one of these links to one of these stories for the notes for the show.
But what do you think of this phenomenon that occasionally happens where you get someone who has an extremely violent daydream or fantasy, they write it down and then they're found.
Is this a thing that we should be concerned with legally or morally?
Or what's your thoughts on this?
Well, I think it's a big problem in times of, let's say, border crossing and scanning certain people crossing the border and having, let's say, electronic media with them, like a laptop, whatever, you have a phone or something on that.
And there are notes on these phones that exactly saying something like that.
And so that was before probably your diary where you write it down, your private journal that no one can seize.
And the thing is that, well, it doesn't matter what fantasy it is and you write down, it can be sexual, it can be very violent.
But most of the time, these fantasies are not lived out at all.
They existing only in our mind and suddenly on paper, suddenly in an electronic media.
And I think that's where it turns into a problem because potentially it can put you on a list.
Sure.
Absolutely.
And if something like that happens, then and you have to prove that it's only a fantasy, it was a violent fantasy, but someone else has to believe that.
Yeah, right.
And then it's going to get really, really complicated.
So yes, I think it could be the case that it is a problem.
And maybe some of these fantasies, for instance, that we see lived out, let's say the latest one in Texas, for instance, I'm pretty sure that started as a fantasy or a daydream.
Yeah, maybe.
It could be, yeah.
So somewhere this idea was introduced.
Right.
And I'm certainly, I'm almost sure that whoever did it, he lived through this action before he actually did it.
That makes sense.
And so, yeah, I think it's a big problem.
And it could be someone could turn it into reality.
And there's another aspect to this daydreaming part as well.
I looked at some statistics about that, for instance.
And excessive daydream is linked to a higher than normal percentage of compulsive disorder.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
So excessive daydreaming can have some implements on real life as well, and not in a good way as well.
I mean, if we think that daydreams are the mind's way of trying to tweak the engine for a more immediate decision at some moment, then that sort of fits, doesn't it?
That excessive daydreaming and compulsive behavior, the immediate decision-making process that happens there, that those kind of go together.
Yeah, absolutely.
I agree.
So, so when you had your question, when you introduced the topic and you had the question about whether daydreaming can introduce something in real life, action in real life.
Yeah.
And for a certain percentage of our population on this planet, I think it's certainly the case.
I think in closing, I think we should recognize always that your decisions in any moment are partly the sum of all the things that have happened to you before and all the things you've thought to do before.
And also, sometimes some amount of randomness can seem to occur, but everything has a cause inside us, even if we don't know what that cause is.
And I think that if we want to direct the world toward one place, at least our decisions in the world toward one place, we owe it to ourselves and the people around us to direct our daydreams toward those things too.
If we are in daydreaming, tweaking our software to push it to one place or another, then we should think about doing that while we're daydreaming.
We should think about the kinds of daydreams we have and what sorts of things outcomes we'd actually like in life.
I don't see any problem with someone daydreaming about trying to be more witty, for example.
But if it's wit that's meant specifically to scar another person, maybe you should think about that before you do it, right?
It's your intentions in the daydream moment might also matter as part of it.
And if you have those daydreams, you should also recognize that you haven't made a real decision to scar someone that way yet.
If you have a daydream about something violent, you haven't made a decision to be violent towards someone yet.
And you still have a chance in some future moment to not be violent or to not hurt people.
Those are all important things to remember.
I agree to that totally.
And the other thing I would like to make a remark about this daydreaming topic is I think it's a very positive, powerful force that we have in our toolbox, in our brain that can lead to really good inventions, ideas, creativity.
But for a minority, it might not work that way.
And that's basically with everything what we find if it comes to decision making and what leads to a decision making.
If your toolbox daydreaming is wrongly calibrated, then the outcome will be negative.
Yeah.
So luckily, it's not for most of all the people.
It's not an issue at all, but for some it is.
And that's where it's going to get borderline, dangerous, not good.
The outcome is negative.
And I really don't have a solution to that as well.
For me personally, daydreaming is a powerful tool to be inventive, creative, and moving forward in my life.
For other people, it might not be the case.
It might turn into a spiral downwards if you're overthinking what happened to you and it can be a negative thing.
So for me, it's most likely, okay, I've got a negative experience.
But daydreaming for me is more about, okay, in this situation, I could have done that bad and it would have been a positive outcome.
But for some people, they're staying in the negative spiral.
I would think that that negative spiral versus a more positive outcome has almost everything to do with desire for revenge versus just desire for what's best for themselves, because revenge is almost never actually what's best for themselves.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, in literature, there are so many quotes about revenge and what you can read on, let's say, on the internet as quotes about revenge or something on that.
So, yeah, of course.
But if someone is so deeply hurt that you can't get him out of this spiral of revenge and daydream about killing, and then yeah, it can happen.
Why not?
Okay, well, I think I'm gonna wrap it up there.
And maybe another episode we'll do about revenge.
Yeah, that's yeah, that could be a nice, nice topic as well.
And I think everybody at one time of their life just thought about revenge, that's for sure.