From The New York Times Science section June 29, 2010.
At long last, the doodling daydreamer is getting some respect.
Paste this Link in your browser to read all the article. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/science/29tier.html
In the past, daydreaming was often considered a failure of mental discipline, or worse. Freud labeled it infantile and neurotic. Psychology textbooks warned it could lead to psychosis. Neuroscientists complained that the rogue bursts of activity on brain scans kept interfering with their studies of more important mental functions.
....During waking hours, people’s minds seem to wander about 30 percent of the time, according to estimates by psychologists who have interrupted people throughout the day to ask what they’re thinking. If you’re driving down a straight, empty highway, your mind might be wandering three-quarters of the time, according to two of the leading researchers, Jonathan Schooler and Jonathan Smallwood of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Dave: As a person attempting to meditate I found the estimate that the mind wanders 30% of the time a bit conservative. This is interesting work, from a western point of view. I think meditators have known about this all along. Stopping a wandering mind and concentrating is a lot of what meditating is all about. I think the researchers could benefit from looking into meditation.
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