EVEN in their teeny-bopping, screaming hey-day, television’s favourite plastic pop group, The Monkees, were not regarded as being among the world’s top philosophers.
How wrong were the intelligensia to dismiss them so harshly. It now appears that their song Daydream Believer holds the crucial key to creativity.
While sleeping perchance to dream is fine on midsummer’s night, if it happens at work then it is most likely to get you an appointment in personnel to receive your P45.
Yet according to scientists, who clearly weren’t asleep on the job, daydreaming is actually good for you because it boosts creativity.
This new research claims that daydreaming is a vital mental tool, as it is a thought process which permits the brain to make new associations and links.
By drifting from its immediate surroundings, the daydreaming mind can float away into abstract thought and free associations.
The end result is human beings’ important ability to think of ideas with no factual basis.
Researcher Teresa Belton became interested in the concept of day dreaming after assessing a set of stories written by primary school children.
She was shocked to find how uninspired most of the stories were, in spite of the children being encouraged to use their imaginations. “The tales tended to be very tedious and unimaginative as if the children were stuck with this very restricted way of thinking,” says Belton, from East Anglia University.
And the culprit is the dreaded goggle-box. Ms Belton concluded the youngsters’ lack of imagination was partly caused by the lack of “empty time”, or periods without any activity or sensory stimulation.
You’ll be stunned and startled to learn that today’s push-button youngsters whenever they got a teeny bit bored simply turned on the telly: the moving images kept their minds occupied.
“It was a very automatic reaction,” she said. Indeed, I know, having been caught more than once by my high-minded offsping cruising shopping channels like QVC (I think that’s what it’s called) just so I could feed my mind with something shiny and sparkly.
“Television was what they did when they didn't know what else to do,” sniffs Ms Belton. Mmm, yes, well one can’t be grappling with the inner meaning of Milton all day.
The difficulty with this behaviour, Ms Belton says, is that it keeps youngsters from daydreaming. By always flicking on the telly children never learn how to use their own imagination as a form of entertainment.
How sad never to imagine how they could hide ‘neath the wings of the bluebird as she sings.
After all, it was Steven Spielberg who said that he dreamed for a living – and he seems to have done all right. So cheer up, sleepy Jean, that’s what it can mean to a daydream believer . . .
