Daydream Believers

One of the first practitioners of productive daydreaming may have been Archimedes. In the third century BC, the Greek scientist and inventor was taking a bath--another technique modern daydreamers use to relax and free the mind--when he suddenly grasped a method for determining whether a gold crown was alloyed with a cheaper metal.

More recently, Sigmund Freud wrote extensively and influentially about the psychological importance of dreams, including daydreams. Synectics began investigating daydreaming as an invention and problem-solving tool about 40 years ago, Barrett says, after consultants noticed famous inventors often reported making key discoveries while their minds roamed in relaxed states.

Daydreaming is appreciated as a valuable tool in other arenas as well. Visualization, for instance, in which athletes essentially daydream their own superlative performances, is widely used to enhance sports proficiency. Despite its history, however, daydreaming is in poor repute today with many.

"Daydreams are often seen as a waste of time," says Diane Barth, a New York City psychotherapist and author of Daydreaming: Unlock the Creative Power of Your Mind (Viking Penguin). "Most of us have to train ourselves to pay attention to them."

Yet many of us daydream, and productively, too, says Barrett. "A lot of people say they have their best ideas at night, when they get up in the morning, in the shower or during a long taxi ride," he says. "Basically [when] people are in a semi-trance state, their mind is free to wander and come up with new ideas."

This article was originally published in the May 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Daydream Believers.