Daydreaming your Future

Juliette Vazard (University of Zürich)

When: Tuesday, October 6th, 11am in Houston/18.00 in Zurich

Where: https://riceuniversity.zoom.us/j/95097231463?pwd=MJPessWBzOphk7kDax5u6D2NpiB6In.1

Who: Juliette Vazard

What: "Daydreaming your Future"

Abstract
Recent work argues that mind-wandering contributes to rational planning by helping us discover goals, fill in plans, and find new reasons to pursue them (Junker & Grünbaum, 2024). This talk asks whether daydreaming makes a distinct contribution. First, we refine Lawson and Thompson's (2024) account of daydreaming as spontaneous immersive imagination, drawing on work on immersive engagement with fiction. Second, we argue that daydreams are not mere fanciful escapes. Because they engage the affective system and are steered by affect, their content reflects what personally matters to us. Daydreaming might then contribute to planning by helping us discover desires we have not explicitly endorsed, and by providing a rehearsal of certain goal trajectories we might not have deliberately engaged with, updating the overall value of the goal for us.