Mind-Wandering between Memory and Creativity

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The Center for Science and Society

What is the relationship between mind-wandering, memory, and creativity?

Seminars in Society and Neursocience

Open to the public, Seminars in Society and Neuroscience bring together leading experts from neuroscience and other disciplines from the natural and social sciences, the arts, and the humanities to discuss big questions around mind, brain, and behavior.

Mind-wandering, or daydreaming, is a spontaneous and seemingly unavoidable aspect of our mind’s life. As first-time meditators, subway riders, and students revising for exams can all testify, human minds tend to wander, and sometimes they do so despite our best efforts to stay on task. Old memories and new realizations often come together in our daydreams, and the results are sometimes startling, even poignant. It is perhaps for this reason that mind-wandering has fascinated writers and artists for centuries, inspiring countless iconic scenes in literature and captivating works of art. Yet, in a society increasingly committed to improving focus and optimizing productivity, mind-wandering runs the risk of being characterized as mere time-wasting and, at worst, pathologized.However, scholars across the disciplines would argue that mind-wandering is an important feature, rather than a bug, of the healthy mind. Over the last two decades, neuroscience has turned its attention to the conscious and unconscious phenomena that animate the mind and brain at rest, with studies exploring the function and importance of spontaneous neural activity. Psychoanalysis has long seen dreams and daydreams as a window into the unconscious mind, but contemporary analysts also emphasize the therapeutic value of mind-wandering. This seminar will bring together the latest brain imaging research with insights from clinical and theoretical psychoanalysis, behavioral and systems neuroscience, and psychology to discuss the complex relationships between mind-wandering, memory, and creativity, and the potential role(s) for mind-wandering in the brain, and for our psyche.Event Speakers<ul><li><a href="https://bpsi.org/who-we-are-2/faculty/adult-program-faculty/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Lawrence Brown</a>, Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute</li><li><a href="https://psych.ubc.ca/profile/kalina-christoff/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Kalina Christoff</a>, Professor of Psychology, University of British Columbia</li><li><a href="https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/joseph-e-ledoux.html" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Joseph E. LeDoux</a>, Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science; University Professor; Professor of Neural Science; Professor of Psychiatry; Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, NYU</li><li>Moderated by <a href="https://presidentialscholars.columbia.edu/directory/valerio-amoretti" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Valerio Amoretti</a>, Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience, Columbia University</li></ul>Event InformationFree and open to the public; RSVP required via Eventbrite. Registered attendees will receive an event link shortly before the seminar begins. This event is part of the <a href="https://presidentialscholars.columbia.edu/content/seminars" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Seminars in Society and Neuroscience</a> series. The Center for Science and Society makes every reasonable effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend a Center for Science and Society event, please contact us at scienceandsociety@columbia.edu or (212) 853-1612 at least 10 days in advance of the event. For more information, please visit the <a href="https://eoaa.columbia.edu/content/accessibility" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">campus accessibility webpage</a>.

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Mind-Wandering between Memory and Creativity

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