What is daydreaming?

[RemoteVicinity]

The question may seem silly, but I actually find it quite difficult to decide what's daydreaming and what's not. I've recently started doing prospective memory training, and that's what lead to this question. Yesterday, according to the exercise in the book I'm reading, I was going to do a state test the next time I was daydreaming. I found this terribly difficult because I didn't really know what would classify as daydreaming and what was just my mind wandering off a bit. E.g. I often think profoundly about what I'm going to do some other time whilst in class which makes me less/not aware of my surroundings and what's going on at the moment. How would you best describe daydreaming?

[Sageous]

How would you best describe daydreaming? I'd say you already did, twice. A daydream really can be nothing more than your mind "wandering off a bit," or as much as thinking "profoundly about what I'm going to do some other time whilst in class which makes me less/not aware of my surroundings and what's going on at the moment." I'm sure experts here could come up with more words, even prettier ones, describing daydreaming, but it really comes down to these descriptions. In other words, no worries, you've got a handle on the concept!

[RemoteVicinity]

I'm just thinking, doesn't it involve being more absent from this reality? I often just think (daydream) about a thing I'm going to do in the near future and how to do it. Considering it being called a daydream, shouldn't it involve imagining unnatural or impossible things?

[VexedVagabond]

They are crazy imaginative episodes of funky thought.

[Puffin]

From my own experiences, my daydreams tend to be self-induced; I will simply close my eyes as if sleeping and initiate some sort of scenario - usually nonsensical or unrealistic, like something from a movie. So IMO, daydreams are a state in which one's attention to the outside world is decreased, and attention to their mental processes or 'internal vision' (what you're seeing behind your eyelids, or in your mind's eye) is increased. Sometimes if I'm having an intense daydream, which I'm 100% in control of (not like a dream, where I might not have good control), I also get physical effects. My heart rate might increase a little or I might squint my eyes.

[Ctharlhie]

My daydreams range from a lapse of attention in day to day activities, through to hypnagogia-like incoherent streams of consciousness, dreamy imagery, sometimes if I'm really tired even a scene and narrative that I almost completely forget when I regain awareness. I find it a lot more difficult to intentionally induce daydreams, I seem to have to let my sub-conscious take control.