Episode 8: Day Dreams

Friends and family, real and virtual, we’re back after too long of a delay with our next episode of Brains for Dinner! We hope it was worth the wait.We start this episode by sharing some of the big things that have been keeping us busy these past two months, including a series of milestones for Andrea: turning 50, passing his naturalization test, and giving a kick-ass talk (as part of his promotion to Professor) about using cognitive models to understand important real-world problems.We also touch on SXSW, where Chantel presented about the role of AI in scientific discovery, and both of us got to meet some of our personal heroes and sheroes!And let’s not forget our enthusiastic recommendation of our friend Tommy Wood’s new book, The Stimulated Mind, which you can get here! This book is changing the way I treat my brain which is a pretty big deal, since I’m not really a “because they said so” type of learner. Great work Tommy!Also, since it came up in the date questions, I feel compelled to share a few pictures of the tiny Pterodactyl we are raising. They are So. Cute.And I promise, we talk about brains (and Jason Momoa) as well. The topic of this episode is daydreams and mind wandering. You can find a link to our own paper on the topic here. We also discuss data from a paper suggesting that mind wandering is often related to negative moods which you can find here, and one that suggests a reduction in mind-wandering associated with dementia (click here to read more). If you’ve ever wondered what daydreams are for, or wished you could direct them toward different topics (more fantasy less trauma), we hope you’ll enjoy learning what we understand about why our brains do what they do! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chantelpratphd.substack.com