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Comment by dnnddidiej | Hacker News Reader

Indeed I dont daydream anymore.

Wonder if these changes are more like jettisoning luxuries rather than getting dumber.

Father of a ten year old here; I definitely still daydream, and I think I did for most of the time I've been a father - but it's genuinely difficult to remember that sort of thing.

I also still daydream and have well before and after kids. If anything, sleep depravation with a newborn made it more vibrant and integrated.

I wonder if it's some sort of adaptive mechanism, to prevent new sleep-deprived parents from completely losing the plot. Less daydreaming might mean more paying attention to this screaming thing that just fell out of you, and to every predator it's probably attracting from miles around.

The brain switching away from "explore" mode.

Becoming a parent changes a lot of how you think, but to be honest spending time with my kids did more to reignite my explore mode.

Childlike curiosity is slightly contagious. It’s also fun to experience it by proxy through your kids seeing things for the first time.

I mostly stopped daydreaming at some point in my 20s too, after a fairly intense daydreaming life until then. Oh, and no kids yet :) so it could just be "life"

I wonder what people mean when they talk about daydreaming? I think perhaps it's an experience I don't have, or perhaps constantly have? I have pretty strong and untreated inattentive type ADHD so maybe my whole life is a daydream.

When you say you don't daydream, you mean you don't think about non task related things? How do you experience daydreams? Is it a nonvoluntary thing or is it more like actually going to sleep - deliberately entering a contemplative state where your mind wanders?

Yes, this thread made me realize I may not understand what daydreaming is.

Yeah, saying "I don't daydream" sounds like "I don't have thoughts" to me. Am I always daydreaming, or have I never daydreamed?

My interpretation of "daydreaming" is pre-nap or early into a nap (your nap, no kids involved) state where your mind wanders, but the experience is closer to dreaming than to thinking of random stuff.

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