{"id":402,"date":"2020-05-12T15:01:25","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T19:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=402"},"modified":"2020-09-28T21:05:59","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T01:05:59","slug":"whats-going-on-when-nothings-going-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=402","title":{"rendered":"What’s going on. . . when nothing’s going on?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In what passed as the dark ages of neuropsychobiology (certainly for me!), aka five decades ago, wannabe clinical psychologists were deemed to be lacking in the \u2018hard science\u2019 exposure that defined academic psychology. The discipline was polarized into \u2018applied\u2019 (the \u2018us\u2019) and \u2018research\u2019 (the \u2018them\u2019). In efforts to balance this (quite real) disparity, we future clinicians were required to complete a potpourri of four-week \u2018samplers\u2019 designed to plug the leaky dike that was applied psychology \u2014 I\u2019m sure, every bit as torturous for the faculty drawing the short straw as the student abruptly plucked from his soft, touchy-feely, people-based (ugh!) prospectus and thrust into the rigour and precision of signal detection theory and neuropsychology in general. Who knew, long before the DSM-5 was even a glint in anyone\u2019s eye, that brain science would come to define both sides<\/em> of \u2018the great divide\u2019; and that the bespectacled, aloof, \u2018lab guy\u2019 who spent his happiest hours inserting electrodes into the brains of Rhesus monkeys (and his unhappiest attempting to pound a lifetime of research into smug grad students\u2019 brains in one short month!) would be so figural \u2014 in his own esoteric way.\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

A couple of decades after this semester from hell, Quirks and Quarks, a favourite CBC go-to of mine, aired a segment on problem solving. The twist for this research was that \u2018real work\u2019 could be done . . . while we\u2019re asleep<\/em>. In short, instead of just twiddling its Delta wave thumbs, waiting to get back on the waking job and wiling its time away in passively restorative functions, the brain becomes available to a very different kind of work. It becomes a lateral thinking machine! Freed from the constraints and distractions of waking periods, it\u2019s able to roam and speculate in a marvelously free-associative way that opens to possibility, observing out of the corner of its metaphoric eye things, options that would be evaluated and rejected, if noted at all, during waking time. Welcome creativity.<\/p>\n

The \u2018set up\u2019 for this particular segment was being presented with a riddle with instructions to read it over two or three times immediately before retiring. On waking, one was to note any possible solutions \u2014 or more properly \u2018indications of solution\u2019 that may have surfaced over night. In this case, we were asked to consider a man, running in one direction, looking up, and seeing a second man, wearing a mask (how particularly poignant during a pandemic!), and then running back in the direction from which he\u2019d come. Two waking images, from my night\u2019s sleep bubbled up (apologies for the double entendre): an old-fashioned drinking fountain with its ongoing jet of water holding a baseball suspended at the jet\u2019s apex; and a fuzzy awareness of Kelly Gruber, the Blue Jays third basemen at the time, standing on first base. The solution, completely out of reach on retiring, clicked: a baserunner, attempting to steal home from third, sees the catcher with ball in hand; and retreats to third base. Hmm. (Now if I\u2019d only put that long, dry, neuropsych. text under my pillow. . .)<\/p>\n

Another thirty years forward in the time machine. Nicola ran across a fascinating book recently, Rest<\/em>. The author, Alex Pang, makes a well-illustrated and compelling, evidence-based argument for purposeful, scheduled periods in our days and weeks for, as his title suggests . . . resting<\/em>. Far beyond merely fallow time, when we are simply \u2018not working\u2019, the case is made for planning these periods and defending their sanctity, as sources of creativity and inspiration. Focussed, intense, concentrated, and effortful work generally is required for, as one early 20th century author puts it, the \u2018preparation<\/em> and incubation<\/em> of\u2019 ideas, insights \u2014 those things we like to call \u2018aha moments\u2019. The instant of illumination<\/em>, however, when the light bulb actually turns on, often occurs in the unfocussed, daydreaming, reflective times when we are engaged in \u2018restful activities\u2019 \u2014 walking, napping, meditating, . . even sleeping. <\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>Evidently, our brains \u2018knew\u2019 this all along \u2014 just hadn\u2019t shared the wisdom with us until relatively recently. A diffuse, set of neural connections, initially thought to be irritating, difficult to partial out, \u2019background static\u2019 (in early fMRI research) turns out to be a gear the brain kicks into when, well, we\u2019re not doing<\/em> anything! Instead of this activity being a water-treading, idling state, akin to the \u2018stealth mode\u2019 that hybrid vehicles slide into when waiting for the next push on the gas pedal, our brain moves over to the Default Mode Network (DMN). Our \u2018modern\u2019 preoccupation with measuring the usefulness of states \/ activities by the time invested in, the (apparent) output generated by, the \u2018degree of difficulty\u2019 attached to has marginalized these overtly \u2018pointless\u2019 periods as wool gathering at best, wastes of time at worst. Quite lemming-like we become human doings (vs. human beings).
\n\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Seems distributing four to five hours of intense focus over our day, interspersed with planned, safeguarded periods of activity normally associated with leisurely, \u2018unproductive\u2019 pastimes \u2014 even sleep, that most expendable commodity, regularly encroached upon in the name of \u2018getting stuff done\u2019. Finding one\u2019s rhythm is an individual experiment. But the math remains the same: some variation on 2 parts sleep, 1 part intense focus, 3 parts . . . rest<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m trying to compose a Mother\u2019s Day poem. The elements are there for my favored form: haiku. Swallows, their preferred food (insects) \u2014 nature and metaphysical allusion. But no cigar. A good night\u2019s sleep, a little time spent with the DMN and:<\/p>\n

Midges: swarm, shiver,
\nSwallows: dart, swallow \u2014
\nDrawn by feast to this false Spring<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Never going to win any prizes for literature \u2014 but the connections amongst a snowy Sunday morning in May, a hat-tip to an Aesopian fable, and the immediacy and grace of flocks of birds in their well-choreographed dance.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on when nothing\u2019s going on \u2014 evidently quite a lot!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what passed as the dark ages of neuropsychobiology (certainly for me!), aka five decades ago, wannabe clinical psychologists were deemed to be lacking in the \u2018hard science\u2019 exposure that defined academic psychology. The discipline was polarized into \u2018applied\u2019 (the \u2018us\u2019) and \u2018research\u2019 (the \u2018them\u2019). In efforts to balance this (quite real) disparity, we future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}