Unintentionally Adrift: A Breakdown of Chronological Thought

Interestingly, Erasmus Darwin’s essay on the subtleties of sleep and Jonathan Schooler’s article concerning the cognitive phenomenon of mind wandering share some uncanny similarities. While we let our minds wander, we often find ourselves several steps removed from the original objective or goal that we had set out on. Schooler make note of the peculiar nature of this phenomenon, explaining how “mind wandering … often occurs without intention or even awareness that one’s mind has drifted.” The term ‘executive control’ is used to describe such intentionality on the part of an individual. An executive decision is how a person’s mind initially arrives at the specific goal that is being undertaken. In the case of mind wandering, however, an individual temporarily loses this capacity for the structured organization of his/her thoughts. This is not, by any means, a rare occurrence in human cognition (at least not in my case), but this discussion of intentionality is a curious one, especially given that Darwin entertains an eerily similar notion in his contemplation of sleep and its accompanying nuances.

            In Darwin’s essay, the “rapidity of the succession of transactions in our dreams” is a point upon which particular focus is applied. Whilst asleep, a person is essentially unable to distinguish between any one point on the timeline of his/her dream and another, “because this act of comparing requires recollection or voluntary exertion.” It is here, on the specific topic of purposeful action versus unconscious meandering, that Schooler’s article becomes intrinsically akin to the essay offered by Darwin. It seems that, whether asleep or conscious yet adrift in thought, the mind is lacking an assertive direction which can cause it to lose any sense of chronology. That chronology can apply either to the setting and action of a dream sequence or to the sequence of conscious but aimless thoughts that occur during the phenomenon of mind wandering, or, perhaps more colloquially, day dreaming.

            Darwin does suggest in his essay that there is some difference to these cognitive activities. “In our waking hours,” he claims, “we are perpetually making this comparison, and by that means our waking ideas are kept confident with each other by intuitive analogy.” That is to say, while awake, we are always allowing new external stimuli to modify our perception of reality. It might be fair to say that Darwin’s thoughts on waking perception are true only insomuch as one’s “intentional pursuit of a goal,” as Schooler puts it, is maintained steadfastly. Without such intentionality of thought, it seems that, asleep or awake, one’s thoughts will drift in such a way that the path between thoughts can scarcely be traced.