By Alex Morris

THE POWER OF DAYDREAMS 

If you get the chance dear Scabber, get yourself down to Tim Walker’s ‘Wonderful Things’ photographic exhibition currently on at the V&A. 

It’s like inhabiting a dream state, somewhere between the Rabbit Hole at Glastonbury and an episode of Black Mirror. 

In the man’s own words; 

“As you tour your imagination, you want to photograph what you are seeing… but the only way you can do this is by really, utterly, passionately, firmly, believing. You are SO very keen to be able to show what you’ve seen that somehow it becomes true, and the picture you end up taking become a souvenir brought back from a daydream.” 

There’s much to be said for inhabiting this dream state more often, especially in the bizarre discipline of advertising in which we find ourselves. 

Manoush Zomorodi make her case for boredom in ‘Bored and Brilliant – How Time Spend Doing Nothing Changes Everything’. 

Boredom, she says, is the gateway to mind-wandering, which helps our brains create those new connections that can solve anything from planning dinner to a breakthrough in combating global warming. It allows for reflection and the ability to greater understand, to make sense of complicated aspects of life. 

Mind wandering, it should be noted, is not to be confused with mindfulness, which, while very useful for combating anxiety and depression, when it comes to creativity she contends, it “turns off the region of the brain involved in daydreaming.” 

Until quite recently psychologists thought that emotions were a result of our thinking. In fact, the last thing we do, is the first. Indeed, it turns out that emotional processing is a function of an instinctive part of our brain that long pre-dates conscious thinking, and therefore has to operate automatically and subconsciously. 

The majority of her gripes are the effect that our modern day smartphone addiction has on the plasticity of our brains (side-note, I’ve got a campaign for road safety brewing which shows we can’t expect to be able to drive and text when we can barely walk and text without smashing into other people). I’m taking up the challenges below so will be back with an update next Scab: 

“CHALLENGE ONE: Observe Yourself First you’ll track your digital habits—and most likely be shocked by what you discover. 

CHALLENGE TWO: Keep Your Devices Out of Reach While in Motion Keep your phone out of sight while you’re in transit—so no walking and texting! 

CHALLENGE THREE: Photo-Free Day No pics of food, kitten, kids—nada. 

CHALLENGE FOUR: Delete That App Take the one app you can’t live without and trash it. (Don’t worry, you’ll live.) 

CHALLENGE FIVE: Take a Fakecation You’ll be in the office but out of touch. 

CHALLENGE SIX: Observe Something Else Reclaim the art of noticing. 

CHALLENGE SEVEN: The Bored and Brilliant Challenge In a culmination of all the exercises, you’ll use your new powers of boredom to make sense of your life and set goals.” 

In a world where no-one pays much attention to any advertising (outside the 4 walls of St Matthew’s Church, Brixton), we’re in the business of seducing the subconscious. 

And how can we seduce it when we don’t give it time to do its thing?