Do you feel that your dreams are weirder than usual? Do you feel like your mind keeps drifting away to other times and places? Welcome to Pisces New Moon, the last new moon of the astrological year.

Last night I dreamt that I arrived at a beautiful astral temple. The people at the temple were going to perform a Buddhist ceremony that was aimed to destroy Saturn’s rings and reconstruct them, so that the world would be sane again. They asked me to join, and I asked how it was going to be. They said “slow, very slow”, and I answered, “no thanks”. When I woke up, I laughed as this is a typical Pisces New Moon dream.

What did you dream that was weird? Please share it with me.

When we have a lot of Pisces in the sky, like now, dreams are not restricted to our sleep time, they are also a significant part of our daytime. We tend to daydream more often, as our mind tends to wander.

In many of my posts, I encourage us to define our dreams and stay focused on achieving them. Focus refers to deliberate, intentional thoughts, through which we create, invent, solve problems, analyze situations, and make decisions. But there is another cognitive process which creates unintentional thoughts. Our mind acts like a computer’s operating system which works 24/7 and keeps producing thoughts and dreams, without our direction or intention.

Our unintentional thoughts, or mind wandering, are the thoughts that Buddhist and yogic practices aim to quiet. Yoga calls them vrittis, the constant fluctuation of the mind.

Researchers claim that our mind wanders around 50% of our waking time. It wanders when we learn, read, listen, drive and work. When we let our mind wander too much, we are not present or engaged with what we do or with the people who we spend time with. We don’t remember what we read or listened to; we don’t absorb the information communicated to us. When we act absentmindedly, we make mistakes that in some cases, can be deadly, and in others, just annoying. On top of that, research connects mind wandering to a feeling of unhappiness.

With that, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, state that the fact that mind wandering takes up so much of our waking hours strongly suggests that it can be beneficial under the right circumstances.

Pisces is here to teach us the benefits of mind wandering. If we are always focused, there is no time for creative inspiration. Some of the greatest ideas popped up in the minds of scientists during times of mind wandering. One anecdote tells how Isaac Newton came up with the law of gravity while sitting under an apple tree. Archimedes made a remarkable discovery that led up to the principle of buoyancy, while taking a bath.

A group of scientists at UC Berkeley University found that when our mind is focused, we have P3 type brain wave, and when our mind wanders, we have alpha type brain wave. Alpha waves indicate a relaxed state which allows us to solve problems that we could not solve when we were focused. Wandering brings up new information, ideas, and thoughts that we could not reach any other way. For example, in my teen years, I found a solution to a challenging mathematical problem only when I allowed myself to let go of it and go to sleep. The solution came to me in my dream.

Most of us do not allow time for mind wandering. We are always busy doing something, and when we don’t, we consume other people’s ideas and creations. Wandering means allowing our mind to flow freely.

I try to dedicate at least half an hour a day to mind wandering. This is when my most brilliant thoughts and inspiring ideas come to me. I can dare say that most of my book is based on concepts that were conceived during these precious mind wandering moments. During my mind-wandering time, I notice things about my son’s mood and behavior, or things my son had told me, that I might have overlooked during the busyness of the day. These things require my  tending and there is a good chance I wouldn’t have paid attention to them without mind wandering.

During this new moon in Pisces, designate a special time to allow your mind to wander. Mind wandering requires no action. You are asked to sit and do nothing, not even meditate, because even meditation is doing something. You can take a bath, or sit under a tree, but the idea is not to have a conversation, not to consume information, not to be entertained, and certainly not to focus your mind on anything.  

I’d love to know if you are an expert mind wanderer or if this is something you’ve never tried before, and how does it feel for you to let your mind wander.

Wishing you a wonderful week,

With love,

Yael