Introduction: Toward an interdisciplinary science of spontaneous thought

Abstract

Enormous questions still loom for the emerging science of spontaneous thought: what, exactly, is spontaneous thought? Why does our brain engage in spontaneous forms of thinking, and when is this most likely to occur? And perhaps the question most interesting and accessible from a scientific perspective: how does the brain generate, elaborate, and evaluate its own spontaneous creations? The central aim of this volume is to bring together views from neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, phenomenology, history, education, contemplative traditions, and clinical practice in order to begin to address the ubiquitous but poorly understood mental phenomena that we collectively call 'spontaneous thought.' Perhaps no other mental experience is so familiar to us in daily life, and yet so difficult to understand and explain scientifically. The present volume represents the first effort to bring such highly diverse perspectives to bear on answering the what, when, why, and how of spontaneous thought.