The Lost Art of Staring into Space
There was a time when staring into space wasn’t a sign of being “unproductive.” It was simply what we did.
On the bus ride home, forehead against the cool glass, I’d just stare. Out the window, past the houses rolling by, mind wandering freely. No phone. No podcast. Just me and my thoughts, drifting somewhere between the day that had been and the dinner that was waiting.
Back then, those blank, quiet pauses were everywhere. Waiting for someone. Sitting on a bench. Gazing at the stars before bed. We called it boredom, but what it really was, was space.
What really happens when we stare into space
Psychologists call it mind-wandering. Neuroscientists have mapped it to the brain’s default mode network. The part that lights up when we’re not doing anything in particular.
In other words, the brain isn’t switching off when we stare, it’s shifting gear.
A 2014 study by Kucyi & Davis showed that this default mode network (DMN) hums along precisely when we’re daydreaming, knitting together memories and emotions in the background.
Later research in 2020 found that when the DMN is disrupted, mind-wandering decreases. So this drifting state is hard-wired — we’re meant to have these blank moments.
A 2021 paper described the DMN as the place “where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world.” Translation: it’s how we make sense of life.
When we stare into space, we’re integrating everything we’ve seen, done, and felt in peace and quiet. It’s a kind of subconscious housekeeping for the soul.
Why we don’t do it anymore
Then came the screens.
Every pause, every queue, every sigh between tasks now has an app waiting to fill it.
A 2025 paper called “No Such Thing as Free Brain Time” argues that our attention has become a commodity, constantly bought, sold, and hijacked. We rarely let the mind rest long enough to reach that drifting, default state.
Even our eyes miss out: recent Vision Centre statistics show the average adult spends over 7 hours per day looking at screens, leading to shorter attention spans and eye strain. Another study linked excessive screen time with anxiety and ADHD in young people.
No wonder our minds feel overheated. We’ve replaced staring into space with staring into pixels.
What we lose when we never stare
When we give up those unstructured moments, we lose access to one of our greatest creative tools.
A 2018 study in Scientific American found that daydreaming improves social understanding and creative thinking. Other research shows it helps with emotional processing and long-term memory.
Those quiet gaps were where our thoughts stretched out, sorted themselves, and came back with answers. Without them, the mind never truly lands; it just scrolls.
My rediscovery: walking and waiting
These days, I find glimpses of that old peace on long walks. I’ll walk until my thoughts begin to soften, then I sit somewhere quiet, watch the world move, and let the mind catch up with the heart.
It’s not quite the same as the bus window of my twenties, but it’s close.
Even waiting, just waiting has become sacred. No phone. Just the hum of life around me and the space to think again. That’s when the ideas arrive, the clarity returns, the calm drops in.
Why I create the music I do
Yes, I see the irony, I’m talking about escaping screens, and here I am offering something that lives on one. The idea for this post actually came to me while I was watching back some of my own videos, the ones I’d created for others to find calm.
I realised that as I sat there, listening and watching, my mind began to wander. Sometimes it went completely blank to that beautiful, thoughtless drift I hadn’t felt in years.
But my music and videos were never meant to keep you on the screen, they’re meant to free you from it.
Think of them as gentle doorways: digital spaces designed to guide you back into presence.
When it’s too cold to go outside, or the mosquitoes are doing laps around your ankles, or your little ones are sleeping and you can’t slip out to watch the stars, these soundscapes become a soft, safe window to lean on.
Each track is created to hold you in that gentle nowhere-state: a digital exhale for your overworked mind.
And when you’ve found that stillness again, step away. Close your eyes. Stare at the ceiling, the sky, or the world outside your own window. The world is waiting for your gaze.
How to reclaim your stare-space
Put down the phone. (Just for five minutes. The internet won’t miss you.)
Look out the window. Don’t look for anything, just look.
Take a slow walk. No music, no calls, no agenda.
Sit at your destination. Don’t rush off. Let your mind arrive.
Use music intentionally. Play something calming to create a still point within the noise.
Your brain is built for this. Your soul has been waiting for it. The world is waiting for your gaze.
References
Kucyi & Davis (2014). Dynamic functional connectivity of the default mode network tracks day-dreaming. NeuroImage.
Fox et al. (2020). Lesion network mapping demonstrates that mind-wandering is associated with the default mode network. PNAS.
Andrews-Hanna et al. (2021). The default mode network: where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
Marcusson-Clavertz et al. (2022). Sleep well, mind-wander less. Consciousness and Cognition.
Alimov et al. (2025). Screen Matters. arXiv.
Livitz (2025). No Such Thing as Free Brain Time. arXiv.
Fox et al. (2013). Spatial dependency between task-positive and task-negative networks. arXiv.
Poerio (2018). Daydreaming May Help You Become More Socially Adept. Scientific American.
VisionCenter.org (2025). The Impact of Screen Time on Vision.
Arxiv study (2025). Excessive Screen Time and Mental Health in Adolescents.
