When was the last time you were completely absorbed in the task at hand? The most recent time I recall was during an afternoon dog walk, wandering the park instead of following our typically tight schedule. I should mention this was after a sleepless night. I find myself sometimes thankful for exhaustion since it eliminates the worried thoughts and distractions that accompany most of my daily activities. Usually on the first day or two of my period, I can access this. I am simply mopping the floor, or enjoying a meal I’ve cooked, without speeding ahead to the next thing. And can you even imagine being absorbed like this when not executing a task? Simply sitting and taking in the world?

“When was the last time you were completely absorbed in the task at hand?”

This is where reverie comes in. While it is defined variously as daydreaming, being lost in thought, and being absorbed in a task, each way you look at it offers a refreshing reprieve from our normal patterns of thought. Instead of trying to control the world with our worries, reverie offers another option that is somewhere between thought and not; between myself and the world; between productivity and aimlessness.

I started digging into some theories of reverie, and I found that it’s considered essential for raising children and creative work — and, beyond that, it might even offer us a new framework for our experience of day-to-day life. Here’s what some great thinkers of reverie have to offer us, and how you might be able to achieve it (sans exhaustion!).

Two types of reverie

Maternal Reverie

In our infancy — before we speak, before we separate from our mother — we’re wholly dependent on our environment to keep us alive. That environment, yes, includes the air, light, and so on that surround us — but also the caregiver herself. As soon as we emerge from the womb, we require another holding environment that can meet our needs. This time, still helpless to find our own nourishment and shelter, we have to hope that there’s a figure who is attuned enough to us that we’re given everything we need to survive.

D.W. Winnicott, a British psychoanalyst who worked from the 1930s–1970s, identified the “primary maternal preoccupation” as the state that the mother enters to accomplish this task. For Winnicott, the mother (or the primary caretaker, regardless of biological connection) imparts health and a sense of continuity in the baby’s experience through her falling into preoccupation or reverie. He describes the qualities of the maternal reverie as follows:

“It gradually develops and becomes a state of heightened sensitivity during, and especially towards the end of, the pregnancy. It lasts for a few weeks after the birth of the child. It is not easily remembered by mothers once they have recovered from it.”

“But what exactly does the mother do in this state? The point is: Not much.”

This state of maternal preoccupation allows a caretaker to become “preoccupied with their own infant to the exclusion of other interests, in the way that is normal and temporary.” Not only does this psychological state prime the mother to the baby’s needs, it also means that the mother is a more or less consistent presence in the baby’s experience. As a result, the baby can experience impingements from the environment (a breeze that’s slightly too cold, a hunger that isn’t immediately met) and recover from it. The baby “goes on being” in the presence of the mother, which is essential for building a sense of self that lasts across time. All of this is thanks to the mother’s absorption in her task.

But what exactly does the mother do in this state? The point is: Not much. The maternal preoccupation is an organized state that is also withdrawn, explains Winnicott. It’s a period of intense focus on the baby, the levers of which are more about responsiveness than thought or preparation. Here, reverie captures a kind of focus and openness to the experience of the baby at the exclusion of all else.

“Reverie is the mother’s ability to take in what is happening with the baby — without judgment or haste, and attend to its needs.”

Wilfred Bion, a British-Indian psychoanalyst working from the 1940s–1970s, discusses a similar concept that he actually terms “reverie.” He understands this maternal state as “the psychological source of supply of the infant’s needs for love and understanding.” On this view, a mother holds together the world for the infant and allows them to flourish within it.

Bion clarifies that it is the capacity of the mother to think about the infant, to consider what is happening, that allows the baby to also develop this capacity. He writes, “Using [reverie] in this restricted sense [it] is that state of mind which is open to the reception of the infant’s projective identifications whether they are felt by the infant to be good or bad.”

In other words, reverie is the mother’s ability to take in what is happening with the baby — without judgment or haste, and attend to its needs.

Poetic Reverie

Taken from another angle, reverie is at the foundation of our creativity. The French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard, wrote in “The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos” (1971) of poetic reverie: “This is a reverie which poetry puts on the right track, the track an expanding consciousness follows. This reverie is written, or, at least, promises to be written. It is already facing the great universe of the blank page. The images begin to compose and fall into place.”

While maternal reverie turns its focus to the universe of the baby, poetic reverie attempts to take in the whole of experience with the same suspension of judgment. And importantly, it moves from the encounter with the world to the writing of this encounter.

Excuse the French phenomenologist language for a moment and consider this sentence: “It gives the I a non-I which belongs to the I.” You might say that reverie has an integrative function. Through writing out her reverie, the poet is able to access more of her unconscious self (not-I) and more of the world (more not-I) through it — just as the mother does when she integrates the fact of the new baby.

“Both of these reveries place us at the inception of something new as it is being created.”

Bachelard writes, “All the senses awaken and fall into harmony in poetic reverie. Poetic reverie listens to this polyphony of the senses, and the poetic consciousness must record it.” Both of these reveries place us at the inception of something new as it is being created. It’s a contemplative state that has a special openness onto the world. Reverie is where material can enter through sensory experience and be transformed.

As Bachelard writes, “Reverie puts us in the state of a soul being born.”

Why is reverie essential to our lives?

Reverie is an old French term that comes from the verb “to be delirious” that was later transformed into “madness” or “revelry.”  It is a state where we’ve given up on the coherent separation between ourselves and the world. While this might resemble illness, as Winnicott notes, it also allows us to pay careful attention to the world around us. And losing oneself isn’t all bad — especially if that means we can expand how much of the world we actually take in.

In reverie, we maintain an openness to experience. Not only that, but we also create something beautiful out of it, in life or in art. It entails giving up the filters that usually control our experience — and through simple attention and responsiveness, attending to things in the world that are not-I, whether that is other people or simply the ever-changing world that presents itself to us daily.

“In reverie, we maintain an openness to experience. Not only that, but we also create something beautiful out of it, in life or in art.”

So often we try to manage and contain our experience in service of doing a better job, living a better life, being a better person. Reverie offers an alternative to all this. By simply suspending judgment, and entering into a somewhat delirious state, we might find our lives transformed. In both motherhood and poetic creation, reverie is essential. And what if it extends beyond that? Deepening your attachment to the world stands also to transform other areas of life that are riddled with worries — social anxieties, for instance — into areas of inquiry and responsiveness.

So, how can you introduce reverie into your life?

Some have drawn a connection between Bion’s concept of reverie and Buddhist meditation. This comparison centers on the suspension of judgment that’s found in Buddhist practice. Through meditation, one can improve the “inner container” so that it can transcend its former restrictions and expand what is known of the world.

In beginning to practice Buddhist meditation, one learns how to breathe through thoughts that come to them before allowing them to pass. Consider this training for your reverie. The more you’re able to move through your standard thought patterns, the less of a hold they’ll have on you. Eventually, you might find yourself noticing new things — and more — in your daily life.

Have you experienced a state of reverie? Are there practices you use to tap into a less judgmental and more expansive mindset? Share your stories with us in the comments!

Ashley D’Arcy is the Senior Editor at The Good Trade. She holds an MA in Philosophy from The New School for Social Research and has contributed to esteemed outlets such as The Nation, 032c, and Yale School of Management’s Insights where she’s leveraged her expertise in making complex ideas accessible to a broad audience. In addition to her editorial work, she is training as a psychoanalytic mental health professional and provides care to patients in New York City. Ashley also explores sustainable fashion, clean beauty, and wellness trends, combining thoughtful cultural critiques with a commitment to mindful living.