Found out the average person has about 3,000 daydreams a year while researching for a story

I was digging through old psychology journals online for a character who zones out a lot. One study from 2012 claimed the average person has roughly 80 daydreams per day. I did the math and it came out to over 29,000 a year, which seemed insane. I checked three other sources and they all said a more reasonable 3,000. My first source must have had a typo, and I almost built a whole plot around a guy with 80,000 annual daydreams. Has anyone else stumbled on a wild stat that completely shifted a story idea?

3 comments

3 Comments

river_palmer7329d ago

That "wild stat that completely shifted a story idea" thing happens to me all the time. I just make a note of the cool wrong idea in a separate file for later. It keeps me from getting derailed but saves the fun spark for something else.

simonw4129d ago

Yeah, that separate file trick is a lifesaver. I used to try and force the wrong stat into my current draft and it just made a mess. Having a "cool scraps" doc like @river_palmer73 mentioned lets me move on without feeling like I'm killing a good idea. Half the time I go back later and that wild tangent becomes the seed for a whole new project. It stops me from getting stuck trying to make things fit when they just don't.

grantthomas10d ago

Wait, I think you might have misread your first source. 80 daydreams per day would be about 29,200 a year, not 80,000. Still a huge number compared to 3,000, but that initial math error would have made your character idea even wilder. It's funny how one little number can send you down a totally different path. Do you ever find the wrong idea is more interesting than the real one?