This always felt obvious, it's nice somebody is approaching this scientifically. Most of the time we are supposedly awake, look awake (because walking around or doing something) and believe we are awake, we actually are sort of asleep and perform automatically. I am not going to insist everyone should train themselves to maintain mindfulness for as long and often as they possibly can this time (because now we are discussing a scientific paper and the idea of mindfulness being good for you is a separate subject), yet the example with the car accident clearly suggests being aware of this phenomenon is important. For my whole life since I can remember my mind had always been wandering ~90% time. Now I train myself to keep it here and now, attentive to whatever I am doing and what's happening around me and consider this the most important thing to pursue.
Very interesting perspective because I am the opposite (I think) and on occasion ‘try’ to let my mind wander. It’s peaceful and sometimes helps me sleep.
It really helps to fall asleep. Especially when it wanders visually rather than verbally. I indeed force it into inner (imaginary) visual wandering to fall asleep faster - conscious (even mindful in the beginning) "daydreaming" naturally turns into deep sleep then. It probably also is nice to have some mind wandering during the day if you are not overly prone to that naturally. For me, however, mind wandering seems a debilitating form of procrastinating against the entire life.
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