THE HUMAN CONDITION: WHY WE DAYDREAM : Sometimes the Brain Just Wanders Away

It’s rush hour. Steven Lieberman is driving west on Wilshire Boulevard. He stops at a red light. A Johnny Rivers song comes on the radio.

Suddenly he’s on stage. Thousands of beautiful women begin chanting: “Steeeven! Steeeven! Steeeven!”

Dressed in tight satin pants and cradling a sparkling electric guitar, Lieberman lifts a microphone to his mouth: “Secret-- aaaagent man, secret-- aaaagent man . . . “ The crowd goes wild.

Inside his car, Lieberman sings along with the radio, moves his body to the beat and plays air guitar.

The light turns green. The cars behind him begin honking.

“Then it ends, abruptly and sadly, and I go back to thinking about reality,” says Lieberman, 33, a Westside salesman.

We all do it--we daydream, we drift into la-la land. Sometimes we do it purposely when we’re bored or need an escape. But usually it just sort of . . . happens.

“I love to fantasize about being a rock star, about having people praise and worship me,” Lieberman says. “It relaxes me, and it’s a nice refreshing little break from all the seriousness and chaos of the business day.”

Webster’s New World Dictionary defines daydream as: “A pleasant, dreamlike thinking or wishing; reverie. A pleasing but visionary notion or scheme.”

People daydream most about sex, money and power, says Milton Wolpin, associate professor emeritus of psychology at USC--”the things people usually care about most.” Fantasies can be included in daydreams, but fantasies tend to be more intense, deliberate and conscious. “There are no hard-and-fast definitions,” says Wolpin, who has studied dreaming. “Fantasies and daydreams can be interchangeable, but daydreams are usually something we just slip into.”

Daydreaming is not only the mind’s way of zoning out when reality is less than thrilling, psychologists say, it is also a necessary part of life. And like night dreams, they tell us about our inner workings.

“Daydreaming is essential, a profound and highly significant human function,” says Dr. Maria T. Lymberis, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA. “What someone daydreams tells a lot about a person--who they are, what they are, what their personality structure is, their internal problems and vulnerabilities.”

Like night dreams, daydreams are expressions of something we are processing--a wish, a dread, or a rehearsal, says psychologist Edna Herrmann. We let our imagination write the script.

Francine Weinberg, a former actress who now works as a news assistant for a local television station, says that when she’s bored she sometimes daydreams about what her life would have been like had she made it in the movies.

Her daydreams begin with visions of herself walking off a movie set, pooped from the day’s rehearsal.

“A driver takes me home to a plush high-rise apartment, where I drink my Calistoga water and learn my lines for the next day while exercising on my Stairmaster,” says Weinberg, 30. I then eat my macrobiotic meal prepared for me by a gourmet chef. Of course there is a guy there waiting for me--but only when I want him to be there. He’s tall, kind of lean but muscular, kind of long hair, and very evolved.”

Lee Herman, 84, a former sweater designer once known as the “Sweater Queen,” attributes her success to a lifetime of daydreaming.

“I always imagine good things, and most of my life they came about,” says Herman. “I daydreamed myself into something great.” Herman, who hopes to make a comeback in the sweater business, now daydreams about being on “The Tonight Show” for her designs.

Herman, who lives in Los Angeles, also daydreams about “the wonderful years I’ve had--in business, with friends”--and with men.

“I think about men a lot,” she says. “I’m 84 years old--I have lots of them to think about.”

In many cases, daydreaming allows us to rehearse and prepare for a potentially tense scenario or psyches us up for a confrontation, and the outcome we create in our minds leaves us feeling strong and powerful.

“I’ll replay different conversations in my mind, or I’ll have different conversations with people that for some reason I haven’t been able to be outright with,” says Weinberg, who lives in Santa Monica. “Or I’ll think of telling someone off--like a boyfriend--in most daydreams I’m telling him a thing or two. Those daydreams help me to realize when I am keeping way too much inside.”

Often daydreams reflect wishes of power. Herrmann, who has a private practice in Los Angeles, says she had a patient who would drive through Beverly Hills and fantasize that she was queen of the city.

And it’s not abnormal for a businessman to daydream about having lunch with Donald Trump--or about being Donald Trump.

“Fairy-tale dreams are common,” Herrmann says. “In our minds we like to have the power to build and destroy.”

When are daydreams not normal? A persistent “I am Jesus Christ” fantasy could be the sign of a daydream gone overboard. And like most behavior, Herrmann says, the difference between healthy and unhealthy daydreaming is its frequency and intensity--if a daydream becomes an obsession, that could be a sign to get help.

“Some daydreaming is very normal and healthy and desirable--it serves as a mental and emotional function, and it relieves the mind from stress and strain. We daydream about a vacation in Hawaii when there is a desk full of deadlines,” Herrmann says. “If, on the other extreme, you cannot focus on the task at hand because the mind is most of the time occupied in daydreams, this person cannot function very well.”

It’s normal to fantasize about an old boyfriend shortly after a breakup--but if the daydreaming lasts for months, there could be a problem. “You’re stuck,” Herrmann says.

Adds Lymberis: “If you’re a teen-ager, it’s appropriate to dream of being a rock star--if you’re 50 years old it could be an expression of illness.”

Psychologists encourage analyzing your daydreams to gain self awareness. Ask yourself: “What purpose does this fantasy have, what am I expressing in this fantasy, how does it serve me?” And if you are daydreaming consistently about something, think: “Why is this coming into my mind? What are the connections?”

“There’s nothing that hasn’t been thought of in somebody’s daydream,” says Dr. Gordon Strauss, professor of psychiatry at the University of Louisville. “The wonderful thing about daydreaming is that it does no harm, and doesn’t get us into trouble as long as it stays in our own minds.”