It is easier to read for my own sake, and when I say my own sake I do not mean for any value or purpose but because I just enjoy reading for the joy I experience with a physical book. When I am finished with a book it feels completed and like I accomplished something.

E-Books are still easy to read if their is external consequences or interactions with the external world such as people instead of just my inner voice. For example reading for fun, in a book club is not a problem and I get the completionist enjoyment when I am experiencing the social interaction and I just let myself be, and when I am in the stream of consciousness / the flow to use a psychology term / the zone, of expressing my ego and my true thoughts without carrying about is this productive or is this fun...it is at this moment I experience the same joy I gain when I finish a hardback book and close the cover and just think and dream a lucid dream of self reflection.

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Why this happens make sense due to the recent understandings of neuroscience that has occurred since 2008 (it was speculated for thousands of years earlier, but now we kind of understand why.) There is a brain network called the default mode network, it is a network tied to self-referential activity. It has been found in mammals of many forms, and a similar network exists in birds (there are some slight differences between birds and mammals in brain activity due to some slightly different structures.) We do not know if it exists in reptiles and amphibians we have some evidence that it does but if it does it will not be the same as mammals for there is a lot of differences and thus right now we just have theories in need of evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

Now MrFarstrider I am trying to remember if you are an economist, philosophy major, or psychology major, or something else. It really does not matter but I am just trying to use metaphors that you may connect with without using technobabble.

But one thing we know about the default mode network is that it is activated anytime you must think about yourself and the interaction of the environment in the present, the past, or the future where your actions modify the results. Aka it is self referential and is part of theory of mind, but just like humans and rats have default mode network different animals and humans but also human to another humans have different amounts of how easy it is to think in a self referential abstract manner and do theory of mind. (See autism which one thing we know about autism is certain parts of the default mode network are under connected. Now this is not the whole default mode network has problems but individual nodes similar to Airplane hubs may be interconnected to other Airplane hubs of the "default mode network route", note other networks not the default mode network may have individual nodes with higher connectivity than normal, and we also found co-existing conditions / commorbidities have some correlation where specific nodes are more or less correlated if you have specific coexisting condition in addition to Autism vs you have Autism but you do not do X like you do not do repetitive behaviors)

Back to default mode (I got side track, sorry). So you use it whenever you need to do self-referential tasks, but you use the default mode network more often when you have nothing else to do that needs high cognitive attention, and thus you multitask and do mind wandering. Now the mind wandering may to us outsiders may look like proactive mind wandering like noting connections and creating synthesis and ahaha moments with memory, but it can also be stuff we do not do for solving problems or learning but also stuff we do for fun, for stress relief, etc like hobbies. Now hobbies and all that have purposes inside the body with self regulation and relieving stress, stopping depression, and such but it may not get stuff done looking at pretty AWW pictures on reddit about owners and their pets and so on.

The Default Mode Network is highly tied to creativity and your best creativity happens when the intensity of your Default Mode Network is roughly on pair with The Task Positive Network which is involved with getting stuff done. Note the Task Positive Network can be subdivided into 3 smaller networks called the Frontal Parietal Control Network (Abstract reasoning, and goal selection that connects the motor behaviors to more abstract states, lots of more stuff with FPCN I am not going to get to.), The Cingulo Opercular Network (Noticing Errors and Reinforcement are its big purposes), and the Dorsal Attention Network (Selective Attention, Sequencing of Motor Behaviors as abstract thoughts and connecting it to Motor Muscle Movements, Also some aspects of motivation).

Some links and pdfs

http://www.hrplab.org/notes-functional-networks-using-rs-fcmri-graph-theoretic-approach/

http://www.colelab.org/pubs/2013_Cole_NatNeurosci.pdf

http://www.colelab.org/pubs/Cole2014_TheNeuroscientist.pdf

Also the Default Mode has some of the brain areas turned off / lower intensity during dreaming / rem sleep but other parts of the brain that are default mode network are highly turned on. This is one way the brain helps notice connections and associations but understand this dream part does not have the logical challenging abilities you have with being awake. You can create ideas but you can't challenge and improve ideas in the same way you can do dreaming vs awake.

Now the default mode network should be thought as 3 networks with a major hub that has front and back connections and then 2 other networks that talk to these major hubs. Aka the airplane spoke and wheel model used in the US where a city like Wichita Kansas will first have to fly to a city with a bigger Airport.

Now the links I gave earlier such as wikipedia and the other ones like the pdfs started to go into the divisions of these 3 networks. Understand though you can get the basics just by clicking these image links.

http://payload350.cargocollective.com/1/18/579772/9319089/F1.large_1000.jpg

http://psych.colorado.edu/~hannaje/Research_files/Andrews-Hanna_Neuroscientist_Figure7.jpg

http://peakwatch.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452403c69e201bb097d7288970d-800wi

http://dericbownds.net/uploaded_images/anrevdefault.png

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/R_Nathan_Spreng/publication/260119089/figure/fig1/AS:271896470093832@1441836578095/Figure-3-Heterogeneity-of-the-default-network-A-Graph-and-clustering-analysis-of-11.png

Now understand the Default Mode Network is a recent discovery in neuroimaging. The first replication studies happened in 2006, and there was barely any of them in 2006 for the first studies in 1990s and then the term coined in 2001 was treated as a silly thing to study. At the time we were not trying to study the self, but the pattern why is this network always appearing when we do not give our patients in those big loud fMRI and PET and other neuroimaging machines nothing to do. We did not give them a game to play, or show them pictures, etc. Why would I waste time just asking personal questions to a person or like the first studies of the default mode network not give the person anything to do and is this random brain behavior random or is there a united network where some of it is random talking to the default mode network, but notice this pattern of certain areas of the brain being used more whenever you have nothing to do and your are multitasking for benefits in the present, past, or future (aka imaging the future by thinking of the past and so on.) and whether you ask questions about the self.

Since its replication and the first followup studies that went in more detail after the 2006 replication that started to appear roughly 2008 we have and an exponential growth in the amount of studies on the default mode network. We now know it is involved with pretty much every mental disorder in some way stuff from depression to anxiety to specific subtypes that probably exist of depression and anxiety to things like alzheimers, schizophrenia, I mentioned autism earlier, adhd, etc, but also many disorders we consider physical that affect the brain as well, chronic pain, why children learn better at specific ages and how the brain changes over time and how to keep older brains better functioning, .

Yet the default mode network as an idea is nothing new. Most of what we call Ego with Freud's definition of Ego is the default mode network or the default mode network talking to a different network in conjunction of these two networks. Now when Freud use the term Ego he meant it as the sense of self, who you see as your identity if we were to pretend society / culture / etc and your base instincts do not exist. How would you define yourself, how do you see yourself. The ego was also the integrator of drives from the super ego and more importantly the id with context of reality. How can I get shiney stuff I want, how can I have pleasure and avoid pain, how can I bring harmony with all these drives.

Now part of Freud's ego would also be the Frontal Parietal Control Network which is a flexible multi hub integration between various systems. Aka the default mode is like a map that is an abstract form of reality aka the map is not the territory, and the frontal parietal control network is like a navigator without GPS coordinates of destination and without GPS coordinates of location but still knows the general location like a Ship Navigator of the Ocean would do prior to the last 30 years or so. How can I integrate reality as it is, with my abstract schema, and what can I manipulate. So put another way FPCN or sometimes abbreviated FPN and the Default mode network DMN is what makes humans more flexible than most animals.

And I did not even touch Brodmann Area 10 which is the structural (Not the functional brain area, but a specific node) which is tied to the reconciliation of opposites, and mixed states like I want Oranges, Gas, and Booze but I have neither but I have this Green Stuff called Money. Oh yeah Booze can only be bought six days a week so I need to remember to remember not something I am going to do now but do it in the near future, stop do it, and then use it at a later time that is far away. This is because my state has blue laws and I can't buy booze on Sunday thus I must buy it Mon through Sat and it would be better if I buy it on Tuesday for I was near that area where the Liquor store is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Mail/xmcamail.2014-12.dir/pdfeYqYNJn6YM.pdf

And if you do not use the specific fancy words Freud use to describe the Ego and other systems, the idea of this multi nature system is not new with Freud but goes back thousands of years in both Philosophy, and Religion.

Now here is one last link. It will never mention the default mode network by name but instead will talk about how neuroimaging may be close to biomarkers where you can tell not if a person is depressed or not but if they are depressed maybe we can do less guessing and faster treatment saying with your style of depression these treatments that are meds and these treatments that are not meds (talk therapy, CBT, exercise, etc) are more likely to work better for your style of depression.

This is because depression is very complicated but a specific node the Dorsal Medial Prefrontal Cortex which is a fancy medical way of saying the middle / midline part of your frontal lobe between your two eyes. This area instead of looking at it in the exact center of the frontal lobe, lets look a little higher up (this is the meaning of dorsal top of the head in humans, the direction facing up in quadrupeds so your back / spine is facing upwards)

Aka look at this picture

http://psych.colorado.edu/~hannaje/Research_files/Andrews-Hanna_Neuroscientist_Figure7.jpg

So you see two grey brains, look on the one on the right / east side of the page and notice it has a blue area, a yellow area, a green area in the frontal lobe area midline. Blue is Dorsal Medial Prefrontal Cortex and the respective area of the Anterior Cingulate, Yellow is Medial Prefrontal Cortex sometimes they use more objective words like specific brodmann areas or more medical vocabulary, Green is Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex and some areas of the Orbital Medial Prefrontal Cortex

Well depending on this specific area you may having this area working great and you would do better with certain treatments (often more hands on non med base, talk therapy, CBT, Mentoring where we break down harder problems to smaller and set achievable goals instead of just being overwhelmed), or we need to bring this area into balance to fix the default mode network where the default mode network and this specific node of the default mode network is more in balanced with the other networks and nodes that need to work correctly.

Here is that vox article I mentioned.

http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/4/15073652/precision-psychiatry-depression