What Your Brain Is Doing When You re Not Doing Anything | Quanta Magazine
According to research, the effects of the default mode network include mind wandering, remembering past experiences, thinking about others mental states, envisioning the future and processing language. While this may seem like a grab bag of unrelated aspects of cognition, Vinod Menon, the director of the Stanford Cognitive & Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, recently theorized that all of these functions may be helpful in constructing an internal narrative. In his view, the default mode network helps you think about who you are in relation to others, recall your past experiences and then wrap up all of that into a coherent self-narrative.
This list leaves out fantasizing about your hobbies, plotting revenge on your enemies (sometimes long past); thinking about eating; wondering how much time is left in your workout and thinking about UFOs and Bigfoot.