Research on the specific features of daydreaming compared with mind wandering and night-dreaming is a neglected topic in the philosophy of mind and the cognitive neuroscience of spontaneous thought. The extant research either conflates daydreaming with mind-wandering, treats daydreaming and mind-wandering as opposed, or characterizes daydreaming as any and all “imagined events.” These imprecise, dueling definitions pose an obstacle to future research in spontaneous thought. They also fail to illuminate the phenomenal core of daydreaming, namely, its dreamlike qualities. We argue that daydreaming is spontaneous immersive imagination in the waking state. Our investigation distinguishes daydreaming, conceptually and phenomenologically, from mind-wandering and night-dreaming. We also distinguish prototypical experiences of daydreaming from adjacent imaginative activity, including fleeting imagery and deliberate fantasy. We argue that precision about the phenomenal character of daydreaming can guide neurophenomenological investigations, including, for instance, assessing reports of so-called “maladaptive daydreaming.”

Dying can be ugly. This fact is relevant to the growing subfield of everyday aesthetics, and to all of us as mortal beings. Disgusting aesthetic experiences seem to impose a limit on the dying person’s aesthetic agency. If aversion is a warranted response to disgusting aesthetic properties in everyday contexts, we might think that the only coherent responses to it are warranted aversion or unwarranted enjoyment. I argue for a third option: “courageous love” is awarranted, positive aesthetic-emotional response to the disgusting. In his 1930 essay “The Concept of Rasa,” Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (K. C. Bhattacharyya, KCB, 1875–1949) offers a distinctly modern interpretation of Classical Indian aesthetic theory. On his account, we can imaginatively evoke other perspectives that make positive aesthetic emotions possible in everyday settings, even when they include disgust. In this context, imagination re-acquaints us with the real. KCB’s discussion of “courageous love” suggests a long-term aesthetic practice we have reason to undertake as though our death depends on it. (in process)

Since Noël Carroll introduced the “paradox of horror” in 1990, his account of art-horror’s seduction has remained dominant in anlytic aesthetics. His view is that when consuming horror fictions, we are frightened and disgusted by the thought that there are beings whose properties are propositionally disclosed by these fictions. On his compensatory solution to the paradox, we enjoy not this fright and disgust, but co-existent, intellectual fascination with plot. Rasa aesthetic theory, as understood by Abhinavagupta (Kashmir,c. 975-1025), can intervene with an alternate solution. Positing that we directly experience distinct aesthetic emotions (rasas) which are generalized, atemporalized, and non-subject-indexed not only dissolves the paradox of horror, but allows us to cash out art-horror’s pleasures in terms of altered states characterized by wonder, or bewilderment (camatkāra). (in process)