Spontaneous thought, including mind wandering, in many ways appears to be the opposite of goal-directed thought. Spontaneous thought is a ubiquitous phenomenon, occupying as much as a third of our waking life.

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We define spontaneous thought as a mental state, or a sequence of mental states, that arises relatively freely due to an absence of strong constraints on the contents of each state and on the transitions from one mental state to another. We propose that there are two general ways in which the content of mental states, and the transitions between them, can be constrained (FIG. 1). One type of constraint is flexible and deliberate, and implemented through cognitive control. Another type of constraint is automatic in nature. Automatic constraints can be thought of as a family of mechanisms that operate outside of cognitive control to hold attention on a restricted set of information. Affective salience and sensory salience can both act as sources of automatic constraints. Mind-wandering can be defined as a special case of spontaneous thought that tends to be more deliberately constrained than dreaming, but less deliberately constrained than creative thinking and goal-directed thought.

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There is a dark side to spontaneous thought as well – the illumination of which is yet another major goal of this volume. Repetitive depressive rumination; uncontrollable thoughts in obsessive compulsive disorder; the involuntary and lifelike re-experiencing of post-traumatic stress disorder – all these, we suggest, can be considered dysfunctional forms of spontaneous thought, and need to be understood in relation to our natural and healthy propensity toward novel, variable, imaginative thought ((Christoff et al., 2016); see also Mills et al., this volume).

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Spontaneous thought can be defined as thought that arises relatively freely due to an absence of strong constraints on its contents or on the transitions from one mental state to another (Christoff et al., 2016). In other words, spontaneous thought moves freely as it unfolds.

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Spontaneous thoughts, the output of a broad category of uncontrolled and inaccessible higher order mental processes, arise frequently in everyday life...We suggest that it is precisely the lack of control over and access to the processes by which they arise that leads people to perceive spontaneous thoughts as revealing meaningful self-insight. Consequently, spontaneous thoughts potently influence judgment...We define spontaneous thoughts as thoughts produced by a broad category of higher order mental processes that cannot be controlled or accessed by the thinker.
Spontaneous thoughts are products of uncontrolled mental processes that have no readily identifiable source.

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