The Reading Life: Default Mode Network and the Science of Reading

This is another really cool bit about the science of reading. And a few thoughts on how POV can help create a more immersive experience.

So the Default Mode Network is a brain network that is activated when you’re…doing nothing.

Photo by That's Her Business on Unsplash

I mean, not literally nothing. But it’s the part of your brain that’s at work when you’re not focused on tasks. The daydreamy part. When your mind is wandering in a quiet moment, the Default Mode Network is in charge. It was discovered completely accidentally, during the ’90s. While studying which sections of the brain were lit up for different activities, researchers began to notice some brain regions showed higher activity during rest than performing tasks. It contradicted the assumption that the brain was doing nothing when we were doing nothing.

What good is this Default Mode Network, anyway?

So often if feels like some of the most important things happen in our brains when they’re quiet—when we’re sleeping, for example. The Default Mode Network appears to be an important part of self-reflection and autobiographical thinking. It’s a main player in how we construct the stories of our lives. In how we begin to imagine or plan for the future. How we problem-solve.

So how does this DMN fit in with our previous discussion of mirror neurons?

A couple of weeks back, we discussed mirror neurons and how they help us begin to develop empathy (and how they allow us to empathize with main characters).

At first, it seems a bit contradictory, the two ideas—mirror neurons involve more active areas of the brain and the Default Mode Network is rooted in the non-active portions of the brain.

But that’s the beauty of it. The two actually work together:

Mirror neurons create simulations in the brain of observed (or read) actions. Reading about a woman’s trembling hands activates the neurons in your brain that are associated with hand movements.

The Default Mode Network integrates all these individual experiences into a linear, narrative thread and integrates them into our own set of personal, lived experiences.

Which, of course, brings us to POV and immersive reading (aka Narrative Transportation).

It really only makes sense, then, that first person POV winds up being such a powerful tool for drawing your readers deeply into your story. It’s not so much the placement of the word “I” in a manuscript; it’s the kind of details that first person writing generates. It focuses on the internal, explaining a character’s feelings viscerally as though they were our own. This, in a sense, becomes a kind of guided daydream we’re having.

That in no way means Narrative Transportation can’t happen with third person POV.

Of course, limited third person easily lends itself to Narrative Transportation, for all the same reasons first person is so immersive. I would also argue an omniscient third can give the same results as long as you are focusing on those internal reactions in the main character(s).

But a distant or omniscient third can be tough in terms of drawing readers deeply into your story. And probably a reason why so few contemporary books are written in it.

The bottom line? POV is not a stylistic choice.

POV activates this remarkable brain network. In first or immersive third, we can literally create a neurological invitation to readers. We can ask them to process the details of our fictional world as if they were their own. Transportive fiction doesn’t just tell readers about a character’s life. It activates the daydreaming centers of the brain. It turns a simulated experience into one that feels real. This is more than the craft of writing. It’s applied neuroscience. It shows how a POV choice can be the difference between a story that is observed and one that is lived.