The way I view this is that there's no such thing as idle brain time. When you take away focused conscious thinking, the brain is built to do background proble

The way I view this is that there's no such thing as idle brain time. When you take away focused conscious thinking, the brain is built to do background problem-solving on its own. (This also makes sense if the purpose of dreaming while asleep is garbage-collection of unresolved thoughts and anxieties.)