“Essentially, the DMN is responsible for brain activity when a person is focused inward, including during wakeful rest, daydreaming, mind-wandering, and reminiscing. It allows us to carry out self-referential processing, or the ability to reflect on ourselves. In a sense, it is what lets us narrate the “story of oneself,” retrieving and integrating our autobiography stored in our long-term memory and enabling us to take the first-person perspective on that information. It is involved in mental time travel, from recalling past events to envisioning possible events in the future. And it plays a role in how we think about others: considering their thoughts, understanding and empathizing with their emotions, judging whether a behavior is right or wrong, and even perceiving a sense of isolation when we lack social interaction. In our ordinary lives, we experience the workings of the DMN mostly as the incessant chitter-chatter of the mind when it is not occupied with a specific task.”