The default mode network can be thought of as the conversations we have with ourselves - our over-thinking, our self doubt, our self importance. It is a network of interacting brain regions that is active when a person is not focused on the outside world. To be completely present is to quiet those thoughts, to allow consciousness to fully experience what is being sensed from the outside world. Painting with my hands and dirt, is an attempt to immerse myself in the outside world and to lose the feeling of having a self.