I couldn't tell you how many times I was beat for day dreaming, when I was really just disassociating with life because of the previous beatings...
But I remember in Carl Sagan's book "Cosmos" a fragment of the "Four Quartets" by T.S. Eliot that I still remember.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

I clung to it because it means that I'll someday look back on my life and it'll make sense.
In a sense it has, but it wasn't as comforting as I had hoped.