Fantasy, our capacity to ‘give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name’, has long intrigued poets, play-wrights and painters but only during the twentieth century has the phenomenon become a formal area of scientific inquiry in psychology. In current usage the term is almost synonymous with daydream. Within the area of experimental or clinical study, however, the term fantasy has a broader significance, as it deals not only with imaginary activity spontaneously produced as part of the ongoing stream of thought (daydreams) but also with products of thought elicited upon demand from a clinician in response to inkblots or ambiguous pictures. It also refers to literary or artistic representations of the mental processes.
Fantasy refers to the human being’s remarkable ability to create an ‘as if’ world either spontaneously or upon demand. It is possible that people at one time were more prone to regard their own fleeting imagery or brief daydreams as actual visions, as omens, or as appearances of deities, much as they responded to nocturnal dreams (Jaynes 1977). Prophetic visions, such as Ezekiel’s ‘wheel’ or John’s Apocalypse, probably represent literary expressions of elaborate daydreams or fantasies used for expository or hortatory purposes.
In 1890 William James in The Principles of Psychology devoted portions of several chapters, including the famous one on the ‘stream of thought’, to issues closely related to fantasy processes. James called attention to what he termed the reproductive and memorial facets of imagery, or the degree to which the image is of an object recently perceived or one called forth from the distant past. The fantasy presumably may represent a response to a stimulus perceived momentarily which triggers off a complex associative process in the ongoing stream of thought. In James Joyce’s novel Ulysses the young Stephen, gazing seaward from his tower apartment, first sees the waves whose foamy curves remind him of a childhood song, then of his mother’s death, his refusal (as a lapsed Catholic) to pray, and finally these associations generate a vivid fantasy of her confronting him in her graveclothes to denounce him (Singer 1994).
Psychoanalytic contributions
Freud’s elucidation of the structure and interpretative possibilities of the phenomenon of nocturnal dreaming, based largely on remarkable self-observation and intensive clinical work, also led quite naturally to explorations of other dreamlike phenomena, such as daydreams. Freud (1962 [1908]; 1962 [1911]) speculated on the psychological significance of the daydream in papers like ‘Creative writers and daydreaming’. The free-association process of psychoanalysis itself also led to patients’ frequent reports of memories of childhood fantasies or recent daydreams. The most important fantasies from a technical psychotherapeutic sense were those involving the relationships between analyst and patient. Throughout the twentieth century psychoanalysts have made regular use of reports of spontaneous fantasies and published many papers in which myths or popular stories and literature were interpreted as outgrowths of fantasy.
Projective methods
With the indications of the widespread nature of human fantasy processes emerging from psychoanalysis and other psychiatric efforts, there was gradually an attempt to find procedures that could elicit fantasies from individuals providing significant diagnostic evidence ultimately for treatment plans and specific therapeutic interventions as well as for research purposes. The most prominent projective methods were the Rorschach Inkblots and the Thematic Apperception Test. They have been subject to literally hundreds of research studies which to some degree have also contributed to general personality research and to diagnostic understanding.
The Rorschach Inkblots represent an attempt to use spontaneous associations made to the ambiguous nature of the blots as a means of identifying structural properties of the personality, such as tendencies towards imaginativeness, emotional impulsivity, indications of anxiety or cognitive organization and self-control. Hermann Rorschach observed that associative responses to the ambiguous ink blots which involved reports of humans in action (‘two men playing patty cake’) were linked systematically not only to a considerable tendency to engage in fantasy but also to a capacity for self-restraint and inner control. Extensive research studies have generally supported this observation (Singer and Brown 1977). These so-called M responses to the Rorschach Inkblots do seem to reflect an adaptive capacity for restraint, self-knowledge and creative thought.
The Thematic Apperception Test, in which the respondent makes up stories to simple pictures (such as a boy staring at a violin) that are somewhat ambiguous, has also proven to be a significant indicator of fantasy. This measure has been perhaps even more precisely analysed in the work of David McClelland because of its linkage to motivation following its original development by Henry A.Murray of Harvard University. The scoring of these fantasy-like stories for indications of motives such as achievement, power, affiliation and intimacy needs has proven to predict the social behaviour of individuals in other settings to a considerable degree (McClelland 1961; 1992).
Current research methods and theoretical considerations
Psychologists under the influence of behaviourism were at first reluctant to study ephemeral thought processes or fantasies. Since the 1950s there has been an accelerating interest in such inner processes, furthered by the emergence of many improved methods for studying the nature of fantasy processes as they emerge in the course of normal ongoing thought (Klinger 1990; Singer 1966; 1993). The methods currently in active use by researchers include questionnaire surveys; self-recordings of daydreams under controlled conditions; laboratory studies of daydreams and fantasies that emerge during a variety of simple or complex task performances; psychophysiological measurement of brain functions or eye movements during the process of creating fantasies; and the assessment of fantasies as they occur naturally through having individuals carrying paging devices or bleepers which signal randomly when an individual must immediately report ongoing thought or fantasy.
What have we learned by the application of these methods? The questionnaire approaches allow us to sample the self-reports of hundreds of individuals about the frequency, content and patterns of their fantasy; it is possible to conclude that daydreaming and the generation of fantasies is a normal process, one that occurs almost daily in every individual. Three general styles of fantasizing have been identified: one involves more positive and future oriented explorations, a second more guilt-ridden or unpleasant and frightening considerations of past events or future possibilities, and the third pattern involves the ability to sustain elaborate fantasies or to organize one’s private imagery into consistent story-like structures. Questionnaire studies have also brought various cultural differences in the content of fantasies with such differences often reflecting phenomena such as the relative upward mobility of a sociocultural group in this society. Sexual fantasies are nearly universal in western society if, however, not nearly as frequent as one might think from popular literature or film. There is no evidence that fantasy is in itself a sign of serious emotional disturbance; on the contrary severely disturbed individuals such as schizophrenics or extremely impulsive or aggressive individuals are often characterized by less varied or rich fantasy lives and more by single-minded and limited fantasy tendencies (Klinger 1990; Singer 1976).
Laboratory studies have shown the persistent and ubiquitous nature of human fantasy, even under conditions in which the individual is performing a relatively demanding task. For example, individuals may be sitting in small booths listening to signals presented to them via earphones and must be constantly pressing buttons to show that they comprehend the targeted signals as they appear as fast as one per second. If they are interrupted every fifteen seconds and must report on extraneous thoughts it turns out that even while processing signals quite accurately over an hour’s time, they still generate a fantasy as often as 50 per cent of the time. It is possible to show that certain types of individuals, who on questionnaires report more fantasy tendencies, are often more inclined to report fantasies during such precisely measured laboratory interruptions.
Other types of laboratory studies have demonstrated that when individuals are engaged in a fantasy activity their eyes tend to become unfocused and relatively motionless, particularly if there are movements or other visual signals presented in front of them. This would suggest that the visual images, which are the predominant characteristics of human fantasy for most people, involve the same brain system as that of normal vision when processing externally generated stimuli. There are also research suggestions that particular types of brain waves, such as alpha rhythms or theta rhythms, may be the ones most prominently in evidence during waking fantasy activity.
Studies making use of paging devices are able to capture the way that fantasies occur during ordinary day-to-day activities. Extensive work in this area has been carried out especially by Russell Hurlburt, Mihailyi Csikszentmihalyi and Eric Klinger (1990). These studies also show how closely daydreams or fantasies are linked to fundamental motivational processes called ‘current concerns’, both short and longer term unfulfilled intentions.
Early theorizing about the nature of fantasy processes were strongly influenced by Sigmund Freud’s important insight which linked the human being’s capacity to delay gratification, a vitally significant step in our adaptive development, to our imaginative capacity. While certainly, as Freud suggested, the daydreams of the poet can be transformed into artistic productions, there is much less evidence for his position that only ‘unsatisfied wishes are the driving power behind fantasies’ or as he put it another time ‘happy people never daydream’ (1962 [1908]).
The research evidence since the late 1960s suggests rather that daydreaming is a fundamental human capacity which not only can reflect our unfulfilled wishes, of course, but also is inherent in our normal and healthy adaptive approach to exploring the physical and social environment through playing out mentally a series of possible scenarios. A more useful conclusion from current evidence would be that unhappy people are more likely to have unhappy daydreams and that people who are functioning effectively will be characterized by a great variety of daydreams, the majority of which are more likely to involve playful and fanciful explorations of possible futures as well as some consideration of the negative alternatives in life. For the most part, most fantasy tends to be more realistic and geared to relatively mundane, practical issues in the individual’s life.
Another influential conception introduced by Sigmund Freud was that the daydream or fantasy could partially discharge a drive, such as sex or aggression, and thus reduce the likelihood of an impulsive act. This catharsis theory has been extremely influential among literary individuals or persons in film and television. It is widely used as an explanation for encouraging children or adults to watch a variety of violent sports activities or films or encouraging children’s exposure to violent fairy tales, with the notion that such exposure will reduce the likelihood of overt aggressive action. The evidence from dozens of laboratory studies of adults and children and from field studies of children exposed to violence in film and television overwhelmingly suggests that vicarious fantasy increases tendencies towards aggressive behaviour rather than reducing them. Our human fantasy capacity involves not a drainage of drive but a preparation for action. Those persons, however, who have developed a varied and complex imaginative life are often also more likely to recognize the unreality of many of their wishes; they can envisage a host of self-defeating consequences of impulsive action.
The current approach to fantasy and daydreaming processes casts such phenomena within a broader context of modern cognitive, affective and social scientific research. Human beings are viewed as continuously seeking to make sense of the novelty and complexity of their environment. They seek to organize and label experiences and form them into meaningful structures called schemata or scripts. At the same time they seek to anticipate possible futures. Fantasy represents the effort (influenced by religious symbols, folk legends, popular literature and, increasingly, films and television) of individuals to rehearse their memories and to create possible futures. Studies of early imaginative play in children point to the origins of the fantasy process where the dilemmas or cognitive complexities of the big world (social and physical) are miniaturized or re-enacted in a controlled play form. Adults continue this process privately through their mental imagery and interior monologues. Nocturnal dreams as well as daydreams reflect this continuing effort and suggest the inherent creativity of almost all individuals. Artists are especially adept at noticing such fantasies and incorporating them into their productions. Psychotherapists from a variety of schools have increasingly also encouraged the fantasy and imagery capacities of their clients as resources in the treatment process.
Jerome L.Singer
Yale University
References
Freud, S. (1962 [1908]) ‘Creative writers and daydreaming’, in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. J.Strachey, vol. 9, London.
——(1962 [1911]) ‘Formulations regarding the two principles in mental functioning’, in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. J.Strachey, vol. 12, London.
James, W. (1890) The Principles of Psychology, New York. Jaynes, J. (1977) The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, New York.
Klinger, E. (1990) Daydreaming, Los Angeles, CA.
McClelland, D.C. (1961) The Achieving Society, Princeton, NJ.
——(1992) ‘Is personality consistent?’, in R.A.Zucker, A.I. Rabin, J.Aronoff and S.J.Frank (eds) Personality Structure in the Life Course: Essays on Personology in the Murray Tradition, New York.
Singer, D.G. and Singer, J.L. (1990) The House of Make-Believe: Children’s Play and the Developing Imagination, Cambridge, MA.
Singer, J.L. (1966) Daydreaming: An Introduction to the Experimental Study of Inner Experience, New York.
——(1976) Daydreaming and Fantasy, Oxford.
——(1993) ‘Experimental studies of ongoing conscious experience’, Ciba Foundation Symposium 174, Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Consciousness, London.
——(1994) ‘William James, James Joyce and the stream of consciousness’, in R.Fuller (ed.) Behaviour and Mind, London.
Singer, J.L. and Brown, S. (1977) ‘The experience-type: some behavioral correlates and theoretical implications’, in M.C.Rickers-Orsiankina (ed.) Rorschach Psychology, Huntington, NY
Further reading
Klinger, E. (1971) The Structure and Function of Fantasy, New York.
Singer, J.L. (1974) Imagery and Daydream Methods in Psychotherapy and Behavior Modification, New York.
