Everyday fantasy: how and why do we invent another life?

Everyday fantasy is our reaction to some event in the outside world. It is woven into the context of everyday life, and we do it all the time, but we do not pay much attention to such fantasies. And we are very surprised when we hear that such an occupation can be called a scientific term, that it can be explored.

As a rule, having become interested in this topic, a person begins to observe himself, and he himself wants to share: “It happens to me like this, like this, and also like this.” Several hundred people filled out an anonymous questionnaire on daily fantasy, others gave anonymous interviews. As a result, we managed to collect a bank of the most common fantasies.

Revenge or forgive

We studied the reactions of adults to whom something unpleasant happened in transport (for example, they stepped on their feet). Some “extinguish” their anger and find other ways to calm down, and someone, like a child, plays in the imagination an alternative development of the situation.

Suppose one woman stepped on the foot of another with a sharp heel. And the second one imagines how the “offender” goes out onto the platform, and she, the “victim”, beats her with a whip, punishes her. Another option: the man stepped on the girl’s foot and called her names at the same time – because she squealed. The girl can imagine that in fact he behaved like a gentleman, horrified by his act, apologized, bowed and showed himself to the best of his ability.

Men undress, women change clothes

Sometimes adults, like children, fantasize for fun because they are bored. For example, a person rides the subway, and he does not have a newspaper or a book, but there is energy inside. He begins to look at those who sit opposite. Both men and women (not all, but many) often indulge in fantasizing about those they are looking at.

Women very often “dress up” those who, in their opinion, are badly or tastelessly dressed. At the same time, they mentally try on the clothes of others on this person. It’s a bit like how girls cut out paper dolls and put different paper dresses on them.

Men often – much more often than women – come up with fantasy biographies of the people sitting opposite – complex, thoughtful, with many details. Men are very fond of mentally undressing women and imagining how they look without clothes. Women do not admit to such fantasies in relation to men.

What do Carlson and Angelina Jolie have in common?

Day-to-day fantasizing helps make up for what we lack in real life. Children create imaginary friends. A famous example is Carlson, who lives on the roof. Some children invent a friend for themselves so that it is not scary to walk through an empty yard. Usually it is someone big and strong – sometimes a person, sometimes an animal. “When I’m with him, I’m not afraid, if anything, he will help,” “he walks next to me, here, on the left side,” the child says. Young children are less self-aware, and they say imaginary friends appear on their own. Older children say: “When I want, he will appear”, “I call him”.

Adults also make imaginary friends, but they rarely talk about it – they are afraid that they will be mistaken for mentally ill. People very often have imaginary conversations with absent or deceased loved ones. Many come up with an ideal partner for themselves, hoping that such a person can meet in real life.

Similar fantasies happen to young spouses. If it seems to a woman that her husband is not gentle, affectionate and attentive enough, a “understudy” may appear in her fantasies – an imaginary husband No. 2 with a romantic name, for example, Robert or Albert. The woman mentally “puts” this Albert on an empty chair and mentally talks to him. At the same time, her real husband sits nearby and reads a newspaper. Men, instead of their wife, imagine Angelina Jolie or another attractive celebrity, and do this quite often. They explain this by saying that “it’s more fun that way.” The wife does not notice this and thinks that all emotions are intended only for her.

Men and women fantasize differently

Everyday daydreaming has many functions. For example, you can plan and imagine the future: thinking about the upcoming meeting, a person can “lose” in his head the possible options for how it will go. People are almost always aware of such fantasizing, they consider it acceptable. In the same way, you can “process” the past.

Men in such cases turn out to be more ingenuous: they go over the events in the form in which they really happened. If there was something bad, they figure out what else they could do. Women also do this, but unlike men, they tend to turn even good into beautiful. Reflecting on yesterday’s reception, at which an important person for her could not attend, a woman can imagine that he did come. And thus create a picture even more wonderful than it was in reality.

Don’t break away from reality

When we become aware of our fantasies, we open up wonderful possibilities: since the invented is our own creation, we can control it, we can try to better design the future or better process the past. Instead of remembering again and again how terrible everything turned out, you can imagine a scenario in which we behaved much better than in reality. This does not mean that we erase memory and replace it with imaginary ideal pictures. This means that we have the opportunity to compare the real version with the fictional one, to draw conclusions. Such “fantasy” work is very useful.

Sometimes children and adults “fly away” in fantasy for a long time. This usually happens when something really goes wrong with them in the real world. Therefore, it is extremely important that in the real world it is interesting for a person, that he loves something, that he does something well. This is a kind of antidote, so as not to get bogged down in fantasies. The better a person realizes where is reality and where is fantasy, the sooner he will ask himself the question: “Why not realize what I like so much, instead of plunging into fantasy and not changing anything?” Then the two sides of life – fantasy and real – will come into harmony.