Fantasy and daydreaming

V. Read the text and find the difference between daydream, reverie and fantasy.

IV. Fill the gaps in the sentences using the following words.

mood, insight, abruptly, daydream, capacity, tuned out, reverie, fantasized

1. She has an enormous ________ for hard work.

2. With a flash of _____ I realized what the dream meant.

3. He sometimes ______about winning the gold medal.

4. When she started talking about her job, he just ______.

5. She stared out of the window, lost in a ________.

6. She was jolted out of the ________ as the door opened.

7. The interview ended______.

8. She is in a good _____ today.

One uniquely human aspect of consciousness is the capacity to create alternative realities. Through fantasy, we escape the realities of everyday life. Besides, having a role in the arts, creative fantasy is basic to science; many advances have followed from insights that scientists have obtained while playfully imagining alternative realities.

These alternative realities are part of daily life, yet we do not usually think of them as alternative levels of consciousness. When we fantasize, we tune out the external world and shift our attention inward.

Daydreams are a familiar form of fantasy. As you sit on the bus in the midst of city traffic, you may imagine lying on a sunny beach. All of us have daydreams, although there are strong individual differences in the types of fantasies we have. Some people’s daydreams are mostly positive; others tent to be unpleasant or troublesome.

These differences in the tone of daydreams may reflect differences in customary attitudes, emotions and moods. Daydreams seem to come in cycles, most people have some sort of daydream every 90 to 100 minutes.

Some daydreams, called realistic fantasy, are closely connected to realistic situations. They generally take a narrative form and may be problem-oriented, like an imaginary argument with your boss.

Other daydreams, called autistic fantasy, lack any connection with reality. Daydreams of living several hundred years in the future or traveling to another galaxy are autistic fantasies.

Other types of fantasy have even less connection with reality. Reverie consists of unrelated images, scenes or memories and is not under the control of the fantasizer. Reverie can be overwhelming in people who have been deprived of sleep, then awakened abruptly. Between waking and sleep lie other forms of brief fantasy – vivid, dreamlike images and intense sounds. These images are as uncontrollable as reverie. When the images occur as we are falling asleep, they are called hypnogogic images. When the images occur during the transition between sleep and waking, they are called hypnopompic images. Some researchers have suggested that these states of consciousness exist on a continuum. None is sharply defined, one state merges into the next.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-27