Day Dreams
Daydreaming is a sort of play, more distinctly imaginative than most other play. Simply letting the mind run, as in the instances cited under free association, where A makes you think of B and B of C, and so on--this is not exactly daydreaming, since there is no "dream", no castle in the air nor other construction, but simply a passing from one recalled fact to another. In imaginative daydreaming, facts are not simply recalled but are rearranged or built together into a story or "castle" or scheme. A daydream typically looks toward the future, as a plan for possible doing; only, it is not a serious plan for the future--which would be controlled imagination--nor necessarily a plan which could work in real life, but merely play of imagination. If we ask the same questions here as we did regarding child's play, we find again that it is easier to define the end-result and the source of satisfaction in daydreaming than it is to define the stimulus or the exact nature of the imaginative process.
Daydreams have some motive force behind them, as can be judged from the absorption of the dreamer in his dream, and also from an examination of the end-results of this kind of imagination. Daydreams usually have a hero and that hero is usually the dreamer's self. Sometimes one is the conquering hero, and sometimes the suffering hero, but in both cases the recognized or unrecognized merit of oneself is the big fact in the story, so that the mastery motive is evidently finding satisfaction here as well as in other forms of play. Probably the conquering hero dream is the commoner and healthier variety. A classical example is that of the milkmaid who was carrying on her head a pail of milk she had been given. "I'll sell this milk for so much, and with the money buy a hen. The hen will lay so many eggs, worth so much, for which I will buy me a dress and cap. Then the young men will wish to dance with me, but I shall spurn them all with a toss of the head." Her dream at this point became so absorbing as to get hold of the motor system and call out the actual toss of the head--but we are not after the moral just now; we care simply for the dream as a very true sample of many, many daydreams. Such dreams are a means of getting for the moment the satisfaction of some desire, without the trouble of real execution; and the desire gratified is very often some variety of self-assertion. Sometimes the hero is not the dreamer's self, but some one closely identified with himself. The mother is prone to make her son the hero of daydreams and so to gratify her pride in him.
The "suffering hero" daydream seems at first thought inexplicable, for why should any one picture himself as having a bad time, as misunderstood by his best friends, ill-treated by his family, jilted by his best girl, unsuccessful in his pet schemes? Why should any one make believe to be worse off than he is; what satisfaction can that [{495}] be to him? Certainly, one would say, the mastery motive could not be active here. And yet--do we not hear children boasting of their misfortunes? "Pooh! That's only a little scratch; I've got a real deep cut." My cut being more important than your scratch makes me, for the moment, more important than you, and gives me a chance to boast over you. Older people are known sometimes to magnify their own ailments, with the apparent aim of enhancing their own importance. Perhaps the same sort of motive underlies the suffering hero daydream.
I am smarting, let us suppose, from a slight administered by my friend; my wounded self-assertion demands satisfaction. It was a very little slight, and I should make myself ridiculous if I showed my resentment. But in imagination I magnify the injury done me, and go on to picture a dreadful state of affairs, in which my friend has treated me very badly indeed, and perhaps deserted me. Then I should not be ridiculous, but so deeply wronged as to be an important person, one to be talked about; and thus my demand for importance and recognition is gratified by my daydream.
Usually the suffering hero pictures himself as in the right, and animated by the noblest intentions, though misunderstood, and thus further enhances his self-esteem; but sometimes he takes the other tack and pictures himself as wicked--but as very, very wicked, a veritable desperado. It may be his self-esteem has been wounded by blame for some little meanness or disobedience, and he restores it by imagining himself a great, big, important sinner instead of a small and ridiculous one. In adolescence, the individual's growing demand for independence is often balked by the continued domination of his elders, and he rebelliously plans quite a career of crime for himself. He'll show them! They won't be so pig-headedly complacent when they know they have driven him to the bad. You can tell by the looks of [{496}] a person whose feelings are hurt that he is imagining something; usually he is imagining himself either a martyr or a desperado, or some other kind of suffering hero, often working up into a conquering hero in the end, when, his self-esteem restored, he is ready to be friends again. The suffering hero daydream is a "substitute reaction", taking the place of a fight or some other active self-assertion. The conquering hero daydream is often motivated in the same way; for example, our friend the milkmaid would not have been so ready to scorn the young men with a toss of the head if she had not been feeling her own actual inferiority and lack of fine clothes. The daydream makes good, in one way or another, for actual inability to get what we desire. The desire which is gratified in the play of imagination belongs very often indeed under the general head of self-assertion; but when one is in love it is apt to belong under that head. Love dreams of the agreeable sort need no further motivation; but the unpleasant, jealous type of love dream is at the same time a suffering hero dream, and certainly involves wounded self-assertion along with the sexual impulse. Probably the self-asserting daydream is the commonest variety, take mankind as a whole, with the love dream next in order of frequency. But there are many other sorts. There is the humor daydream, illustrated by the young person who suddenly breaks into a laugh and when you ask why replies that she was thinking how funny it would be if, etc., etc. She is very fond of a good laugh, and not having anything laughable actually at hand proceeds to imagine something. So, a music lover may mentally rehearse a piece when he has no actual music to enjoy; and if he has some power of musical invention, he may amuse himself, in idle moments, by making up music in his head; just as one who has some ability in decorative design may fill his idle moments by concocting new designs on paper. [{497}] When vacation time approaches, it is hard for any one, student or professor, to keep the thoughts from dwelling on the good times ahead, and getting some advance satisfaction. Thus all kinds of desires are gratified in imagination.