Where’s the line between healthy, productive imagination – envisioning our possible futures – and wishful thinking? Is one better than the other? Are they really different?
Who doesn’t take solace in a little wild daydreaming now and then?
Oh, those pleasurable “what ifs” that suspend gritty reality and allow us to picture something other than the dinged 2005 Civic, the overrun backyard, or for that matter the dullard for a lover or the empty bed, agreeably replaced instead by the hottie of your choice who brews you coffee in the morning.
How far-fetched are such flights of fancy?
According to a delightful article in The New York Times, daydreaming can be harmful or helpful, and ranges from the patently peculiar to the singularly sensational.
Why not imagine you’ll win the lottery, and all the adventures that open up with big bucks? Why not envision yourself as hanging with George Clooney as if that’s the most natural thing in the world?
Dealing in Daydreaming
Isn’t daydreaming permission for the mind to meander? Doesn’t it spark good feelings, relaxation, and necessary distraction?
Apparently, the real drama in daydreaming is that it’s gotten a bad rap, and it’s gotten a bad rap because we’re doing it all wrong. Jon Methven explains in the Times:
Because of widespread misuse, daydreaming has achieved the rank stigma of slothful procrastination…
But when used correctly… it can reduce stress, improve productivity and ensure that you stop being a miserable jerk the rest of the day.
Then again, it’s a matter of when and where, not to mention degree, isn’t it?
As Mr. Methven points out, daydreaming in the car while on the road is a bad idea. (The source of those dings on the Civic?) Daydreaming about writing a brilliant “something” and getting paid enough to cover the bills? Not only is there no harm in it, I suggest it’s nourishment in the Stay Calm and Carry On department, inspiration when confronted with the blank page, and motivation when the dreary bank balance sends you crawling to the pantry to scavenge for chips.
So which would that be – healthy or unhealthy? Daydreaming or wishful thinking?
The Benefits of Wishful Thinking
I put wishful thinking into a slightly different category. It includes scenarios that are “out there,” yet tied to a germ of reality. That distinction qualifies canoeing (and canoodling?) with Clooney as a daydream, and brilliant writing (that pays) as wishful thinking.
Inventing a mechanism to clean my gutters without scaling a rickety ladder or calling the handyman? Daydream.
My college-aged sons causing me zero worry and consequently no additional gray hair? Blissful relationships with myself and others? Wishful thinking.
So where do wishful thinking and daydreaming meet? Are both more positive than we realize, the former to give teeth to quasi-reality-based desires, and the latter to offer us mental recreation?
Writing this, I recognize that I rarely engage in daydreaming, though I indulge in wishful thinking from time to time – when stuck in traffic (and others are daydreaming), when staring at the ceiling (wishing I could sleep), when the mind’s playful and pragmatic sides are in cahoots, leading me toward opportunity – and action.
Imagine It, Achieve It
While I wouldn’t say that everything we dream up is ultimately achievable, if we don’t imagine what we might want, isn’t that condemning ourselves to a more constrained life?
I’d say the wide spectrum of options offered by dreaming and wishing is a good thing, wouldn’t you?
So why is it that so many of us stop daydreaming of who we want to become or some imaginary lifestyle? Do we lose confidence in ourselves? Do we feel foolish or silly? Do we run out of steam? Do we grow too busy, too “adult,” too serious?
Whether we permit ourselves daydreaming, wishful thinking, or a bit of both bumping up against each other amiably, I realize I need more of each on a regular basis – daydreaming for its playfulness, and wishful thinking for motivation.
Either way, don’t many of our sweetest moments start with the spark of life re-imagined?
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I love when the PowerBall winnings get huge. It gives me an excuse to daydream and spend like there is no tomorrow. It’s a wonderful chance to look at the world unencumbered and dream about “If I could do anything, what would I do.”
And every time I daydream, the dream changes depending on my ilk that day. Feeling more benevolent, the money goes to endowments for my favorite charities. Feeling a little Hollywood? Then I spend on the glamorous items like cars and houses and jewels. Feeling like a Zombie Apocalypse is pending. Then I’m buying munitions and canned goods like a Montana recluse typing up a manifesto in the deep woods.
At the end of it all, no harm, no foul. I’m only $2 poorer.
Oh, this is a loaded one for me. And it ties into the current memes of Law of Attraction, manifesting desires, creating your own reality etc.
This is so case specific, so true and untrue at the same time. I drove myself crazy for a while, racked with self-loathing myself for having manifested such a shitty situation (divorce etc). It’s humorous now, that I succumb to the belief that I am the creator of everything in my existence. I now believe that we are co-creators. Where we put our attention is extremely powerful but it is not the whole ball of wax.
I have found that fantasies that focus on a specific feeling I desire are useful. Once I can generate the feeling I want, the choices and events that might facilitate that feeling start to reveal themselves.
Sometimes daydreaming is all we have, a lifeline. Again, it is so specific to an individual when daydreaming becomes a substitute for living and a bedfellow of inaction. And it’s a sort of dance we do all of our lives. I still get tripped up on sorting out what is productive envisioning and what is just lazy wishful thinking. I guess the proof is in the pudding. If nothing is happening and no fantasies are coming to fruition, that could be a clue. But, there are too many success stories out there to discount the importance of daydreaming and even wishful thinking…too many folks who have done the “impossible” and who have realized their dreams despite how fantastic and unrealistic they were.
Bottom line to me is that daydreaming and wishful thinking with proportionately 100 times more hard work = high probability of success.
Dearest D
We daydream all the time.
And make lists.
Because we believe that you have to Dream Big and be willing to make a plan and follow it. Serious focus and caffeine and it All Appears to be Happening.
It’s easier for us today to do this. Because we tried the other way (slipping into lackless depression and *coughs* cake) and Nothing changed as a result…….
Risk is the currency of the gods ————
*wavingfromlosangeles*
tg xx
One of my daydreams, or is it wishful thinking?, is to find someone I love who loves me back. I’m even able to dream myself into thinking I’ve found the “love of my life,” even if reality doesn’t confirm that dream and I wind up spending way too much time investing in a relationship that will never be more than a friendship. Not that a good friendship isn’t worth it, of course. But in the aftermath of the daydreams and wishful thinking of finding my true North in another person, I’ve returned to an earlier fascination with Jungian thought. Better to deal with the reality of my life, to do the hard work of finding the real me by reeling back all my projections, and to finally become my own true North, than to seek the “Other” to make me whole, fix me, distract me from the hard stuff of life. Romantic daydreams are the ultimate escape.
“Nothing has greater power over our lives than the hint, the promise, the intimation, of the recovery of Eden through the Magical Other. That hope is our chief fantasy.”
James Hollis
It’s my age lately that stops me from daydreaming. Isn’t that sad? There are some long term things I’d like to do that I find myself not pursuing because of my age. Wishful thinking? I don’t think I engage in that. But that said, I do give a resounding yes to the question that imagination gives way to some very pleasurable moments and are a great stress reducer too.
I’m a wishful thinker… not a daydreamer. Somehow I equate daydreaming with wasting time.. probably a question of semantics… or over zealous teachers, when I was young, who would rap us over the knuckles if we ‘wafted’ off in class!
I am going to try it… daydreaming that is… 🙂 xv
I prefer to call it (a-hem) Ideating. Sounds much more productive, doesn’t it. 🙂