"What is available is the daydream-a limitless realm of freedom. In this other world, one might be famous or rich, finally catch the attention of their beloved, or simply sit on a beach as a waiter brings them cocktails. They might fly or speak to animals, heroically save a child, tell off their boss with no consequences, win the Super Bowl at the whistle, or travel to another continent, planet, or time period. No one can stop them; no one can even object."
"Their conjurers, who refuse to accept the rules of the real world, can also be great fun to read about. While working on my new novel, The Ten Year Affair, which follows a woman fantasizing about a love affair with a longtime friend, I thought about what happens when speculation or wishing starts to bleed into the real. Daydreaming, I realized, can sustain a person over the course of a life-and perhaps even change it, for good or for ill."
Many people desire escape from their everyday lives but cannot do so practically. Daydreams provide a limitless, consequence-free realm where fantasies of fame, wealth, romance, flight, heroic rescue, revenge, sports triumph, or travel can be enacted. Daydreams illuminate hidden, anarchic, or seductive inclinations and reflect elements of conscious life. Writers often recreate these reveries and examine how fantasy interacts with reality. Daydreaming can sustain a person over decades and may change a life for better or worse. One contemporary novel centers on Y/N fanfiction and a narrator’s obsessive journey after a K-pop idol retires.
Read at The Atlantic
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