As we know, the aim of all defense mechanisms our minds employs is to relieve tension and prevent us from feelings of discomfort that woul otherwise arise from acknowledging reality or a conflict between our impulses and our conscience.
One such unconcious technique the mind employs to protect us from anxiety is Fantasy.
What’s Fantasy ?
Fantasy is a defense mechanism where an individual resorts to daydreaming or retreats to a safe place within the mind to avoid facing reality. This helps one satisfy unmet desires, wishes or needs in imagination instead of real life.
For instance; An individual with sexual attractions to another but afraid of approaching them fantasizes about having moments with them.
The word Fantasy is derived from the German word; fantasie.
Fantasy in Freud’s Terms;
Freud postulated that our forbidden repressed desires and wishes such as sexual or aggressive impulses can be enacted through fantasies.
One desires to maintain distance from the repressed wish and simultaneously experience it. In Sexual terms it’s linked to the term ; the object of Fantasy.
Anna Freud on Fantasy.
Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud’s daughter, also saw fantasy as mean through which one denies reality by escaping to a safe place in the mind.
Fantasies can also be used to express unconcious desires and wishes one might have.
In an experiment with one of her clients;
A seven-year-old boy whom she had analyzed used to amuse himself with the following fantasy. He owned a tame lion, which terrified everyone else and loved nobody but him. It came when he called it and followed him like a little dog, wherever he went. He looked after the lion, saw to its food and its comfort in general, and in the evening made a bed for it in his own room. As is usual in daydreams carried on from day to day, the main fantasy became the basis of a number of agreeable episodes.
For example, There was a particular daydream in which he went to a fancy-dress ball and told all the people that the lion, which he brought with him, was only a friend in disguise. This was untrue, for the “disguised friend” was really his lion. He delighted in imagining how terrified the people would be if they guessed his secret. At the same time he felt that there was no real reason for their anxiety, for the lion was harmless so long as he kept it under control.
From the little boy’s analysis, Anna Freud came to a conclusion that the lion was a substitute for the father, whom he, hated and feared as a real rival in relation to his other. Aggressive impulses were transformed into anxiety and the affects displaced from the father to the animal in Fantasy.
Other examples
1. Narcissists often show patterns of grandiosity in Fantasy, imagining to be superior than the rest.
2. Individuals preoccupied with fantasies of success, power , brilliance, beauty or ideal love especially when reality seems to bee contradict this.
3. People have a tendencies of fantasizing aggressive actions to especially those who wrong them.
4. An individual who is lonely fantasizing moments with friends..
5. Sexual fantasies are more common.
6. Fantasies may also be observed by people watching movies and shows. Imagining themselves to be at the scenes or playing the actors parts.
7. To manage uncomfortable feeling of anger or insecurities, one may retreat to fantasy imagining oneself taking revenge for an injustice incurred.
8. Fantasizing about a perfect, deeply loving relationship with a partner or celebrity as an unconcious escape from a harsh reality ie; current relationship issues, loneliness, or lack of intimacy.
9. Some suggest that the habit of immersing oneself in movies, books, or social media can be a form pf fantasy where we unconciously try to completely inhabit another world and escape current distress/Reality.
Fantasy vs Dissociation.
Both fantasy and dissociation are similar in that they offer a mental escape from reality. But unlike Fantasy, Dissociation involves a disconnect from reality. In fantasy, one remains in contact with reality.