The Dangers of Fantasies.

Fantasizing about another person may seem like a harmless indulgence, but it actually draws us closer to temptation and can increase the risk of being unfaithful.

What you should know about fantasies?

Maladaptive daydreaming is a proposed psychological disorder, a fantasy activity that replaces human interaction and interferes with work, relationships and general activities. Those with this pathology daydream or fantasize excessively, assuming roles and characters in scenarios created to their liking.

Is fantasizing a mental illness?

Maladaptive daydreaming is a widely misunderstood psychiatric condition that involves persistent, intense daydreams. The symptoms include lengthy periods of vivid daydreaming and struggling to carry out day-to-day tasks. Fantasizers have had a large exposure to fantasy during early childhood. This over-exposure to childhood fantasy has at least three important causes: Parents or caregivers who indulged in their child's imaginative mental or play environment during childhood.

Is living in a fantasy world to escape reality a mental disorder?

For most people, these fantasies are localized to one or a few specific areas, as opposed to fantasies of being an entirely different person. For example, for men, a common fantasy realm is that where their success with women is far greater than it is in real life. They imagine themselves as being able to get any woman they want (excessive porn use likely reinforces this fantasy), so the dearth of romance in their life doesn’t hurt as much.

Escapism is a way of attempting to negate our personal responsibility and to avoid the discomfort of existential angst that we all must deal with. We are ultimately responsible for all the decisions that we make and the actions that we take, but living in a fantasy world is a way of absolving ourselves of the consequences of our actions. To the escape artist, “real life" is no longer their problem.Most of us had fantasized or daydreamed.

To imagine is to think of images, and we can use this capacity of the mind in our favor or to our detriment. In our favor it would be to think of images to reflect, plan, understand problems, remember, solve practical questions ... Also to create something new, which would be part of creativity, which is undoubtedly a very useful capacity. For example, if we are going to build something, first we imagine it mentally, then we can build it; or if I have to go to the station, I can see in mental images the way to get there, this makes my journey easier.

However, using thought in images to dream something chimerical, feigned, invented facts that have no reality in order to produce generally pleasurable sensations, that would be fantasizing and is harmful psychologically speaking. It is the equivalent of a drug, a psychological drug that produces a false temporary well-being, with its subsequent decay that encourages a new dose, in this case of unreality.

Fantasizing is addictive, you just have to try to quit that habit, to realize that it is not so easy to avoid it. Even many people are barely aware that they fantasize.

- In children it is similar. For example, there is an evolutionary stage in which they play roles, imagine being a father or a mother and thereby rehearse situations, create new associations, are not fantasizing, are using imagination to learn. But when they invent that their "uncle is a policeman and has a tank", even when they know that this is false, they deceive themselves with the purpose of escaping reality, trying to avoid some fear.

Imagine how things would be if they had happened otherwise, that would be, imagine, and we can learn from it. To fantasize, to get drunk assuming a different life in which usually the one who dreams is the protagonist, is a way to escape from reality. This form of evasion occurs when some aspect of reality is unpleasant or causes suffering, and it is not known how to deal with it.

Fantasizing is a system of false emotional compensation, and produces an illusory well-being that confuses the mind, disorients, fosters mental blockage and insecurity. Increases frustration and rejection of life, because the circumstances and people around the dreamer do not meet the expectations of their dreams. It also entails a high expenditure of psychological energy, which makes it more difficult to face the challenges of everyday life and deepen their understanding, and thereby aggravate the problems they run away from.

In extreme cases, the habit of fantasizing can become a pathological disorder by itself. Most people who suffer from such a disorder keep it a secret, and have difficulty behaving fluidly in real life situations. When this issue is addressed with them, they recognize that this disorder has a negative effect on their lives. Also, fantasizing may be coupled with disorders such as social phobia and depression, or used to try to mishandle a traumatic situation such as abuse.

Learn to face reality with intelligence.

A person who learns to face the conflicts of everyday life, who manages to live life with intensity and curiosity, will not need to fantasize and stop evoking unrealities.

As always, it is not a matter of judging yourself for it, but of understanding that it is a false exit to problems, and that it will generate more difficulties. The emotional part plays a fundamental role in any conflict, but in this case especially.

On the other hand, to quit this habit, we must identify the aspects of reality that are feared, which are not known to be resolved or believed to have no solution, and learn to face those fears. In that sense, as a simple formula we can deduce that if you fantasize about a wonderful couple, you probably fear loneliness or not having a concrete social image; if he fantasizes about having a lot of money, the fear would be a shortage; if he fantasizes about some kind of social success, the fear would be not to be valuable in the eyes of others, etc.

We must address the unpleasant emotions that generate the circumstances of real life, and that are being rejected, to be able to confront problems with serenity and solve them, whether they are real circumstances of the present or if they are fears towards the future.

Psychologically speaking, everything has a solution, if you learn how. The future is the consequence, the effect of the present, just as the present is the result of the past. If we put our interest in solving what is wrong in the present, our future will be much more satisfactory, for us and for others.