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Fantasy-- not love, work, faith, or money-- makes the world go round
Why is fantasy the ultimate engine of human endeavor? Because of its ubiquitous availability, zero cost, enormous power to relieve stress and suffering, aid healing, boost health and creativity, fuel love, and generally motivate us to continue to plug away at our problems-- despite the often overwhelming odds against us.
But-- like most other things in life-- there can be a dark side as well. Fortunately, most of our personal fantasies rarely exert much tangible negative effect on others: for we simply don't have that much power or influence.
However, our top leaders (and the most wealthy among us) are different: their darkest fantasies could well be brought to life, and truly turn our world into a nightmare worse than any horror film imaginable.
For that reason, humanity has no choice but to collectively impose strenuous limits on the power of our leaders and the rich to bring their own worst fantasies to reality. For without such limits, the clock on human extinction merely ticks closer to our doom with each passing moment.
For fantasies are what drive us. Virtually all of us would make at least some of our fantasies come true, if it were in our power. Today, our leaders and the super-rich actually possess such power. In a worst case scenario, it would require only one such person to end the world as we know it, and bring about a fate perhaps worse than death for the rest of us.
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Last updated 7-13-07
Even in today's modern world, where more human beings than ever before in history get to live in reasonably decent conditions in regards to safe and plentiful food and water, security from widespread violence and lawlessness, comfortable homes, and work jobs usually less back-breaking and dangerous (but better-paying) than those of generations past, still, all that's not enough.
We can't help but yearn for more. Because we know the potential for it exists. Whether it be more money, more free time, a better home or car-- or a suitable lover to spend the rest of our lives with-- we can't help but pursue such things. Even if some (or all) of them may in reality remain forever beyond our reach.
But we can certainly dream about them. Fantasize. About loving another, and being loved in return. Or driving that shiny red Ferrari to the class reunion. Or becoming the next famous person everyone wants to know, and be seen with.
Yes. We can most certainly dream. About any or all the things we'd like to have or experience. Even if we're fated never to attain such goals, the dream alone often helps us make it through our days.
This phenomenon was noted in many survivors of Hitler's WWII holocaust. Prisoners who stubbornly fantasized about returning again to a normal life once more-- to freedom, to loved ones, to an eventual escape from the concentration camps-- those tended to be the ones who survived the starvation and slave labor conditions to regain their lives and freedom at war's end.
As Thoreau said of conditions much less extreme than those WWII concentration camps, "most men lead lives of quiet desperation". And that's as true today as it ever was.
Fantasy is what gets us through our days. And fantasy is a major chunk of what this web site's all about.
-- Why You Think You're Wonderful
Your brain lies, cheats and distorts -- but only because it loves you... By Brian Bethune; originally published in Maclean's Magazine.
-- Sexual Role Play Tip
From Cory Silverberg,
-- Nurses, firemen dominate fantasies: poll; August 23, 2006
-- Nurses are No. 1...in male sexual fantasies; August 24, 2006
-- Men fantasize about many women; many women fantasize about one man
; 2005/11/21
-- Introducing New Sexual Fantasies to a Lover
-- Threats to hope -- Desperation affects reasoning about product information; 12-Jul-2007; Contact: Suzanne Wu
swu@press.uchicago.edu
773-834-0386
University of Chicago Press Journals
-- The Safest Sex
You may be afraid to talk about them, but sexual fantasies are normal.
By Peter Doskoch; Sep/Oct 95
-- The Science of Sex:
Glenn Wilson on Sexual Fantasies
; 1989-1992
-- Top 10 Lesbian Sexual Fantasies
From Kathy Belge
-- Got Pain? Think Sex.
Fantasies Fight Fear; Sept. 13, 2001
-- FORGET RELAXATION; THE WAY TO BEAT STRESS IS TO CONJURE TORRID SEXUAL FANTASIES
by Sally Kinnes and Craig Mardus
-- Exploring Female Sexual Fantasies
By Dr. Victoria Zdrok
-- Terrorist Hotbeds 'a Fantasy', Says Researcher; 27 Nov 2006
-- Top 10
Women's Sexual Fantasies
-- What's Behind Rape Fantasies?
Women's secret thoughts reveal unconscious, often brutal, desires
by Rachel Kramer Bussel; December 5th, 2005
--
Imaginary Friends and Enemies All Good, Scientists Say
By Corey Binns; 04 December 2006
-- God is Imaginary
"In over a fifth of cases, people wrongly remembered whether they actually witnessed an event or just imagined it..."
-- Our grip on reality is slim, says UCL scientist; 23-Jun-2006; Contact: Dominique Fourniol
a.brew@ucl.ac.uk
44-791-727-1364
University College London
-- Imagination, Memory and Context in the Directed Forgetting Paradigm by Chris Chatham; March 22, 2007
-- Great sex is all in your head, says brain-imaging expert By Alison Roberts; June 4, 2007
-- The greatest story ever sold is a fantasy covered in blood. | Wise Bread by Amy Lin
-- Turning fantasy into a reality that helps others
Lucifer Chu's obscure interest in fantasy novels ended up making him an unlikely millionaire
By Gavin Phipps; Mar 06, 2005
-- A study confirms the importance of sexual fantasies in the experience of sexual desire; 07/11/2006
-- Maybe this fantasy should have stayed a fantasy? By Catherine Townsend; May 17, 2007
-- 10 Male Fantasies By Brandon Evans
-- Scientists show we can die of a broken heart | Uk News | News | Telegraph By Roger Highfield; 10/04/2007
-- Creative Types Have More Sex Partners By Robert Roy Britt; 29 November 2005
"...66 percent of United States adults having played in the previous year, and 13 percent on a weekly basis."
"...the odds of winning the next big score, $12 million, at 1 in 175,711,536, and anyone with a semester of high school math can see what a fool’s bet that is."
"Like a throwaway lifestyle magazine, lottery tickets engage transforming fantasies: a wine cellar, a pool, a vision of tropical blues and white sand. The difference is that the ticket can deliver.
"It’s not just winning the money but anticipating winning the money that is exciting, and the two experiences are similar neurobiologically,"
-- Lotto Makes Sense, Even for Losers - Benedict Carey - New York Times By BENEDICT CAREY;March 11, 2007
"...the more developed a person's frontal lobe is, the more active their sex life is going to be."
-- Female Orgasms are Potentially Deadly for Men
-- Is It Love or Mental Illness?
They're Closer Than You Think By TARA PARKER-POPE; February 13, 2007
-- The Fantasy Of Happily Ever After
Anna Nicole Smith Stripped Marriage Of Its Illusions
By Philip Kennicott; February 9, 2007; Page C01
-- The Call of Solitude
How spending time alone can enhance intimacy. Being alone can fuel life.
By Ester Buchholz; Jan/Feb 1998
-- Free to choose? Modern neuroscience is eroding the idea of free will;
Dec 19th 2006
-- Video games may be beneficial to the brain, suggests McMaster researcher - Yahoo! Canada News
"...the "sovereign masters that determine what people will do are not pleasure and pain, but fallible memories of pleasure and pain."
-- Happiness and economics Economics discovers its feelings | Economist.com; Dec 19th 2006
"Research has convinced many therapists that understanding the past is not required for healing."
"...reviewing the past is not only unnecessary to healing, but can be counterproductive."
"Obsessive rumination about past events can trap patients in a self-defeating cycle from which they cannot extricate themselves. It can actually retard healing."
-- More and More, Favored Psychotherapy Lets Bygones Be Bygones - New York Times By ALIX SPIEGEL; February 14, 2006
-- Playing God (via lucid dreaming) by J.R. Mooneyham; 1993
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