Fantasy Typology - Society

We all want to live in a world where everything that happens has an explanation and which is put in our heads in the form of a harmonious, consistent system. We like a world in which, like in Hollywood films, good is always visually separated from evil, the "good guys" are easily distinguished from the "bad guys" and invariably win. But the real world, alas, is not like that, it has never been like this and is unlikely to become like that in the foreseeable future.

HOW TO EXPLAIN THE UNEXPLANATED

We have to somehow correct this situation that does not satisfy us from childhood (from the childhood of mankind and from our personal childhood). Haeckel's law, disliked by modern biology ("ontogeny is a brief repetition of phylogeny"), seems to be played out here, on a foreign platform, in full force. Our ancestors easily turned unknown and inexplicable things and phenomena into funny, scary, friendly or dangerous, but invariably outlandish entities.

They did this, undoubtedly, in the interests of the integrity of the observed world and the preservation of cause-and-effect relationships in it. Thunder roars, because Elijah the prophet rides in a chariot. In the forest, the goblin confuses paths, Baba Yaga flew across the sky with a lantern in a mortar, a mermaid dragged the drowned man away, and the kikimora horses braided the mane …

Our children are doing exactly the same thing today. “Who's knocking there? - Babai lives behind the wall. Why is the curtain swinging so strangely? "There's a ghost there." An explosive mixture of primitive explanations and sweet metaphysical horror, just like our ancestors. It also happens in its pure form, the fruit of an unclouded child's fantasy.

From my practice. A five-year-old child asked: "Why do they smear a scratch with iodine?" They answered him: "To kill the microbes." And they didn't explain anything else. “Why does iodine sting? - thought the child. - After all, if you wash it with water, it won't hurt. Aha! (A consistent fantasy picture began to form.) Water does not kill microbes, but they die from iodine. Microbes are something alive (once they die), such very small harmful animals. And so, when they die, they are in the last rage, grabbing the hand with their little teeth. That's why it hurts (the picture is completed)."

WHAT ARE FANTASIES

Children's fantasies, like the fantasies of people who lived before, are conventionally divided into protective, systematizing and ornamental. An example of a systematizing fantasy is above, about microbes.

You can decorate yourself, someone else, or the world as a whole. "I can pull out a whole tree!" - declares the kid. Fantasy, lies, bragging? Hard to choose. Easier to say: personal decoration. In the same row - a huge bush of events from the discouraging self-promotion of some psychotherapist to "rejuvenating" plastic surgery. A little lies, a little imagination - and now we ourselves believe that somewhere, once … in Rhodes, we jumped so far! (Remember the ancient saying?)

"My dad is so strong that he once picked up a bus!" - there are some protective notes here, do you hear? "Don't touch me (if you suddenly thought something bad), I have a VERY strong dad."

“Once there was such a terrible wind that our bus flew over the road along with all the passengers!” - the world is so amazing, and there is always a place for a miracle. And the wind was really strong then. Well, the bus could actually fly! At least a little, low, like crocodiles from an anecdote …

I would attribute all divisions into "bad" and "good" to a cross between systematizing and protective fantasies. The good ones are me and all ours. "Bad" - all the rest.

“Why did I get a deuce? - And because it is the teacher nagging at me.

“Why did our team lose? - But because the judge sued them.

“Why is Russia not very popular in the world? “But because she“gets up off her knees,”and they all want her to stay there (where, forgive me?).”

Well, purely protective fantasies remain. "If I turn around three times, then I will not be called today." "If I say now that I have lost the diary, then perhaps the deuces from it will eventually disappear somewhere." "If I come up with a separate world (nickname, VKontakte page) where I am a princess, the problems from the real world will not be so acute."

It is impossible to cancel fantasies, just as it is impossible to make everyone crystal honest. Fantasy is an ancient, well-deserved mechanism of cognition and adaptation to the complexity of the world. But since then humanity has come a long way, including discovering scientific knowledge.

Today, to fully adapt in our world, a person must grow up. Therefore, it makes direct sense to teach children (and learn for themselves) to understand the limitations of the applicability of fantasies (where they work and where they do not), and also to form a skill - how to distinguish fantasies from reality.

EXPERT OPINION

FANTASY SHIELD

Fantasies are an important element in the development of a child, because imagination is directly related to the ability to create something new, unusual. It develops especially intensively in the sensitive period - from 5 to 12 years. Psychologists believe that school performance also depends on the child's ability to daydream. Imagining, he mentally goes beyond the present and presents the expected result - right up to its implementation. In addition to the cognitive and intellectual function, the imagination has one more, very important, affective-protective function. It is through imaginary situations that symbolic conflict resolution, stress relief, fantasizing allows the child to experience severe trauma. How can you develop your imagination? Read books and poetry, paint, sculpt, fantasize what clouds are like, or offer to compose and act out different stories.

Olga Mitina,

candidate of psychological sciences