Fantasy is understood to be all that set of ideas, situations, representations and phenomena that are part of a person's imagination and that do not have a true correlate in reality.
However, the fact that they are mere imaginations or creations of an individual's unconscious does not mean that they have no value: on the contrary, according to what different branches of psychology establish, fantasy is the way in which an individual expresses their desires, interests, fears, goals, and even perversions. Fantasy always has to do with the creation or generation of situations at a mental or imaginative level that cannot occur in real life or that must remain repressed by certain moral or social guidelines.
Fantasy, moreover, turns out to be the fundamental ally of imagination, the human cognitive capacity that allows us to abstract and represent images in our minds from known data or experiences, and which result in the creation of characters, objects, among others.
Fantasy is also a typical and exclusively human mental faculty that allows us to elaborate images that never existed, except in our minds, to rework already known questions by providing them with unique conditions, or failing that, it may consist of anticipating situations that have not yet happened.
Although in common language the idea of fantasy always has a sexual connotation, as with the idea of unfulfilled sexual or erotic fantasies of an individual, the truth is that the notion of fantasy can be applied to different types of situations or imagined realities, for example, the perfect job position, a specific type of social relationship, the realization of certain goals, etc. Fantasy ceases to be such when it is put into practice because that is where it loses its character of imagination or unreality.
Key in the creation of all kinds of art
On the other hand, we cannot ignore that fantasy is a key and fundamental piece of artistic creation, thanks to it is that authors, painters, sculptors, draftsmen, architects, among other professionals who work with creativity, can write poems famous and exciting, sculpt relevant and unique works, draw flawlessly, or construct a smart building, among others.
In another vein, fantasy was the engine of many sets of legends and myths that accompanied humanity from the earliest times on the planet. Fantasy can also play a therapeutic role and help us escape for a few moments from the problems and daily stress that inevitably arise in today's busy life.
Children, great fantasy worshipers
All of us, without exceptions, fantasize, children, young people, adults, the elderly, but without a doubt it is children who at all times display an enormous capacity for fantasy that leads them to invent friends that only exist in their minds, to tell stories and stories in which the fantastic dominates in every sense, in the characters, in the facts, among others.
Literary genre in which the magical and unreal predominate
In this sense, fantasy can also be understood as a type of artistic or literary genre that precisely supposes the existence of non-real or magical elements such as goblins, deformed creatures, fairies, mermaids, monsters and many others. There, themes such as the development of missions in magical, enchanted and exotic places, with medieval or unreal characters and with eccentric endings are common characteristics. The artistic fantasy and the different literary genres always implies an escape to the reality in which human beings participate in much more complex, different, rich and completely different worlds.
Excess fantasy could be a symptom of madness
Meanwhile, when a person manifests an excess of fantasy in his behavior that leads him to be permanently breaking with reality, he must be treated by a psychiatric professional because we could be facing a case of insanity. A person who is not satisfied with his reality because it is hostile, depresses or scares him usually creates a parallel world to combat these states. Obviously this situation is not normal and you must quickly find the medical attention you deserve, to alleviate symptoms or find a cure.
Jewelry imitations
And finally, the term fantasy is also used to designate the reproductions that are made of jewels of great value and brand. "My necklace is not from Cartier, it is a fantasy very close to the jewels of that brand."
The other side of fantasy is the real, because, as we have already seen, when something that was a fantasy comes into existence, it leaves the universe of the fantastic.
