Who of us, serious adults, never fantasized? Yes, no one. We all dreamed in childhood. Even if now all these processes are pushed far, far away, in childhood everyone thought out some incredible space travel, a handsome prince on a unicorn or a time machine control. For the little ones, our fantasies were very important, thanks to them everyone had some cherished secret dream, which he aspired to. Aspirations have changed, but have adults become happier? Hardly. Why not dream up a little and serious adults?
What is fantasy?
In psychology, fantasy is commonly understood as the activity of the psyche associated with imaginary, unrealistic notions. It can be said to improvise our brain. Immediately it is worth mentioning that the concepts of fantasy and imagination, although very close in meaning, are not the same. If imagination operates with something or someone real, then fantasy is based on unreal, completely invented ideas. For example, presenting yourself against the background of the Statue of Liberty is imagination, even if you have never been around it. But imagining oneself flying on its wing to the statue of Liberty is already a fantasy.
It seems to many that fantasy, like imagination, needs to be developed only by children in order to adequately adapt to the surrounding reality. But it is not so. Any unreal dream moves a person and allows him to create something new. Only thanks to fantasy inventors showed the world a light bulb, a TV, cars and all the other achievements of human thought. Only thanks to her we have music, literature, cinema, photography, etc. Everything created by the hands and thoughts of a man was once only someone's impracticable, it would seem, fantasy.
How to develop a fantasy?
There are a lot of ways to develop fantasy. Do not be afraid to try different methods and exercises, because they certainly will not be superfluous, especially when there is nothing to do. They guarantee an interesting pastime to all those who fantasize. All methods are suitable for kids and adults. However, parents should remember that the child should not fully immerse himself in his fantasies, otherwise it will prevent him from contacting with real people around him, and also the views of the child should not border on nonsense, although in this matter the categories are rather relative.
Games as a way to develop fantasy.
For the development of fantasy exercises are useful, provoking the invention of something non-standard.
For example, the exercise "Chair" (or "Nightstand" or "Stapler" is not so important). Participants need to come up with as many uses as possible for the relevant subject, and applications such as "sit down" or "rest" should be discarded immediately. But the options "make a gun" or "drive away aliens" are fine.
Another such exercise is to invent a way to create a particular subject. For example, a chair can be folded from coins, molded from melted chocolates, etc.
On paper, you can draw the same or different squiggles, circles, triangles. Players must finish each of these figures to something finished.
Use verbal exercises.
Such exercises are very different. By the way, you can invent them yourself.
- The connection of parts of words. For example, take the halves of the words "socket" and "TV" and get: "rozevor." And then this "rozevoru" need to come up with a description, purpose and a small story. Such exercises are good because they do not cause any subconscious mental reactions - a completely new concept is obtained.
- Oglagolivanie nouns. If you take two subjects and make one of them an action, you can get various interesting phrases: "sofa the phone" or "telephone the sofa", "thread the carpet" or "carpet the thread", etc. And that's not all - then you need to describe all these strange to the ear of action.
- The combination of the image of one object and the action of another. We take two objects, for example, a telephone and a mug. We represent the action of one and the other: we call by phone and drink from a mug. We connect the action with the image: “the phone drinks from a mug” or “the mug calls by phone”. Thanks to such absurd sentences, fantasy develops, because then you need to invent a whole story: who the mug is calling and why the phone suddenly wanted to drink.
Creative activity.
Even if the lessons of work in elementary school are long over, drawing has never been a favorite subject, and the process of writing poetry always ended without really starting, because of the ever-absent muse, sometimes you can do something creative. Together with the child or yourself you need to take paints, brushes and start painting. The hand itself will create something on a piece of paper. If you get something mysterious or unreal, you can then invent a story about the hero of the picture. Similarly, you can sculpt, sew, write compositions, songs or poems, play the guitar, picking up chords by ear.
Imaginary friend.
Almost all the kids had an imaginary friend. It could have been some kind of animal, a fabulous good monster, an imaginary child or an adult. Together with him, the kid could invent some games, fleeing from laziness, play situations, make whole journeys. Why not even adults think up someone with whom you can not fantasize to dream up the most unprecedented miracles? So that it is also useful in real life, you can endow your imaginary friend with qualities that the adult himself does not have, and consult with him how to act in a given situation. This will be a more objective look at the situation from the outside, which in some cases helps a lot.
Coming up with plots.
To banish melancholy and diversify your daily life, you can fill it with various interesting plots. Not only can you think up the end of the books, read only half, or new turns in the cinema, stopping at the most interesting place, even what seems unpleasant in life, thanks to the development of imagination, will be fun.
Going to work in the morning, you can look at the faces of passers-by, not forgetting to invent an interesting fate or profession for them. Only they really should be interesting, for example, an ordinary old woman in a beret who pushes on the subway can become the owner of countless treasures buried somewhere on a desert island, and the sleeping guy with headphones actually works at night as a vampire exterminator. Another way to develop imagination can be inventing the childhood or old age of bystanders or fellow travelers. This is a very exciting activity that also works on improving communication skills.
If you learn to invent such stories and biographies, it is possible in fantasies to represent an evil boss as a cute toddler in childhood or in a funny hat. To treat him negatively later will not work, which means that relations will improve. Yes, and boring work can be perceived as a quest or mission, so as not to lose motivation.
Fantasies and dreams are necessary for everyone not to become soulless robots that perform all the same algorithm day after day. And only fantasy representatives of society will be able to create many more pieces of art and make discoveries in various fields.
