Conclusion
The study of daydreams, fantasy productions and night dreams has shown the importance of the less rational levels of experience. All these forms of expression lie open to whatever bothers the individual in the way of unsolved personal problems and emotional tensions. A person may not find peace unless, for example, he wins back the esteem of parents and girl friends, or unless, like the subject Arnold, he is able to adjust to or reach a compromise with his wife's sexual desires-in other words, if some vital problem is pressing for solution, it constantly invades the less rational forms of behavior even when it must do so in disguise.
It may keep appearing in reverie, it may influence selective perception, or it may activate dreams and fantasy. And if left to its own development, fantasy can lead to serious mental, emotional and physical problems. The attitude toward fantasy is symptom rather than cause, as Robert H. White demonstrates in his The Abnormal Personality:
In view of the current fashion which considers fantasy merely as a maladjustive process it is important to call attention to what happens when fantasy is constricted and suppressed. A person in whom this has occurred wants everything to be realistic, concrete, and clearly structured. He shies from whatever is vague or poorly outlined, from anything that cannot be pinned down in unequivocal terms. He is apt to settle for a humdrum, routine way of life and appears to others to miss much of the experience that should be within his reach. Here again the attitude toward fantasy is symptom rather than cause: conflicts and anxieties lie behind the wariness of imagination. Such a personality, however, is the kind that is often referred to as impoverished, which fits the conception that the cut-off realm of fantasy is in many respects a source of riches.
Modern psychology has voiced the opinion that close study of a person's fantasy life (and it appears that many people considered "normal" experience some form of fantasy life) would tell a great deal about his personality. If it were possible to open a door and observe the free streaming of a person's reverie, many insights would be gained which could never be obtained through conversation or by observing the person's behavior from the outside.
Through counseling and the administration of some highly regarded tests, those who experience fantasies in whatever form, or degree they may appear are able to recover to their real world, throwing off the imaginative reality they have had to create for themselves.
However, tests within themselves cannot solve the problem or even necessarily cause it to be understood by the subjects. They do serve as a kind of practice toward new and better solutions of emotional problems, and they can throw light on the ceaseless struggle of humans to overcome difficulties.
No well-rounded conception of human behavior, normal or abnormal, can be achieved unless it is realized just how much of it takes place at a level that corresponds to reverie and imagination rather than to thinking and volition.