Fantasy & Art
The Freudian school of thought postulates that unconscious fantasy represents the conflicts, drives and wishes underlying human experiences, in particular, those related to sexuality, birth, intrauterine existence, primal scene, castration and seduction and that these may be transformed into works of art through any number of artistic means (Trosman, 1990). Insofar as fantasies are necessary for the formation of mental structures - see (Hohage, 1993), for example -, they can be understood as providing the very source of psychic life. From this point of view, the work of art is the integration of unconscious derivatives which are given artistic form (Breuer, 1985) and, even in the case of psychiatric patients, is not necessarily regressive in nature (Zinggl & Chlubna, 1990). Indeed, ego psychology sees even the most chthonic, unconscious fantasies to be the consequence of active processing of experiences. Furthermore, insofar as "The ego is above all a body ego." (Freud, 1969, p. 255) "fantasy", that is, normal fantasy, can be understood to be the idealisation of the body (Kafka, 1992) - see also, e.g., (Senf, 1993).
Fantasy & Spirituality
Looking much further back into time, the Gnostic philosophers were perhaps the first universal scholars who tried to gain a differentiated understanding of fantasy. Loosely speaking, one can update and summarize their mythopoetical body of knowledge with a hierarchy of four levels which, from the standpoint of modern psychology, can be thought of as four interrelated, extraordinary states of consciousness. At the "lowest" level, we find the state of delusion or psychosis, which, according to JudeoChristian, Islamic and Eastern religious dogma, are possession phenomena ruled by the devil. Modern psychiatry identifies here several different pathological phenomena such as the hearing of voices. At the next "higher" level, we find the usual day- or night-dreams including nightmares, all of which are born of human fears and wishes, the stuff of which our neuroses are made of. One step further up this hierarchical mythopoetical ladder, we find the level of imagination where images embody metaphysical ideas and envisage physical bodies. This is, for example, the spiritual realm of JudeoChristian and Islamic prayer and of Eastern meditation. This concept of imagination is the psychological realm of Active Imagination and of hypnosis, déjà-vu, "Ganzfeld", hypnogigic and hypnopompic imagery etc. Finally, at the fourth and "highest" mythopoetical level, we have the level of inspiration which, according to the Bible, the Koran, and other religious/spiritual bodies of thought stems directly from the angels or from the godhead itself. This is the psychological realm of anticipation, divination, prophecy, vision etc..
Personally, I don’t want to adhere to any special school of depth psychology, religion or mysticism to understand the concept of fantasy but, rather, choose to simply begin with an everyday idea about it, like the one you get from an ordinary lexicon: From this point of view, fantasy can be creativity, imagination, ingenuity, inventiveness, originality, playfulness, resourcefulness, vision etc., in the common sense of these words (cf., e.g., (Wellek, 1950, pp. 173-176), (Lersch, 1952), (Olbricht, 1993)).
The most important implication of these simple definitions to my work is the following thought: Optimistically speaking, a catharctic, reality-based fantasy can, indeed, lead to an inspiring EUREKA!- or AHA!-Effect on the part of the fantasizer. Now, being somewhat more modest in the actual expectations we might place upon any method employing fantasy to influence the mind-body, I can make the following statement:
I understand fantasy as that power of imagination which
- can progressively lead a somatically ill person, above all, someone in a particularly labile state of health/illness to an enhancement of his or her immune system and other mind-body regenerative powers. Here I am thinking of «Imaginative Healing Methods» such as medical hypnosis - see (Schmid 2009).
- can progressively lead to the death of an otherwise healthy individual adhering to unshakable beliefs about his or her loss of binding to social relationships (Voodoo Death), to social values (Taboo Death), to social settings (Homesickness Death), or to one's own Self (Self-induced Death) - see (Schmid 2010).
- can progressively lead a mentally disturbed person, above all, someone suffering from psychosis, to a more positive, coherent and reality-based, insightful relationship to the world in the sense of an "!AYA!-Effect", that is, to a coherent, self-enhancing, positivising mental effect via a spontaneously induced, context- and reality-related insight in the sense of: "Ah, yeah, now I get it!". Here I am thinking of «Phantasy Therapy» which directly aims at such an !AYA!-Effect - see (Schmid 2005a,b).