The Major Models of Daydreaming

Abstract

Having examined the existing empirical approaches to investigating daydreams, it is worth taking a closer look at the various theories that attempt to define and explain waking fantasy. Models that have appeared in the literature include Freud’s notion of daydreams being fictional scenarios imagined during a waking state (1908), J. Varendonck’s idea that they are a process of hypothesis and rejoinder (1921), Jerome L. Singer’s task distraction model (1961, 1966), Eric Klinger’s theory of daydreaming being general reverie (1971), Eric T. Mueller and Michael G. Dyer’s creation and refinement of a program designed to make computers daydream (1985). Ethel Person’s conception of daydreams as creative rehearsals (1996) and J. Morley’s case studies on waking fantasy (1998).