Creative Writing and Daydreaming Summary and Analysis

This essay begins as Freud's attempt to better understand the basis and genesis of the creative process. Freud argues that the creative process begins in play, especially as a child and then play becomes fantasy. Instead of pretending to live in castles, the mind begins to build castles in their mind. People fantasize about what they will do, often before an event. In the healthy person, these fantasies can help the person think through possibilities in the future, whereas, in the unhealthy person, fantasies can become neurotic or obsessional, ultimately collapsing into psychosis where the dreamer begins to live completely in their dreams. As in night dreams, in daydreams the ego has free reign, putting the dreamer in many different situations. Most heroes in fiction are really just ego projections as in a daydream, Freud...