reverie

(rĕv'ə-rē)
n.

1. A state of abstracted musing; daydreaming.
2. A daydream: "I felt caught up in a reverie of years long past" (William Styron).

[Middle English, revelry, from Old French, from rever, to dream.]

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noun

1. The condition of being so lost in solitary thought as to be unaware of one's surroundings: absent-mindedness, abstraction, bemusement, brown study, daydreaming, muse², study, trance. See awareness/unawareness.
2. An illusory mental image: daydream, dream, fancy, fantasy, fiction, figment, illusion, phantasm, phantasma, vision. See real/imaginary.

n

Definition: daydream
Antonyms: nightmare

The term reverie refers to an imaginary representation created to help realize a desire. The term Phantasie was used by Freud to designate such mental activity collectively, whether conscious or unconscious. In French the term fantasme prevailed in psychoanalytic use, for it was felt that the term fantaisie was too marked by current usage, where it connotes the idea of capriciousness or gratuitousness. However, following Daniel Lagache (1964), the term fantaisie came to refer to imaginary conscious or preconscious creations, without ignoring their continuity with the unconscious fantasies they reflect.

Daydreams, which everyone experiences, are the clearest examples of conscious or preconscious reveries. In general they explicitly satisfy a desire, providing some form of imaginary satisfaction, whether it be erotic, aggressive, ambitious, self-aggrandizing, or uplifting. It is not even unusual for people to visualize painful or humiliating experiences to their own advantage. In all these cases the narcissistic dimension of the process is obvious.

There are references to such daydreams in the Studies on Hysteria (1895d), primarily in the case study of Anna O., written by Josef Breuer. Freud wrote about daydreams in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a). For example, when analyzing his dream about the "botanical monograph," he relates a daydream during which he imagines that, afflicted by glaucoma, he travels incognito to Berlin for an operation and experiences considerable pleasure in listening to the surgeon extol the anesthetic qualities of cocaine (thus being compensated for the pain Freud experienced through being too late to be recognized as the one who discovered its properties). The "phantasies or day-dreams are the immediate forerunners of hysterical symptoms.... Like dreams they are wish-fulfilments; like dreams, they are based to a great extent on impressions of infantile experiences; like dreams, they benefit by a certain degree of relaxation of censorship" (p. 491-492)

According to Freud, a daydream is initially the expression of an unconscious fantasy; then, it is used as available material among the latent thoughts used by dreams. However, as he noted, there is an essential difference between night dreams and daydreams: the first is hallucinatory, the second is not, and the person remains more or less clearly aware that his daydream is an escape from a reality that is not completely suspended.

This distinction can be blurred or even disappear entirely. Freud analyzes this phenomenon in his detailed commentary on Wilhelm Jensen's Gradiva (1907a). In the same period, in "Creative Writers and Daydreaming" (1908e [1907]), he discusses the function of daydreaming in the genesis of the literary work, and later, in "Family Romances" (1909c [1908]), he foresees the situation where daydreams are used by the child to avoid the oedipal conflict by imagining himself to be adopted, to be really the child of a king and queen.

Robert Desoille (1961) developed an original method of psychotherapy based on the development and analysis of the patient's daydreams during therapy. For some patients and under certain circumstances, analytic psychodrama can create scenarios that are related to daydreams.

Bibliography

Anargyros-Klinger, Annie, Reiss-Schimmel, Ilana, and Wainrib, Steve. (1998). Création, psychanalyse. Paris:Presses Universitaires de France.

Desoille, Robert. (1961). Théorie et Pratique du Rêve-éveillédirigé. Geneva: Le Mont-Blanc.

Lagache, Daniel. (1964). Fantaisie, réalité, vérité. Revue française c de psychanalyse, 28 (4), 515-538.

—ROGER PERRON

IN BRIEF: n. - An abstracted state of absorption; Absentminded dreaming while awake.

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Quotes:

"Do anything rather than give yourself to reverie." - William Ellery Channing

"Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding." - John Locke

"Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of lofty sentiments, while the life is groveling and sensual." - James Russell Lowell

"To lose one's self in reverie, one must be either very happy, or very unhappy. Reverie is the child of extremes." - Antoine Rivarol

"Both mind and heart when given up to reveries and dreaminess, have a thousand avenues open for the entrance of evil." - Charles Simmons

See more famous quotes about Reverie

For a list of words related to reverie, see:

• Intuition and Imagination - reverie: daydream; state of being lost in thought
• Mystical States and Experiences - reverie: trancelike thought, contemplation, or dream

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See words rhyming with "reverie."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Reverie.

Dansk (Danish)
n. - drømmerier

Nederlands (Dutch)
dagdroom

Français (French)
n. - rêverie, rêve

Deutsch (German)
n. - Träumerei

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - ονειροπόληση, ρέμβη, ρεμβασμός

Italiano (Italian)
sogno ad occhi aperti

Português (Portuguese)
n. - devaneio (m)

Русский (Russian)
мечтания, грезы

Español (Spanish)
n. - ensueño

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - drömmeri, drömbild

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
梦想, 幻想曲, 沉思

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 夢想, 幻想曲, 沈思

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 환상, 환상곡

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 瞑想にふけること, 空想, 幻想, 夢想, 夢想曲

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) حلم يقظه, فكرة خياليه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮חלום בהקיץ, הרהורים, הזיות, קטע מוסיקלי שקט‬

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