It doesn’t take very many years of adulthood for most people to realize that they are unlikely to achieve their greatest hopes. It isn’t because we’re incompetent, that there are limited resources, and few opportunities for meaningful progress. We learn to be realistic in our expectations.
Still, there’s no harm in dreaming.
Daydreaming is the speculative assembly of fantasies into a storyline that the daydreamer pretends, if only for a moment, to be true. Daydreaming begins with the question what if, and follows a string of answers into a pleasant scenario in which the daydreamer’s wishes are fulfilled.
Daydreaming is different from woolgathering in that daydreaming has a stronger sense of mental direction, though the direction is nonsensical. While woolgathering is aimless, daydreaming is done with the purpose of constructing an imaginary reality. The daydreamer enters into an make-believe story of alternative possibilities in order to explore what could be, becoming immersed within it to the point of enchantment. A woolgatherer, on the other hand, moves with apparent randomness from thought to thought, barely registering them, with an attachment so thin it barely exists.
Daydreaming is also a distinct emotional condition in its positive tone. Woolgathering could lead into a hopeful direction, but it could just as easily wander into confusion or despair.
