Daydream

daydream (noun) : the 24-hour period available for musing about the fulfillment of wishes rather than working on fulfilling them
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A daydream is a type of imagining, but when the dreamer begins to confuse the dreams with reality, it's called hallucinating. Which is why, I suppose, psychologists in the 1960s provided strategies to combat daydreams similar to those used in combating drug use. And Dr. Freud believed that only unfulfilled people created fantasies and that daydreaming was an early sign of mental illness.

Thankfully, by the late 1980s, psychologists considered daydreams a natural component of the mental process. Thus we dreamers are saved - at least this time - from the label "mental illness."

In daydreams, we form a mental image of a past experience or of a situation that we haven't actually experienced to escape from reality temporarily or to overcome a frustrating situation or to satisfy a hidden wish. My particular favourite (and I don't think I'm alone here) is the one about me winning the lottery. Daydreaming usually isn't harmful, unless it interferes with daily living. That means I can fantasize about what I'd do with my vast winnings as long as I continue to work.

And, as Shakespeare points out, there's the rub for all of us daydream believers.