By D. Stephenson Bond

It starts that fateful moment toward the end of childhood when you're told to quit day-dreaming and get to work. At some magical age the permission to fantasize is revoked. Give me the facts, Ma'am, just the facts! Get "real!" Keep your nose to the grindstone!

Unless, of course, it's a sexual fantasy. Dangerous territory. On the one hand, since it seems to be a law that every magazine has to have a story with the word "sex" on the front cover, you're encouraged to allow your sexual fantasies to keep your relationships hot. If you're not talking about your fantasies with your partner, maybe you're just not living in the 90's. Maybe you're even a little (gulp) BORING...

On the other hand, you better not fantasize too much. Some people think fantasies can take over--you know, lead to situations where the neighbors are being interviewed on television and saying that you seemed like such a nice person. Who knew?

As a practicing therapist for the last 15 years, it has been my job and my privilege to talk with people about their fantasies. And the truth is that people's fantasy life is actually a little more mundane than most of us think. It also turns out to be more important psychologically than I had imagined (no pun intended).

As it turns out, we aren't even aware of most of our fantasies. Have you ever had the experience of worrying about someone who was late coming home? "I thought you were dead!" Now that's a fantasy. In other words, even without your knowing it, you had the fantasy that something bad had happened. And it becomes emotionally "real"--you go through all the stages of the grieving process: anger, denial, etc.. It was, psychologically, as if it had really happened.

Or maybe there's a little miscommunication in your relationship. You make a certain assumption, and then go through the whole process so that by the time that person walks through the door you've got them tried, convicted, and sentenced. You're loaded for bear. And your partner wonders "what the heck did I do?" In other words, you had a fantasy and you let the fantasy "concretize." It firms up and becomes "real." And, of course, no one could convince you that it wasn't real.

Contrary to popular belief, I find that people are actually in greater danger of acting out certain fantasies when they aren't aware those fantasies even exist. Becoming aware of these deep-seated fantasies actually makes acting out less likely. It can be the first step toward healing. The tendency of a person to act out a fantasy has more to do with what therapists call "impulse control" than the fantasy itself, but that's another story.

So what about sexual fantasies? In the first place, recent surveys show that the fantasies most people report are not so wild and crazy after all. Those fantasies tend to revolve around current or past lovers. Sexual fantasies tend to be just over the edge of our comfort zone. That's what gives them energy. I generally tell the people I see that the value of their sexual fantasies is the reservoir, the great untapped pool, that those fantasies create. That reservoir means there is always more to be explored, so that as the level of intimacy grows in a relationship over the years new things continue to emerge. That's what keeps a long term sexual relationship alive and new.

It is all about intimacy. Spoken or unspoken, moving into new sexual territory means tolerating the vulnerability of bringing fantasy to life. That's because fantasy is a revelation of self. Where there is no intimacy, then our fantasy has to seek other outlets. Some people can only move into new sexual territory with different partners or multiple partners. That's an end run around intimacy because there is no trust that another human being would be sensitive enough to our vulnerability. Sometimes that failure of trust comes out of a lifetime of untrustworthy people. Sometimes our current partner is in fact not mature enough to deal with the revelation of self that intimacy requires. But, in the long run, sexual maturity requires that basic trust in a person who is trustworthy. I'm a big believer in the healing power of long-term relationships. Most sexual fantasies are never acted out. That's not the point.

The point is that our imaginal life has a life of its own and a value of its own. In fact, one of the problems of modern life is the stagnation of human fantasy. Sexual fantasy is the thing we talk about first because, contrary to past ages, it is allowed and accepted. The truth is sexual fantasy is only one small area of the inner life that is being pushed further and further into a corner until, in the end, instead of being "human nature," it will just be a city park.

From my point of view, television is a psychological compensation for the loss of human fantasy. Stop and think about it. We look outward to the screen of moving images in the same way we used to look inward to see the moving images. Many of the cultural vehicles of fantasy--story-telling, fairy tales, sexual fantasy--have migrated to the screen. Its value, whether in fact it hurts us psychologically or helps us psychologically, remains to be seen. I grew up in a television studio, so I'm actually not down on television. I'm simply suggesting, for better or for worse, it's a fact of modern life.

For instance, "The Never-Ending Story" is the best movie I ever saw about the devastation of human fantasy. I encourage you to rent it this weekend and remind yourself about the value of fantasy. The "Nothingness" is taking over the world of Fantasia and the Hero sets off alone on a classic mythic journey to defeat the "Nothingness."

You'll have to see how it turns out for yourself.