Wishful thinking is the process by which the mind becomes a slave to its own desires. It is based on fantasy and illusion. Because the mind cannot see reality as it is, wishful thinking cannot lead us to the fulfillment of our desires. When the mind becomes a slave to its desires, it cannot experience life as it is.
Freud's belief in God is a coping mechanism
Freud elaborated on the role of God in human life by stating that God is the coping mechanism for our unconscious needs to satisfy desires. Children look to their fathers as protectors, but as we grow up we realize that dad cannot shield us from the world, so we unconsciously fashion a Heavenly Father, a divine figure. This is one of the major reasons why we form religion. Freud claimed that God was created in the image of man.
Children's dreams display the wishful character of dreams
Children's dreams have an interesting wish-fulfilling characteristic. For example, a young girl named Anna dreamt of eating strawberries. She went to bed hungry but dreamed of the sweets she wanted. However, this dream was against the rules of domestic health police, who believed the child was suffering from some illness.
Engaging with reality
Wishful thinking is a cognitive process in which we think about things we would like to have, but don't actually have. The motivation behind wishful thinking comes from areas of the brain associated with reward and social identification. For example, in a recent study, participants were asked to estimate the likelihood of winning a football game by specifying their favorite NFL team. Other research has linked wishful thinking with social identity theory and the tendency to prefer members of the same group.
Hallucination induced by wishful thinking
A hallucination can be induced by a number of factors, including prior knowledge, perceptual expectations, attentional modulation, and mental imagery. Psychologists have also noted a connection between hallucinations and psychodynamic beliefs. According to the theory of cognitive dissonance, hallucinations result from a failure of a person's ability to monitor sources of sensory information. Hallucinations are often associated with delusions and can be concrete symbols of those delusions.
Engaging with desire
Researchers have noted that engaging with desire through wishful thinking has a distinct psychological and behavioral effect on people. This effect is mediated by the way in which we perceive the world. As a result, our perception of other people may be affected by the things we think they want. While we do not have an exact understanding of how these mental processes work, we do have an understanding of what they are capable of.