Fantasy prone personality

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Fantasy prone personality (FPP) is a disposition or personality trait in which a person experiences a lifelong extensive and deep involvement in fantasy.[1] This disposition is an attempt, at least in part, to better describe "overactive imagination" or "living in a dream world".[2] An individual with this trait (termed a fantasizer) may have difficulty differentiating between fantasy and reality and may experience hallucinations, as well as self-suggested psychosomatic symptoms. Closely related psychological constructs include daydreaming, absorption and eidetic memory.


American psychologists Sheryl C. Wilson and Theodore X. Barber first identified FPP in 1981, said to apply to about 4% of the population.[3] Besides identifying this trait, Wilson and Barber reported a number of childhood antecedents that likely laid the foundation for fantasy proneness in later life, such as, "a parent, grandparent, teacher, or friend who encouraged the reading of fairy tales, reinforced the child's ... fantasies, and treated the child's dolls and stuffed animals in ways that encouraged the child to believe that they were alive." They suggested that this trait was almost synonymous with those who responded dramatically to hypnotic induction, that is, "high hypnotizables."[1] The first systematic studies were conducted in the 1980s by psychologists Judith Rhue and Steven Jay Lynn.[1] Later research in the 1990s by Deirdre Barrett at Harvard confirmed most of these characteristics of fantasy prone people, but she also identified another set of highly hypnotizable subjects who had had traumatic childhoods and who identified fantasy time mainly by "spacing out."[4]

Characteristic features[edit]

A fantasy prone person is reported to spend a large portion of their time fantasizing, have vividly intense fantasies, have paranormal experiences, and have intense religious experiences.[5] The fantasies may include dissociation and sexual fantasies. People with FPP are reported to spend over half of their time awake fantasizing or daydreaming and will often confuse or mix their fantasies with their real memories. They also report out-of-body experiences.[5]

A paracosm is an extremely detailed and structured fantasy world often created by extreme or compulsive fantasizers.[6]

Wilson and Barber listed numerous characteristics in their pioneer study, which have been clarified and amplified in later studies.[7][8] These characteristics are:

  1. excellent hypnotic subject (most but not all fantasizers)
  2. having imaginary friends in childhood
  3. fantasizing often as child
  4. having an actual fantasy identity
  5. experiencing imagined sensations as real
  6. having vivid sensory perceptions
  7. reputed paranormal experiences (claiming psychic powers, encountering apparitions, reliving past experiences, having out-of-body experiences, communicating with higher intelligences or spirits, claiming to be abducted by aliens)
  8. mystical experiences
  9. believe they have powers for spiritual healing or faith healing
  10. hypnagogic hallucinations (waking dreams)
  11. receiving sexual satisfaction without physical stimulation.

Fantasy proneness is measured by the "inventory of childhood memories and imaginings" (ICMI) [9] and the "creative experiences questionnaire (CEQ).[5]

Developmental pathways[edit]

Fantasizers have had a large exposure to fantasy during early childhood.[1][7] This over-exposure to childhood fantasy has at least three important causes:

(1) Parents or carers who provided a very structured and imaginative mental or play environment during childhood. People with fantasy prone personalities are more likely to have had parents, or close family members that made their inanimate toys as children seem real. They also encourage the child who believes they have imaginary companions, read fairytales all through childhood and re-enact the things they have read. People who, at a young age, were involved in creative fantasy activities like piano, ballet, and drawing are more likely to obtain a fantasy prone personality. Acting is also a way for children to identify as different people and characters which can make the child prone to fantasy-like dreams as they grow up. This can cause the person to grow up thinking they have experienced certain things and they can visualize a certain occurrence from the training they obtained while being involved in plays.

People have reported that they believed their dolls and stuffed animals were living creatures and that their parents encouraged them to indulge in their fantasies and daydreams.[5] For example, one subject in Barrett’s study said her parents’ formula response to her requests for expensive toys was, “You could take this (household object) and with a little imagination, it would look just like (an expensive gift).”[10]

(2) Exposure to abuse, physical or sexual, such that fantasizing provides a coping or escape mechanism.


Regarding psychoanalytic interpretations, Sigmund Freud has stated that "unsatisfied wishes are the driving power behind fantasies, every separate fantasy contains the fulfillment of a wish, and unproves an unsatisfactory reality." This shows childhood abuse and loneliness can result in people creating a fantasy world of happiness in order to fill the void.[1]

Related constructs[edit]

Openness to experience is one of the domains that are used to describe human personality in the Five Factor Model.[11] Openness involves six facets, or dimensions, including active imagination (fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety, and intellectual curiosity. Thus, fantasy prone personality correlates with the fantasy facet of the broader personality trait Openness to Experience.

Absorption is a disposition or personality trait in which a person becomes absorbed in his or her mental imagery, particularly fantasy.[12] The original research on absorption was by American psychologist Auke Tellegen.[13] Roche reports that fantasy proneness and absorption are highly correlated.[12] Fantasizers become absorbed within their vivid and realistic mental imagery.


Health and theoretical implications[edit]



Parapsychology (Paranormal experiences). The pioneer Wilson-Barber study [3] states that fantasy prone personality is a key to understanding reputed paranormal (parapsychological) experiences, such as extrasensory perception (ESP).

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b c d e Lynn, Steven J.; Rhue, Judith W. (1988). "Fantasy proneness: Hypnosis, developmental antecedents, and psychopathology". American Psychologist 43: 35–44. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.43.1.35. 
  3. ^ a b c Wilson, S. C. & Barber, T. X. (1983). "The fantasy-prone personality: Implications for understanding imagery, hypnosis, and parapsychological phenomena." In, A. A. Sheikh (editor), Imagery: Current Theory, Research and Application (pp. 340-390). New York: Wiley. ISBN 0471 092258. Republished (edited): Psi Research 1(3), 94 - 116.
  4. ^ Barrett, D. L. The hypnotic dream: Its content in comparison to nocturnal dreams and waking fantasy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1979, Vol. 88, p. 584 591; Barrett, D. L. Fantasizers and dissociaters: Two types of high hypnotizables, two imagery styles. In R. G. Kunzendorf, N. Spanos, & B. Wallace (Eds.) Hypnosis and Imagination, NY: Baywood, 1996 (ISBN 0895031396); Barrett, D. L. Dissociaters, fantasizers, and their relation to hypnotizability. In Barrett, D. L. (Ed.) Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy (2 vols): Vol. 1: History, theory and general research, Vol. 2: Psychotherapy research and applications, NY: Praeger/Greenwood, 2010.
  6. ^ Mackeith, S. & Silvey, R. (1988). The Paracosm: a special form of fantasy. In, Morrison, D.C. (Ed.), Organizing Early Experience: Imagination and Cognition in Childhood (pages 173 - 197). New York: Baywood. ISBN 0895030519.
  7. ^ a b Rhue, Judith W.; Jay Lynn, Steven (1987). "Fantasy proneness: Developmental antecedents". Journal of Personality 55: 121–137. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1987.tb00431.x. 
  8. ^ Novella, Steven (2007-04-03). "The Fantasy Prone Personality". NeuroLogica Blog. Self-published. Retrieved 2011-11-13. 
  11. ^ NEO-PI-R • NEO Personality Inventory - Revised.
  13. ^ Tellegen, Auke; Atkinson, Gilbert (1974). "Openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences ("absorption"), a trait related to hypnotic susceptibility". Journal of Abnormal Psychology 83 (3): 268–277. doi:10.1037/h0036681. ISSN 0021-843X. PMID 4844914. 
  14. ^ Dalenberg, Constance J.; Brand, Bethany L.; Gleaves, David H. et al. (2012). "Evaluation of the evidence for the trauma and fantasy models of dissociation" (PDF). Psychological Bulletin 138 (3): 550–588. doi:10.1037/a0027447. ISSN 1939-1455. 
  15. ^ Bigelsen, Jayne; Schupak, Cynthia (2011). "Compulsive fantasy: Proposed evidence of an under-reported syndrome through a systematic study of 90 self-identified non-normative fantasizers". Consciousness and Cognition 20 (4): 1634–1648. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2011.08.013. ISSN 1053-8100.