ABSTRACT

It is a pleasure to be invited to contribute to a book on consciousness in honor of Jerome Singer because no one has contributed more to our understanding of fantasy and other forms of undirected thought. Not only has Singer elucidated the nature of fantasy in its own right, but, equally important, he has placed it both in a reasonable perspective in relation to directed conscious thinking and in relation to less accessible undirected unconscious thinking and imagery. He has demonstrated the importance of everyday undirected thinking and imagery and has revealed that there is much of importance in personality that is, at best, overlooked; and, at worst, misattributed with serious theoretical consequences, when the focus of investigations and observations is either entirely on conscious directed thought, or on deeper less accessible unconscious processes.