Believed-in Imaginings

Book excerpt: Discusses how we may come to believe in the reality of phenomena that spring from our imaginations, and the function of such imaginings in our emotional life. Varied perspectives are given from the fields of psychology, anthropology, and sociology. The authors discuss conceptual issues such as how the terms imagining, believing, and remembering are defined, as well as developmental phenomena, such as children's attachment to the Tooth Fairy and transitional objects in times of need. Other chapters investigate topics ranging from the nature of hypnotic Ss' belief in the contrafactual, to the role of dream elements in believed-in imaginings and the controversial subject of recovered memories of abuse. This book is intended to be of interest to clinical as well as theoretical psychologists and sociologists, and to any reader interested in exploring the topics of memory and imagination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved).