wish fulfillment
Getting your desire
Wish fulfillment is the satisfaction of a desire, especially through fantasy, dreams, or imagination rather than reality.
In psychoanalysis, Freud proposed that dreams represent disguised wish fulfillments—the unconscious mind getting what it wants symbolically.
The term often carries a dismissive edge: The ending felt like pure wish fulfillment suggests something is too convenient or self-indulgent to be believable.
- escapismHabitual mental retreat
- fantasy worldFictional magical setting
- imaginationFaculty for forming ideas
- desireIntense wanting
- projectionSomething that extends outward
repression · daydreaming · dream come true · unconscious mind · inner child · aspiration · catharsis · utopia · power fantasy · pipe dream · fairy tales · fairy godmother · lucid dreaming · superego · Jungian archetypes · magic lamp · sublimation · id
- happy endingshappy ending, fairy tale ending, happily ever after, true ending, love conquers all
- wisheswishful thinking, three wishes, birthday wishes, best wishes, new year wishes
- indulgencesindulgence, indulgences, chocolate cake, overindulgence, massage
- psychoanalysisFreud, id, ego, unconscious, Sigmund Freud
- Unconsciousid, ego, superego, repression, dreams
- fairy tale studiesoral tradition, Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, morality tales
wish fulfillmentfrustration
Displeasure from blocked efforts
disappointment · denial · deprivation · dashed hopes · want
wish fulfillmentharsh reality
Uncomfortable actual circumstances
reality testing · rude awakening · disillusionment · reality check · disenchantment
wish fulfillmenttragic ending
Story concludes in disaster
tragedy · subverted expectations · naturalism · realism · gritty realism
will, full, wish, fulfill, fulfillment