Carefully Contrived Fantasies

Fantasies are strange things.

They are the creation solely of our mind yet the act and breathe with the solidity of reality itself.  They have no power but what we give them yet them can be overpowering.  They exist when nothing has actually occurred yet every detail can be recounted precisely.

But fantasies are strange for another reason:  they exist and thrive only in the atmosphere of our minds.  Exposed to the open air of reality they too often fall apart, popping instantly into the "moonbeams and ash" of which all dreams are made of, collapsing into a large cloud which dissipates into the wind.

How do I deal with them?  I ask because so much of my own inner life is based on fantasy without any mooring in reality.  I have experienced exposing enough fantasies to know how quickly they can dissolve - so my solution is to keep them carefully locked up away in my mind.  Every time I try and bring them out and the hint of reality starts to shake their framework I immediately push them back, knowing all too well with the pain of experience what is about to occur:  standing with both hands open, looking at a sparkling cloud of dreams drift into the wind.  And so I live with my fantasies, locked away in the recesses of my mind like a series of old exhibits not on display, stored in a museum warehouse waiting to be brought out.

So what then do I do with these fantasies?  Can such things  be brought into the light of day?  Can such a thing even be done given the nature of their existence?  Or is there any point in even try, to risk bringing all out only to find that in one fell swoop a huge swath of my mind - indeed, my life - is left empty?  There is such power in them, such imagination, such energy that that would add so much to my life if only I could harness it and use it.  The question is, how do I do that without destroying such a fragile construct?

Because I have known reality without fantasy.  It is a cold, grey place devoid of hope.