Phantasy thought may, further, not be of necessity thoughts impossible of fulfilment, except in the immediate present. Thoughts of erotic or other desires which intrude themselves at untimely moments, are phantasy thoughts, and some people frequently complain that they are annoyed by them, especially when they have no intention of actually fulfilling them in fact, or when the means of fulfilling them are not present. Here again, to have a subject ready at hand, or to have a substitute thought for the undesired thoughts is a very real assistance. Even a sentence thought out beforehand or a good maxim which can be repeated several times and considered, forms an excellent substitute thought with which to replace the unwanted phantasy. Let us now consider a few other examples. The majority of educated people, of a so-called normal type, when they have completed their day’s work, and are fatigued, require some sort of mental rest, and as a rule some kind of phantasy thought is resorted to in the evening. Also, when this fatigue is cumulative, they say, “We have worked eleven months, and now require one month’s holiday.” This is really an unconscious phantasy requiring a regressive reward. They are not really tired out, physically or mentally, but they have accumulated, after a series of postponements, a large number of Narcissistic efforts at phantasy; and the holiday which they now require is really to satisfy this. It is a return to childhood and the time of irresponsibility, and their occupations on the holiday may very likely be, to a large extent, similar to those with which they occupied themselves in childhood. They throw off their adult status and responsibility, and deliberately take this regressive reward. Even with normal people the idea of _rest_ in the form of a holiday, often means nothing but phantasy thought, time disregarded, no effort of any sort to be made. But in the less Narcissistic type of person who still retains directive thought even on a holiday--a holiday means merely change in immediate aim, change in occupation, rather than rest from aim and occupation. Phantasy thinking may take many quite surreptitious forms. In old age, for instance, we know that type of person, who is quietly slipping into helpless imbecility. He is the same man, who, at an earlier age, lacked the habit of directive thought. On the other hand, there is our intellectual old man or woman, still full of the day’s problems or politics, who indulged, in early life, but little in phantasies. Experience shows us that the influence of directive or undirective thought in youth may not only determine our happiness in declining years, but may even determine the actual age to which we live. For, paradoxically, it is the Narcissist, who of all people desires a long life, and who is, of all people, the least likely to attain old age. He frequently “worries himself into the grave.”