These words refer to the mind’s power to call up image, to picture or conceive things that are not actually before the eye or within the experience. At one time, imagination and fancy could be used interchangeably, but now the two terms are sharply distinguished both in application and in scope. Used in the broad sense of a basic mental faculty, imagination encompasses fancy ; fancy is a playful or whimsical sort of imagination . Used in a restricted sense, imagination contrasts with fancy ; imagination applies to the higher, creative faculty and fancy is limited to a capriciously inventive play of mind. More serious in purpose than the fancy , the higher imagination creates a new form of reality, bodying forth things unknown or new by recombining the products of past experience. The fancy is freer and more frivolous, following its whims and ranging farther from reality: unbridled fancy ; a flight of fancy . Where the higher imagination creates vivid characters that are true to life, such as Hamlet, Falstaff and King Lear, the fancy dreams up delightful, non-existent beings, such as elves, fairies and woodland sprites. Imagination and fancy are also used to contrast false or misleading impressions with truth or reality.

• No one moved in the bushes; it was only your imagination ; Was it fact or fancy ?

Fantasy is imagination divorced from reality. The creations of fantasy may be delightfully bizarre or may be weird and grotesque, as in the case of science-fiction stories depicting monstrous men from Mars. Engaged in fantasy , the imagination projects unreal images or imaginary senses on the screen of the mind, creating a dream world.

• An amusement park full of figures from fairy tales may be called Fantasy land; In his fantasies , the meek little man was a bold, brave hero.

Fantasy and reverie both involve a withdrawal from the real world during which the mind is focused on its own imaginings; but, whereas in fantasy there is an element of escapism, in reverie the mind is not actively fleeting reality but is simply not conscious of the world without. A fantasy is a vivid daydream directed like a drama by the mind. Reverie is an undirected wandering of the mind – an abstracted, dreamlike state during which fancies, fantasies , memories or other imaginings preoccupy the mind and free it from conscious control.