My daughter is seven and she is a hard core pretend-player. Hers rarely have much to do with real world events (about 50% of the time she is pretending to be an animal, these days mostly tigers and cheetahs and such but often unicorns etc), but they do get pretty elaborate.
I always thought of dreams as being a lot of reprocessing and reinterpreting.
Either way, watching kids do this (which is fascinating and I will miss it when she grows out of it) makes me wonder why anyone would question the value of it. Just like physical play (running jumping climbing throwing etc) will prepare you for when you need it, such as when you need to hunt for food or avoid being hunted.
I once heard an account, the gist of which was, the man who first wrote the [authoritative] book on play behavior in different animals was unable to get tenure.
This was in the context of noting that play in general had been undervalued as a subject.
I always thought of dreams as being a lot of reprocessing and reinterpreting.
Either way, watching kids do this (which is fascinating and I will miss it when she grows out of it) makes me wonder why anyone would question the value of it. Just like physical play (running jumping climbing throwing etc) will prepare you for when you need it, such as when you need to hunt for food or avoid being hunted.