Abstract

In this paper we use Cohen and Taylor’s sociological text Escape Attempts (1992) as a theoretical framework within which to explore and interpret daydreams as one form of resistance to the routine of everyday life. In contrast to consumer research that has focused on pre-purchase dreaming (Fournier and Guiry 1993), consumption dreams (d’Astous and Deschênes 2005) and descriptions of individuals’ ‘ideal life’ (Pettigrew 2005), we present themes emerging from phenomenological data that sought to explore consumption in the imagination more broadly. Our analysis suggests that the acquisition of products appears fleetingly and goods themselves play only a secondary or peripheral role in daydreaming. Imaginings for these individuals tend be warmly human and yet startlingly lacking imagination, drawing from a common cultural stock of escape fantasies and traditional, predictable life scripts. We tentatively consider what such mental constructions may tell us about our dreamers’ everyday lives as consumers.