In the example of the daydream as a response to yearning, your brain is orchestrating an experiential simulation, a virtual reality of how things could be now, contrasted with how they actually are, sitting there alone. By generating the “what ifs” in response to yearning, your brain is imagining events that might have played out very differently than they actually did. The alternate reality your brain vividly dreams up, where he did not die but is here with you, is unfavorably contrasted with the present moment in real life. In acute grief, these “what if” responses to the pangs of grief are
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