Ralph's "nightly game of supposing" is the arrangement of dreams that Ralph envisions before he rests. Doing this is both a demonstration of self-comfort and a demonstration of escape. When he envisions being elsewhere, some place quiet, he can overlook the deplorable occasions surrounding him. He does exclude "wild" ponies since something wild is excessively near what is going on, in actuality. It wouldn't be a dreamer dream on the off chance that it helped him remember his genuine circumstance. He envisions things altogether different from what he is really encountering.