I think in this context, "consoling wishes and dreams" means to minimize the tears of having only wishes and dreams. I think the sentence means that personal fantasy is used metaphorically like tissue, to wipe away the tears from personal self-glory and gain and minimize the pain from only having wishes and dreams which all three prevents a person from seeing what is really there. I don't fully understand the latter part of the sentence however, "prevents one from seeing what is there outside one". The part, "what is there outside one" is very awkward. Outside one what? Is that the end of the quote or did you yourself write this?