What is the Purpose of Escapism?

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Sometimes, I feel as though using media (music, video games, etc.) as a means of escape from stress is somewhat silly. I feel bad for unplugging from the real world but I find fictional worlds to be so much more interesting sometimes. Is escapism a good thing in moderation?

Sure. Sometimes it helps you get distance from the real world so you can have a better perspective of what's bothering you.

I unashamedly love escapism. I think J. R.R. Tolkien has a quote about that. Just because you were born in a prison it doesn't mean you have to constantly think about prison walls and guardians.
of course it doesn't mean you can just forget about real life responsibilities. But for me at least, watching TV shows and reading books gives me Joy that i can't find in real life responsibilities. I would have a empty life without my fandoms.

For me it's about control, independence, and freedom. Having AS means there are a lot of visible limitations on what I can and can't do. Social cues feel kind of like a prison. Fantasies allow for relationships full of emotion and closeness that I wont ever experience in reality, and similarly my fantasies allow me to live independently of the chaos of the modern world, where our lives are simple and local. No bosses, no bullies, no conflict, no weird politics, etc.

Escapism keeps me sane. Escapism is daydreaming on a much deeper and personal level. Escapism is the submergence into the core of the soul. Healthy? As long as one knows when it is the proper time to escape from the escapism.

I have various worlds or realms that I escape into. Some are factual ... some are fictional.

I have created an historic amusement park in my imagination. There are seven roller coasters there (6 1920s wooden classics and 1 1970s looping model, all taken from actual historic blueprints I have collected) among the various dark rides, etc. I have walked those midways many times in my world of escape. I hear the shrieks and laughter of delight as patrons experience all that this fictional park has to offer. In my deepest moments of escape, the park becomes real.

I have written 400 pages of true stories from my childhood (which I hope to publish soon). As I read those pages of my life, I relive them. Sometimes, when everything is quiet around me and I am relaxed, I journey down that playground of youth again forgetting that I am now older. As I resurface to the present time, I often get sad over the fact that the past is gone. I am a nostalgic person. But ... tomorrow I can read more pages of my youth and return to that time of innocence.

Many times I take a seat is some theatre and wait for the show to begin ... my show ... a project I have been working on for several years now ... a Broadway style musical. Though not complete on paper yet, I have watched the show many times from my seat of imaginative escape.

I am working on a short story ... a sort of classic (gothic) style horror story like the ones written by Algernon Blackwood and M. R. James. Though set in more recent times, it has a nostalgic feel about it. I often enter / escape into the story as either an observer or the main character and live the emotions of that main character. The setting of this story seems so real to me now ... almost like a memory.

But I know where the line is drawn. I know what is escape and what is real. But sometimes we can induce a sort of self-hypnosis that allows us to experience our escapes as ... well ... another dimension of reality.

As Rod Serling said at the beginning of the Twilight Zone episodes, "You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone."

Think about that. Unlock the door with the key of imagination. The imagination is within each of us. He says that one of the other dimension's elements is the dimension of the mind. We're moving into a land of ... ideas. Based on those concepts, this twilight zone may be our escape into our own creative worlds ... perhaps best exemplified when overtaken by self-hypnosis.

Simply put ... escapism is a chance to take a vacation away from our reality ... which is often plagued by worries, frustrations, and fears. But, we need to know when to come back to reality.

I'm going to say not all 'escapism' is equal.

Sometimes reading a truly great work of fiction gives you insights into human dynamics you wouldn't have had before. Sometimes, actually quite often, great music can give you contact with deeper subconscious levels of the world that hums around you that you wouldn't have had access to (and sometimes those are levels of much higher quality than most of public consciousness - something that should be disseminated a lot more).

I'd consider great music and literature being close cousin to philosophy and mysticism in that they're a bit like different tools to explore similar spaces. Good fiction written by someone who really grasps human life archetypes and employs them well can be practically initiatic, the difference with great music is it's meaning is highly compressed, indistinct on detail (at least without words), and quite often it's closer to a really well-built prism that your mind can process your own reality through.

Nothing wrong with slipping away from reality, with all its dullness and unfairness, from time to time. Otherwise, we'd all be suicide cases from depression.

Although if you do it too often you'll no longer be able to defend your stuff or compete in the market - then society eats you. That's part of why I at least feel like the best way to engage it is in ways that have some high quality return on investment.

Well then get involved in the arts and see if you can make your escapism make some money for you.

?? - no complaints or requests for help in the above, I'm just saying it's usually the low-hanging fruit that's a poor choice. Making your own art, making your own music, that's where you're actually honing skill sets and it's clearly an area where if you're enhancing yourself in the process it's got return on investment.

I understand the principle here and would love it if I had the brain power to turn my mind to more productive and interesting topics, but when I am exhausted from NT interactions or on the verge of a meltdown, mindless reading is a great escape. I do prefer authors who can use the English language well and words with more than two syllables. But nothing that makes me think.