What do you know about Escape from Reality? Since ancient times it has been possible to observe the tendency of human beings to escape from reality, even if this escape is often momentary.

Understanding the Escape from Reality

When studying anthropology, one can realize that long ago, fictional stories were created among early human conglomerates, and the existence of myths and tales This need to escape from reality is linked to the escape from discomfort, pain, anguish, and fear.

It would be an alternative way to ignore the experiences that do not conform to one's intrinsic desires, or that cannot be explained in a rational way. Through the human capacity to think, it is possible to imagine a reality that is different from the one we live in; however, this created reality corresponds to fantasy, which is limited only to the field of ideas, and in many occasions, never materializes.

Every individual with perfectly functioning mental faculties has fantasized at some point in his life. Daydreaming about an ideal future or spending hours imagining what it would be like to experience an overwhelming romance with someone are examples of common fantasies.

Escape from Reality and Fantasy

Fantasy becomes harmful when it overrides reality, and the person remains trapped in idealization, refusing to face the external, concrete world. Children are experts at fantasizing, they live in the world of imagination, where anything is possible.

They love tales and stories, spend hours playing and bringing to life inanimate dolls, identify and consider themselves superheroes, claim to have superpowers, and immerse themselves in a parallel world where they can be fairies, elves or even an adult. In make-believe games they behave like actors in soap operas and movies, dressing up and playing the character within their capacity to imitate.

But as time goes on, and the child gradually develops, she realizes that the world is not so beautiful and so sweet Little by little, he realizes that Santa Claus does not come to bring presents at Christmas, and that the one who puts the present in the tooth's place is Mom, not the tooth fairy.

A world of responsibilities

The child begins to be inserted into a world of responsibilities, and then boredom becomes part of their lives. Now they can no longer play all the time, they have to study too, go to school, share toys, obey their elders, and the list of obligations only gets longer, to the point where the dolls are put aside, the children's storybooks are donated to a library, the superhero costumes are stored in the basement.

The psychoanalyst Freud studied this maturation process, in which the child is no longer governed by the pleasure principle but by the reality principle. parents, family members, teachers, and society in general starts to integrate the child into civilization and the prevailing culture.

It is then that moral values, traditions, customs, and rules present in adult life are taught. This maturation process generates psychic suffering, because now you can no longer fulfill all your wishes, And that is when the repression starts to happen.

Escape from Reality and Desires

Some desires have to be repressed and go through the social sieve, so it is common to hear people say "I wish I could go back to being a kid, adult life is so hard", or "enjoy it while you are kids, it's the best phase of life, because an adult's life is full of responsibilities and obligations.

Reality presents itself to the adult as a set of impossibilities and obstacles that he/she will have to face and overcome in order to fulfill his/her desires. The perception acquired is that making dreams come true is much more complicated than previously thought.

Taking ideas out of the realm of imagination and putting them into practice is challenging. Frustrations are now part of the daily routine. Even doing everything that is expected, The plans may not turn out according to expectations, because there is an outside world where natural phenomena, culture, and society directly influence these events.

Actual Expectations

The expectations now need to be real, for if they are not, they cause continual anguish and disappointment. In the development of the human personality, ego defense mechanisms arise, which serve exactly to keep the individual in the realm of the ideal, and keep him away from anything that might cause him pain or suffering, everything that can shake the subjective vision that it has of the world and of itself.

The intention is protection, but many times these defense mechanisms become harmful, because by avoiding exposure to problems, challenges, and difficulties, one gets away from reality and cannot evolve, conquer, advance, and mature. One of the most observed defense mechanisms is the negation one. The person denies external reality and replaces it by creating a fictional reality.

A clear example of this is people who have lost loved ones and usually do not accept the loss at first, and in more severe cases, remain in denial to the point of ignoring the grief and acting as if the loved one is still alive. It is in this context that psychoses arise, and disorders related to this personality trait.

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Escape from Reality and Regression

Regression is another mechanism that seeks to escape from reality by resorting to childish behavior. These are those adults who when they suffer small frustrations in their daily lives, react in a childish way, cry, throw tantrums and behave exactly like spoiled children when they don't get what they want. We can see the escape from reality in many situations in everyday life.

People who spend hours playing video games, people who drink alcoholic beverages excessively, who spend days marathon watching Netflix series, who abuse chemical intoxicants, who resort to hallucinogenic experiences frequently, who oversleep and so on. These examples and many others show that escape from reality is more common than one might imagine.

And the question remains: what are you trying to forget, or what are you trying to get away from, when you spend hours playing video games? Or when you get drunk? Or less when using hard drugs? What are you avoiding looking at?

Conclusion

Escaping from reality momentarily brings a false sense of discharge from the problems. But escaping from reality does not dissolve the problems, on the contrary, it perpetuates and intensifies them. Shoving the dust under the rug does not make the dust cease to exist, it only accumulates it, until I got to the point where I could no longer ignore it.

So instead of avoiding the problems, challenges, and pains in life, it is necessary to understand that avoiding them creates even more conflict and pain, because in the end suffering is inevitable. Life is surrounded by problems, and they exist to be solved.

Therefore, it is important to understand that as an adult, it is essential to take responsibility, make decisions, and bear the consequences. Fantasizing is good, daydreaming once in a while brings wonderful sensations, but you have to open your eyes, Put your feet on the ground and embrace reality with courage.

This article was written by Ivana Oliveira, a student of IBPC and a graduate student of psychopedagogy. To contact her, just send an email to this address: [email protected]