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I don't like Santa Claus, in my opinion, lying to children about Santa Claus is detrimental towards critical thinking, promotes materialism and conditional love, undermines parental authority and promotes escapism for happiness instead of finding real sources of happiness, like family and interesting hobbies.

 

I personally don't have anything to add to the Santa discussion at the moment, but there was an aspect of it that intrigued me and which I thought called for a thread of its own.

 

Escapism. Reading a book or watching a film set in a "perfect" world where the bad guys are dealt with in the end and everyone lives happily ever after. Dreaming yourself away to a place where the bills are paid, your job is fun and you have your loved ones around you. Imagining yourself as a superhero or a successful [insert dream profession here].

 

What are people's thought on the concept and its varying degrees? A healthy break from the real world? A harmless part of the human psyche? A detrimental attachment to delusions?

 

Discuss!

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I'm a huge fan of comic books and films, so escapism into a constructed story and visual (whether fantastical or realistic) is important to me.

 

It's interesting to think about though in a time when we're more able than ever to be plugged into the internet wherever we are, to "escape" whatever we're actually doing. Makes me think of that thread a while back about people who go on facebook on their phones while they're meant to be socialising with friends in real life.

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I think its interesting you say escapism is about going to a happier place. I quite merrily escape to Neptune, California but lord knows I wouldn't actually want to live there.

 

I escape into my own little made up worlds too. It has its uses as its easier to fall asleep thinking about that than the real world.

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I think its interesting you say escapism is about going to a happier place. I quite merrily escape to Neptune, California but lord knows I wouldn't actually want to live there.

 

I escape into my own little made up worlds too. It has its uses as its easier to fall asleep thinking about that than the real world.

 

This is indeed interesting. What are your reasons for dreaming yourself away to California, then?

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I shall take you into a process of my escapism/mind.

 

Say I'm sitting in a room outof nowhere I'll think baking tray.

 

what is a good use for a baking tray?

 

Shovelling victorian monologues off the floor.

 

How many can each hold?

 

about 3 medium sized ones since they will get quite heavy and you will need to transport them across quite a dense area and you'll have to carry them yourself.

 

Say you set out at 1 in the afternoon and this was your 3rd and last trip of the day. It'll probably take you a few hours by foot and of course you'll stop off for a drink or something with your best friend that unfortunately has wonky eye.

 

The reason he got his wonky eye is because he thought he'd be wise and carry 4 victorian monologues upon the baking tray which was obviously a mistake since he got a hardened papercut to the eye.

 

blood poured everywhere and leaked all over the pages, staining them red with shame.

 

He's a very shy person one of those people you don't really like but would be really mean if you stopped being friends with them since they aren't particularly unkind just not your kind of person.

 

So yes I like to escape into my own mind, I'll do it in any direction or situation even while you are talking to me. :D

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Escapism is the only reason I'm not living an endless (relatively) nervous breakdown. Ignorance is bliss.

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Escapism really brings peace of mind when you're stressful. Thank God for it.

 

I mean healthy escapism, of course. Too much of it, and your problems will only get worse.

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Escaping into one's own mind is a fantastic thing. Coolness bears should write stuff.

 

My personal forms of escapism are mildly varied, but safe 'things' that I have to do once in a while.

 

Typically, downloading and watching an entire season of something as quick as I can. With cider. Or weed. But mostly cider these days. Weed makes the imagination flourish that little bit more.

 

Anyway! I pretty much watched 70% of all Good TV Ever Made in a year (HYPERBOLE!) a few years ago, so then i started watching the epics. Tried to watch all the UFCS (there's 124 at, I got from 1 to 60? and seen all from 100), and now I've entered Star Trek mode (just about to start season 5, started watching definitely less than a month ago).

 

I get immersed in that and forget my own failings in life. Occasionally a game takes this place and I just play maybe 20 hours of game in three days.

 

My other form of escapism is the best in the universe, and is surely my greatest addiction (which is saying something) -- dreaming. I can have lucid dreams, and I have vivid and memorable dreams every night. I love dreaming more than (nearly) everything else. MMMMMMMM!

 

Aside from that, occasionally thinking too much about things, like coolness does, except I don't fantasise as mentally as him. I think I am known for randomly posing a question when there's a comfortable silence. "if you were a bag of crisps, what flavour would you be?" was my first memorable one in 6th form years ago. Stuff like that. Not quite on topic.

 

GAAAH WHY DOES THIS FORUM MAKE ME HAVE LONG POSTS OF LONG?! Stop now.

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Oh yeah, I love dreams. So much. I don't have lucid dreams, but yeah. Big fan of my dreams.

 

Anyone who thinks dreams don't have meaning can keep walking.

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This thread inspired me to make a holiday message video.

 

Call Of Carnt

 

 

My 2010 Christmas message is actually quite a sad affair this year. In February this year, Leonard Alfreidan was found in his favourite arm chair in his cottage located in the south of France. He had overdosed on painkillers. Among his posessions was a journal that simply had "Notes" etched on the spine in gold leaf. The last entry was the quote at the beginning of the video. It is believed that soon after writing this note he ended his own life. So now I ask you to forget about everything else, and enjoy Christmas with the ones you love.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

Anyway, without escapism life would be pretty pointless. Unless you're will.

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This thread inspired me to make a holiday message video.

 

holiday message video

 

holiday message video

 

holiday message video

 

...

 

More like "deleted scene from The Shining". :heh:

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Oh yeah, I love dreams. So much. I don't have lucid dreams, but yeah. Big fan of my dreams.

 

Anyone who thinks dreams don't have meaning can keep walking.

 

What does a bunch of Eastenders having an orgy in an old folks home mean then?

 

I love my dreams too, to the point of never wanting to wake up sometime. They'er nearly always crazy as hell with plenty of action and adventure, with a healthy dose of the ridiculous thrown in.

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I admire escapism/immersion. It's always made a game/book/movie work well for me. If I can't get into the world the author has created then I can't enjoy it fully.

 

Stolen and slightly edited from a piece of academic literature, mainly concerned with video gamings:

One of the primary factors in the use of video games is the offering of escapism, or immersion – a definition of immersion which is most accepted is Janet Murray’s:

A stirring narrative in any medium can be experiences as a virtual reality because our brains are programmed to tune into stories with an intensity that can obliterate the world around us. The experience of being transported to an elaborately simulated place is pleasurable in itself, regardless of the fantasy content. We refer to this experience as immersion. Immersion is a metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being submerged in water. We seek the same feeling from the psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool: the sensation of being surrounded by a completely different reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus… in a participatory medium, immersion implies learning to swim, to do things that the new environment makes possible... the enjoyment of immersion as a participatory activity.

 

However Filiciak has gone with a simpler definition, saying ‘Escapism, getting away from everyday life worries, and deriving satisfaction in doing things that we could never do in the real world’. Like a Counter-Strike map maker using video games as an extension of the proverbial paint brush, gamers enjoy the sense of exploration that only immersion can provide. In 1984 Selnow said by saying that like television, gamers are ‘temporarily transported from life’s problems by their playing, they experience a sense of personal involvement in the action when they work the controls’. Turkle agrees with this statement, that gamers actively seek escapism and saying ‘the computer takes us beyond a world of dreams and beasts because it enables us to contemplate mental life that exists apart from our bodies’. You may get a sense of adventure watching the movie Spider-Man 3 and watch Spider-Man web his way through Manhattan, but it does not compare to playing the game and actually controlling Spider-Man, as you were actually him. It is this form of immersion which provides a better form of escapism than books, movies and television can ever accomplish.

 

Additionally, video games are using the movie magic in their cut-scenes, a sequence where the player has no control and it can be animated or in some cases has involved live action. In recent games they have taken on a cinematic twist, using popular film effects to help enhance the experience. It is not all for show however as they are not just decorative, but functional in the way they re-establish continuity, plot and characterisation which may have been forgotten during gameplay (Carr et al. 2006). The immersion is coming at a double-angle here, ‘physical’ immersion from the controlling of the character, coupled with ‘mental’ immersion as the cut-scene informs you of important background information, character development and a hint on where to go or what to do next.

 

Turkle later on went to say that ‘players are seen as leaving their real lives and problems behind to lose themselves in the game’. The gamer delves into a world of fantasy, much like the reading of a book. However unlike the video game, the book offers passive immersion, which Berger considers a negative quality saying the video games ‘don’t have the same power to generate fantasies because the player is so actively in the game’. Although where the book has a positive aspect is that the escapism is tailored to each reader, giving the reader a more personal sense of immersion as based on the descriptions given in the book, video games on the other hand have all the characters displayed in a certain way so imagination is restricted, or as Berger says ‘the images are so powerful that they tend to preclude the kind of fantasizing books provide’. In 2000, Poole said that:

It certainly looks as though the more able a game is to draw an atmospheric, beautiful world – as in the frankly stunning Shenmue – the more willing the player will be to shuffle off his or her chthonic shackles and swim happily into that world, where he or she can get to grips with its symbolic play.

 

I disagree with this point as there is a debate of graphics versus gameplay. Just because a game looks good does not mean it is a good game. Indeed, as Poole says, the player may be more willing, but if the gameplay is poor, then the player will not want to ‘get to grips with its symbolic play’. Carr et al agree on this point that ‘a players’ engrossment does not rely on the game offering a ‘realistic 3D space’. They later explain that the ‘fans interest and engagement in the game is also sparked by the storyline’. It is not the impressive visuals which can capture the attention of the gamer; it is the potentially complex storyline which accompanies it. Especially in RPG games where a multi-layered storyline is to be expected. Provenzo noted this evolution in immersion by saying ‘it’s about actually getting inside the television and becoming one with it, being of it instead of outside looking in’. Turkle later built upon this:

 

When video games were very new, I found that the holding power of their screens often went along with a fantasy of a meeting of minds between the player and the program behind the games. Today, the program has disappeared; one enters the screen world as Alice stepped through the Looking Glass in today’s game simulations, people experience themselves in a new, often exotic setting.

 

In the beginning there were two sides, the player and the program, with no ‘emotion’ between the two. Take Space Invaders for example, you are a Ship, you shoot at the Aliens. Today, due to the ‘exotic settings’ and emotion from the games’ script, one can feel empathy for the protagonist (the character which the gamer actually ‘is’) and loathing for the antagonist. This offers a similar and evolved form of immersion that Turkle compares with the Looking Glass.

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