Few would deny that relaxation and recreation, in measure, are healthy activities which enable us to enjoy life more and to engage better with others. We all need some time off. However, many people are becoming so habituated to escaping reality that engaging with others has become a scary and unwelcome prospect.

The term 'escapism' is reserved for those who take excessive time away from real life to the point at which they seem to be trying to escape from it. Traditionally regarded as extreme, escapism is in fact increasingly the norm for many people. In Japan, for example, the average household watches over 8 hours of television per day1.

Escapism is not defined by the behaviour itself but the motivation behind it. Anything from sport to fashion to sex can become escapist activities. Certain escapist options are socially accepted, such as consumerism and celebrity worship, others are not, such as recreational drug use. Modern technology has brought digital culture - television, films, increasingly realistic computer games and virtual realities that provide escapist experiences with huge degrees of immersion. Means of escapism have become increasingly varied over the past few decades, but fascination in details remains a popular one.

We interpret the popularity of escapism as an indication that people are unhappy with the lives they are leading - whether due to material deprivation or cloying overconsumption. We believe that friendship is the key to helping escapists - by encouraging them to think altruistically, it can break them out of their self-imposed prison and they can start living for real once more, enjoying their connections with others.

Ultimately, the means of escapism is relatively unimportant. Its root cause is an inability to establish meaningful relationships with other people in the real world, and it is generally associated with feelings such as guilt, powerlessness or pointlessness. It is natural to abhor a zero-sum economic system which assumes an unnatural selfishness and attempts to motivate people by fear not love. No wonder people try to escape from the depression that results from taking part in it.

SLEEP AS A FORM OF ESCAPISM

-The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.

- Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you’re sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you’re still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.

- A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year

- Some scientists believe we dream to fix experiences in long-term memory, that is, we dream about things worth remembering. Others reckon we dream about things worth forgetting – to eliminate overlapping memories that would otherwise clog up our brains.

- Dreams may not serve any purpose at all but be merely a meaningless byproduct of two evolutionary adaptations – sleep and consciousness.

- Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake. Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.

- The “natural alarm clock” which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.

- In insomnia following bereavement, sleeping pills can disrupt grieving.

- A night on the grog will help you get to sleep but it will be a light slumber and you won’t dream much.

- After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you’ve slept enough.

- Humans sleep on average around three hours less than other primates like chimps, rhesus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and baboons, all of whom sleep for 10 hours.

- Ducks at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.

- Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.

- Some studies suggest women need up to an hour’s extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.

- Feeling tired can feel normal after a short time. Those deliberately deprived of sleep for research initially noticed greatly the effects on their alertness, mood and physical performance, but the awareness dropped off after the first few days.

- Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.

- The extra-hour of sleep received when clocks are put back at the start of daylight in Canada has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.

Labels: Psychology