Storr puts it thus: Man’s extraordinary success as a species springs
from his discontent, which compels him to use his imagination and thus
spurs men on to further conquests and to ever-increasing mastery of the
environment. Freud introduces a further element with his concept of
wish fulfilment – the idea that it is unhappy people that fantasise:
We may lay it down that a happy person never phantasises, only an
unsatisfied one. The motive forces of phantasies are unsatisfied
wishes, and every single phantasy is the fulfilment of a wish, a
correction of an unsatisfying reality. (Creative writers and
daydreaming).

Storr considers Freud’s view of phantasy as essentially escapist, a
turning away from reality rather than a preliminary to altering reality
in the desired direction, and prefers the view of imagination as a
positive adaptive force. He criticises Freud in that he seems to assume
that the real world can or should be able to provide complete
satisfaction and that ideally it should be possible for the mature
person to abandon phantasy altogether. Freud was too realistic,
hardheaded and pessimistic a man to believe that this ideal could ever
be reached. Nevertheless he did consider that phantasy should become
less and less necessary as the maturing individual approached rational
adaptation to the external world. (Evans A This Virtual Life - 2003)

in article , Andy Evans
at wrote on 3/28/05 1:13 PM:

Peer Gynt----
Peer Gynt is another of fiction�s famous liars. Peer is a born liar, or
perhaps evader of any truth that might prove uncomfortable or
unpleasant - he lies to his mother, even on her deathbed, and spends
much of his life skating through existence seeking pleasure and
personal aggrandisement without putting out much effort. He even leaves
behind the love of his life, Solveig, to avoid any form of commitment.
He is totally superficial, as in his self-satisfied remark: "Metodisk
har jeg intet l�rt" - "Methodically I have nothing learnt", a pun which
can be interpreted in 2 ways: "I have never been methodical in
obtaining knowledge" and "I have methodically sought to remain
ignorant", which of course is Ibsen's underlying irony. When Peer
finally returns to Norway a disillusioned old man, it is Solveig - a
romantic deus ex machina - who saves him from total disintegration and
the "melting pot" into which Death puts all those souls who have never
made an attempt to live life fully and properly. In a way he's a bit of
a 19th century yuppie - all grab and no give. (Evans A "This Virtual
Life" 2003)



The first 12 were amusing. Plonk!!

Nick Fulford points out:
” Primarily or on a most fundamental level, I see escapism as an
attempt to isolate and sustain particular beliefs about oneself and the
world. Building layers of psychic plaque to isolate and sustain those
beliefs is escapism, continuing to build layers of illusion upon the
already deluded part of self that we call the ego. The ego consists of
the layers of beliefs and tales that form the identity, the self as a
cohesive form. Strongly defined egos often are not very adaptive, and
may hold to their world view (or aspects thereof) irrespective of all
but the most traumatic of experiences. Depending upon your point of
view this can be seen as saintly faith and tenacity or foolhardy
lunacy.”