escapism

escapism
    n 1: an inclination to retreat from unpleasant realities through
         diversion or fantasy; "romantic novels were her escape from
         the stress of daily life"; "his alcohol problem was a form
         of escapism" [syn: {escape}, {escapism}]
    

54 Moby Thesaurus words for "escapism":
      alienation, autism, autistic thinking, avoidance mechanism,
      blame-shifting, break, breakout, compensation, decompensation,
      defense mechanism, deliverance, delivery, dereism,
      dereistic thinking, displacement, dissociation, emergence,
      emotional insulation, escape, escape into fantasy,
      escape mechanism, evasion, extrication, fantasizing, fantasy,
      flight, freeing, getaway, isolation, issuance, issue, jailbreak,
      leak, leakage, liberation, negativism, outlet, overcompensation,
      prisonbreak, projection, psychotaxis, rationalization, release,
      rescue, resistance, riddance, setting-free,
      sociological adjustive reactions, sublimation, substitution, vent,
      wish-fulfillment fantasy, wishful thinking, withdrawal