Disney Adults vs. Forest Fam: Different Costumes, Same Wound
When fantasy becomes therapy: why some adults seek safety in Cinderella, and others sob under strobe lights.
At Electric Forest last year, I watched a man—mid-30s, lean, bare-chested, glittered skin—stand barefoot in a glowing art installation shaped like a cathedral of trees. He was crying hard, trying not to. A stranger with a totem pole hugged him wordlessly for a full minute. Then they both walked away without saying a word.
A few months later, at Disney World, I saw a woman in her thirties twirl in front of Cinderella’s castle in full Belle costume while her partner filmed her. Her eyes were shining too—but the joy felt... contained. Practiced. Like a performance perfected over time.
Different settings. Same wound.
Two adults trying to access something they weren’t allowed to keep.
These Aren’t Just Costumes. They’re Emotional Blueprints.
Walk into Electric Forest or Disney World and you’ll see the same thing: adults in full costume, wide-eyed, and reaching for something just out of view.
It looks like escapism, but it's more precise than that.
These are emotional correction zones—rituals of becoming.
People aren’t just playing dress-up.
They’re trying to become who they would have been if it had been safe.
In a way, it’s childhood re-attempted—with more glitter, fewer punishments.
Disney: The Fantasy of Safety (For a Price)
Disney adults are chasing emotional safety. They're drawn to stories where danger is temporary, love is guaranteed, and good always wins.
A woman who grew up in a household where she was constantly walking on eggshells may feel something settle in her chest when the opening music to The Little Mermaid plays. That world has rules. Predictability. Affection that doesn’t have to be earned.
It’s not about Mickey. It’s about control.
The emotional relief of knowing what comes next.
And for $5,000, you can have dinner with the Beast in a faux-gothic castle while costumed waiters call you “princess.”
In this world, innocence is for sale—and no one asks what you’re running from.
Forest: The Fantasy of Freedom
Forest adults—EDM culture more broadly—are chasing emotional expression. It’s a world of chaos, color, and collective intensity. Here, the body is the story. The music is the permission.
A man who never saw his parents cry may find himself sobbing under strobes at 3AM. There’s no shame. No questions. Just a bassline big enough to hold what real life never could.
This isn’t just a party.
It’s an emotional exhale disguised as a music festival.
Why Now? Why This Loud?
These rituals didn’t always exist at this scale. But modern life has created the perfect storm for fantasy to feel like salvation:
Friendships are shallow
Work is performative
Families are fractured
Religion collapsed without an emotional replacement
We’re emotionally starved—so we binge nostalgia or sensation.
Disney offers innocence and certainty.
Forest offers chaos and catharsis.
Both answer the same unspoken question:
Where do I go to feel something real?
But What If It’s Not Enough?
Let’s be honest—sometimes this isn’t healing. Sometimes it’s avoidance dressed up in LED wings or princess gowns.
Some leave Forest reborn.
Others leave numb—chasing peaks without ever touching the pain beneath.
Some Disney fans use the stories to feel safe.
Others use them to freeze time—to not grow up, to not confront adulthood.
When fantasy becomes identity, you risk confusing regression for relief.
Healing means visiting the past—not moving back in.
Not all coping is growth.
And not all healing is honest.
The Price of Permission
Disney is a trillion-dollar nostalgia machine.
Forest is its own economy of merch, VIP tiers, and curated soul journeys.
These aren’t grassroots rituals—they’re branded ecosystems selling freedom-shaped feelings.
Does that cheapen it?
Maybe.
But maybe the harder truth is this:
Even when we know it’s a product, it still works.
The healing is real—even if someone profits off the pain.
We All Wear Costumes
This isn’t about “those weird Disney people” or “those rave kids.”
This is about us.
Everyone wears a costume.
The hyper-competent LinkedIn mask
The gym bro armor
The hot mess mom brand
The therapist voice that hides your own pain
The polished, self-improved, unshakably regulated adult persona
Costumes don’t always sparkle.
Sometimes they look like professionalism.
Sometimes they look like survival.
The question isn’t why they do it.
It’s: What part of me still believes I’m not allowed to be seen?
We’re Not Escaping. We’re Rewriting.
When a man puts on fairy wings or a woman reenacts a childhood movie scene, they’re not trying to flee reality.
They’re trying to repair it.
They’re trying to give their nervous system an experience it never got.
To say: “I’m allowed to be this now.”
To feel, for one brief moment, complete.
These aren’t delusions.
They’re emotional reruns with new endings.
And in a world that teaches us to suppress, perform, and endure—
maybe the most radical thing we can do is put on a costume, step into the fantasy, and finally feel.
If this resonated, share it with someone who’s ever felt more alive in a costume than in their real life. We all carry a version of ourselves that never got to be seen. Sometimes healing starts with letting that version speak—glitter, mouse ears, or otherwise.
Subscribe for more essays at the intersection of culture, emotion, and identity.
Well written. Do these fantasy worlds provide the certainty people are looking for outside religious dogma? And are rules of fantasy or religion a kind of freedom where perceived certainty from the parameters of these spaces allows for relief and a degree of content, joy, or euphoria from how scary the unknown is?