I "live" in every type of media I consume.

As a child I would cry when I left a world and as an adult I do the same.

I feel like I live in books more now than I did as a child/young reader. I know enough about the real world to want to escape it.

With all due respect I think you're reading the wrong books. I can absolutely get lost in some of the books I read even as an adult. I still find books where I'm up all night just trying to read one more page.

Idk haven’t noticed a difference. Maybe I don’t have the time to finish the whole twilight series in 3 days anymore but that doesn’t mean I’m any less immersed or invested

What your post described is calling growing up. It's not an absence of imagination or desire to enjoy content. It is a choice an adult makes to not be consumed by an arbitrary object or emotion. Being able to compartmentalize and move on is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Adults are fully capable of enjoying a story, and also living their actual lives without needing to have the story they're reading consume them. Children "live through the book" because they're learning about themselves and their values, and humans learn by imitation.

When you're an adult, you have your own style of living and you don't need to do it through the "lense" of a book. That doesn't mean these books don't influence an adult. Several books I've read in adulthood stick with me daily and I continually think about them. But they are works of fiction and they don't dictate how I live or perceive my life.

Absolutely adults can live in books. I started a series a few months ago and when I read it, I'm fully in. To the point where my dreams will feature elements from the books. I can't really read any other way. And books I don't fall into fully I tend not to enjoy and sometimes stop reading them.

OP, have you never heard of fandoms? And did you know that Sherlock Holmes is considered to have created first modern fandom?

I live in books. For some of my favorite series', I feel like I know the characters, and I will cry over them, not just at the end but during the story as well. I don't know why, but for me books are a sort of portal into another world and I get to take trips to visit these people and places. Perhaps it's a matter of perspective but that's how it feels for me. And sure, the real world is lots of fun, and I make a point to spend time in it, but my imagination has me daydreaming even now as an adult. So books enable me to get into that more!

My ability to "enter into" the other realm that is the book has never fade over the years. I'm still heartbroken when either a book or series ends; all my friends are going away forever...

For me it depends how immersed I am in the story and how they affected me!!

You've never been to a Star Trek convention !

I've certainly gotten lost in books as an adult and becomes morose when they're over. That said, I do think I got more engrossed in them when I was younger. I've gotten much better at managing my emotions and compartmentalizing as an adult, so maybe that allows me to move on faster?

I absolutely live in books as an adult.

Are you sure that you're reading the right books? It sounds like the word that you are looking for here is "immersion", and most fiction books do a pretty good job of keeping the reader immersed in the world but some books do a really awful job and keep kicking the reader out of it, especially if things are too implausible or the book is not well written or if there are too many plot holes, your hindbrain kicks in and says wait a minute and then you are kicked out of the immersion of the story again as if it was a giant portal and you are back in the real world again

Personally every story that I read the first time I am immersed in unless the book is too poorly written and I keep getting kicked out. If I want to study the book or the writing or the language I have to approach it carefully and I can do that but the very first time I read anything I know that I am going to be "in the story"

I would also recommend that you take a step back and look at your personal reading environment. Are you reading at your desk with your drafting pencil and protractor and red pen ready? In this kind of setting you would be in the mind space to do work rather than to be comfortable and leisurely. So make sure that you are snug and cozy and comfortable and things are to your liking. I recently discovered that there is a hobby that I like to do but I was getting angrier and angrier with it and it took me about 10 years to realize that I was hating the hobby because I was physically very uncomfortable with the way that my desk was set up and my posture because of it. My hobby was physically painful for me. And it took me 10 years to realize. Yeeeeeeaaaaahhh.

Depends on the book. Sometimes after a really good book o can’t read for a while coz I am thinking of that book and don’t want to leave that world.

I am an adult in their 30’s

It must have something to with our perception. Sometimes, when I'm visiting a library or bookstore, I wish I could wander around like I used to do as a kid, fully emerged in all the adventures around me. When we grow up, we lose some dreams, some illusions, a little bit of imagination and we experience a lot. We may even feel we've seen it all before. Kids don't have that.

in my 30s and i do this as well. If im walking the dog and listening to warhammer audio books, I notice I walk.... like im in armour and a soldier, when I am listening to some fantasy story I like being in woods, away from modern stuff, in places that give me the impression of history. I love getting lost in books.

Yes. Adults have more of a diverse vocabulary and understanding of life than children. Making them able to analyzed and and articulate certain themes and morals more efficiently than someone who has not had many life experiences. Therefore, I would argue that adults are, in fact, more immersed into books. Provided the book is of quality, of course.

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