Asgore is the first character in Deltarune who's actually treated the Dark Worlds as a lotus-eater Matrix dreamscape, and this is presented to us pretty unequivocally as a miserable moral failure on his end.
His eyes remain firmly fixed on "reality," and he's disinterested in and neglectful of his "perfect family" more or less from its inception. At best, he's "playing along." When Asgore fantasizes, it's about the Light World. Unreal scenarios, sure – parading their body through the streets, getting back with his ex-wife, skateboards with Azzy – but never the Dark World itself. Everything he does, he does in order to capture and kill the Knight, after which he intends to leave the Dark World.
And it sucks! It makes the Seven-Colored Flowers miserable (and we see way more of them than Asgore; our sympathies align naturally with them over him). It doesn't make Asgore happy either, and it certainly doesn't help him fulfill his equally-implausible nostalgic visions of being big hero copman again.
Escapism, nothing. This is why I can't take seriously anyone who suggests Susie's living situation is her running away from the real world. The Dark may be a dream, but treating it as a valueless illusory prison doesn't actually get you any closer to reality.
