Let's say that you are laying down on the floor in the real world with your vision of the real world obscured, trying to convince yourself you are standing in the hall of a magical castle. You may be able to clearly see yourself and the castle room via headset VR or imaginative visualization. But, it is not a perfect simulation. The attempt to convince the mind into believing in the scene is being disrupted by the sensation of the floor under your back. But the problem can be solved simply by changing the narration of the role-‐play scene to take account of what you are feeling. In the example of the magical castle, you could change the description of the scene from standing in a hall to lying on a bed in a castle bedroom. By incorporating the particular parts of your body that are part of the “feeling” in the simulation, the mind will become even more convinced that the artificial reality that you are visualizing is true because the physical stimuli will back up your belief in the truth of the fantasy. A FURTHER LEAP OF IMAGINATION You may have heard of the well-‐known saying “The thought is the deed.” In the realm of psychology, a physical condition can manifest because of something that is happening in the mind (a very basic example being the creation of spots on the skin by a state of high stress.) Therefore, we can adjust our physiology in specific ways by crafting a narrative with VR scenario programming or with our internal mindscape. If we want to think about the idea of role-‐playing unreal situations in an otherwise real world, then one can look at the example of 'magical transformation' characters in classic cartoon fiction, such as Sailor Moon, He-‐Man and She-‐Ra. They appear to be surrounded by a magical field that changes their physical form from an ordinary, everyday one to a super-‐powered one. Thinking about the mechanics of such fictional universes can provide useful insights about the concept of incorporating unreality into the real world.
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