You don’t have to look far to find reports of people who have used VR headsets and then felt ‘off’ after removing them. While motion sickness is surely the most well-known post-VR symptom, a subset of people say they have experienced feelings of being ‘stuck in VR’ after taking off their headsets. It’s tempting to brush off such reports as someone having seen The Matrix (1999) one too many times, but it turns out there is a clear scientific basis for the sensation.
I’m in the same boat, it’s really hard for me to believe this is a real thing and not people being overly dramatic. VR is nowhere near close to tricking me that it’s real, but I understand everyone has a different barrier to being immersed. Kind of similar to how phantom sense in VR chat communities strikes me as being a complete fabrication and everyone has to be in on the joke together.
They’re not saying they’re tricked that it’s real, they’re saying that after taking off the headset the real world also doesn’t feel real. The feeling of things being wrong persists after removing the headset.
Thanks for clarifying, that makes a lot more sense (although still personally hard to believe. I feel like there would need to be a better immersion of all senses for that to occur). Kind of reminds me of Cotard’s syndrome.
what i can totally see happening is e.g. playing half life alyx a bunch, then when you wake up in the morning you try to pull something toward you and go “oh god did i just do that? maybe i should play another game for a while…”