Transported or Transformed?

I often wonder how people perceive themselves when they've slapped that VR headset onto their face. For me, it's like diving underwater, I'm suddenly surrounded by a new environment like a visitor to a foreign land. It takes quite a bit of time and interactions with that new world before I feel like a resident there.

But for many people it's not like that at all. I was talking with my friend Carol about it and she said VR is like when you're cosplaying behind a mask and everybody treats you like the character you're dressed as. "It's incredible freeing to be able to forget yourself and try on someone new. I don't know if you can imagine that feeling of letting go, but I'm always pleasantly surprised by how easily you can find yourself looking forward to the new adventure waiting for the person you've become. There's something intoxicating about having that opportunity to start over without that weight of your life's story."

On the one hand that sounds amazing, and I'm very jealous at the ease with which she can let go. But on the other hand, the difficulties I have drive me to look for all the little tweaks and techniques that can give you greater immersion. I'm a junkie and the dragon I'm chasing after is Presence. And so I read about things like proprioception and I think about things like how meditation and stillness nullify your awareness of your body in way that a VR experience might be able to take advantage of.

Because if you're tied down to a bed in VR, Full Body Tracking is moot, right? If you're a bound Bull being milked then you don't really need to worry about where your hands are, your mind is focused on other things. Your point of focus is on that very specific body part and who has control over pleasing it.

And what they want from you.

Or rather, who you're willing to become for them.