M3TA.v.020

There are those among us that may have difficulty differentiating between fantasy and reality and may experience hallucinations, as well as self-suggested psychosomatic symptoms. Closely related psychological constructs include daydreaming, absorption, and photographic memory. This subset of humans is referred to as “ the fantasizer”. Often times the fantasizer will be easily influenced, emotional, wishy-washy, and eager to respond to every DM they receive.

Aside from being an odd tool of geeks and creeps, it would appear that from our earliest days the pursuit of alternate reality has been part of the human experience. Stray thoughts, dreams, chemical influencers, or religious beliefs all point to an inherent human need and desire to transcend reality as we know it.

Cybersickness occurs when a plebe’s exposure to a virtual environment causes things called “feelings.” The most common feelings are general discomfort, headache, stomach awareness, nausea, vomiting, pallor, sweating, fatigue, drowsiness, disorientation, defecation, apathy, and random insatiable cravings for pizza. These symptoms are caused by a disconnect between what is being seen and what the rest of the body perceives. When the vestibular system, the body's internal balancing system, does not experience what it expects from visual input through the eye orifices, the user may experience sickness. This can also happen if the system does not have a high enough frame rate if there is a lag between the body's movement and the onscreen visual reaction to it, or if the artist plain old sucks.

If, however, the artist manages to create the perfect orchestra of audio and visual stimuli for the user to experience, enlightenment is achieved. Some have referred to this feeling as “sun gazing.,” others call it the “poopblot”.

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein