OverwriteXR

Resources and content on everything XR

What’s “Real”? Is Reality Debatable?

Humans have a tangibility complex. If something isn’t present in our physical world, many don’t consider it “real.” Yet history, philosophy, and pop culture are constantly reminding us that reality is often shaped more by perception than physicality.

In Harry Potter, Harry asks, “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?” Dumbledore replies, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

In The Matrix, Morpheus famously tells Neo: “What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

In Free Guy, a video game NPC named Buddy says, “Hey, I’m here with my best friend, trying to help him through a tough time. If that ain’t real, I don’t know what is.”

And Ready Player One closes with Wade Watts saying: “That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.”

Across philosophy and religion, reality has always been questioned. Dreams, hallucinations, and inner visions are often dismissed because they are generated internally and don’t map directly to the shared physical world. Yet even our physical world is filtered through biological perception: light waves interpreted as color, vibrations interpreted as sound. We don’t see the world as it is—we see it as we are built to perceive it.

So what happens when virtual environments, avatars, and artificial intelligences start to populate our experiences? Is a meaningful moment in VR less “real” than one at a dinner table?

“Virtual reality is a self-created form of chosen reality. Therefore it exists.” — Joan Lowery Nixon

Range of Reality – Atoms and Bits

Reality isn’t a toggle—it’s a slider. In extended reality (XR), we live between physical atoms and digital bits. Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) aren’t separate from the world. They are the world—layers of it.

At one end of the spectrum is meatspace: the raw, physical world. It’s unpredictable, uncontrollable, and shared.

At the far end is full-dive VR: completely immersive, software-governed, user-controlled environments.

In the middle is MR: a blend of real and virtual, where digital elements respond to physical inputs in real time. A virtual object casts a shadow on your desk. A coworker’s avatar leans on your actual chair. An artificial sky replaces the view out your window.

Reality as a Daily Spectrum

  • Morning: You wake up with a light XR overlay. Smart glasses show you the time and weather. Notifications hover gently in your periphery.
  • Midday: You’re working in MR. Your desk has no monitor, but your eyes see multiple floating displays. Your window shows a forest, not a wall. Coworker avatars phase in for meetings.
  • Evening: You log into the Metaverse fully. Maybe a concert, a game, or just lounging in your friend’s dreamlike home. You’re not in meatspace anymore. But your thoughts, feelings, and conversations are very real.

And outside? Wayfinding arrows guide your walking route. Restaurants display ratings above their doorframes. Bus stops show arrival estimates in floating text. The internet surrounds you—visually, spatially, and socially.

Metaverse, Mixed Reality, Meatspace

These three terms frame our new layered existence:

  • Meatspace is the analog world—the baseline physical reality. It’s gritty, sensory, and largely out of our control.
  • Mixed Reality (MR) is where bits meet atoms. Digital layers respond to the physical world in real time.
  • The Metaverse represents the far end of immersive possibility: a persistent, user-shaped universe made of code. You can enter as whoever—or whatever—you want.

People will slide between these states throughout the day. These aren’t hard boundaries, but permeable thresholds.

All loose predictions here. I’m not a time traveler.

Expanding the Edges of Real

  • Dreams & Hallucinations as Proto-XR: Our brains are already simulation engines. Dreams, lucid visions, and hallucinatory states show how easily perception can generate entire realities. XR taps into this same capacity—except it adds shared structure, social interaction, and technological feedback.
  • Sensory Hierarchies & Haptics: Sight and sound dominate XR today, but touch, smell, and taste are on the horizon. Haptic gloves, scent emitters, and digital taste interfaces will push what our brains accept as “real.” If a virtual rose feels soft and smells like a rose, does it matter that it’s made of code?
  • Social Consensus & Symbolic Reality: Something becomes “real” when others treat it as such. Digital events, memes, and even NFT art gain meaning through shared acknowledgment. XR intensifies this—where presence is defined not by location, but by mutual belief.
  • Reality Bubbles & Ethical Filters: When every element of the world can be modified—filtered, enhanced, or blocked—XR could split us into reality bubbles. Will everyone live in their own aesthetic, comfort-filtered layer of truth? Who controls what stays visible?
  • The Reality Slider: Imagine a literal dial or interface—your Reality Slider—letting you shift from raw meatspace to total immersion. This is more than sci-fi. It’s a framework for how we’ll think about context: focused vs immersive, analog vs augmented.

Control and the Perception of Realness

One way to understand the spectrum of realities is through the lens of control.

  • Meatspace offers the least control. It’s ruled by external forces—gravity, weather, other people. We adapt to it, but we can’t easily shape it.
  • Mixed Reality offers shared control. We add meaning, data, and design onto the physical world, but still work within its constraints. It’s collaborative.
  • The Metaverse offers the most control. We can bend physics, change identity, modify space and time. It becomes a sandbox for the self.

The appeal of XR isn’t just that it looks real—it’s that it responds. In a world where so much is unpredictable, many will find comfort in realities that they can shape on demand.

Reality, Reconsidered

Some people will overdose on immersion, rarely exiting full-dive environments except to eat and sleep. Others will linger mostly in MR, using the Metaverse to enhance daily life rather than replace it.

But all of us will face the same underlying question: is realness about matter, or meaning?

Maybe what matters most isn’t where something happens—but how it makes you feel.