Emotional neutrality
Visual specifics
Scenic design
October 2045. Buenos Aires. A strange silence hangs in the apartment on the twenty-third floor of a skyscraper on Avenida Corrientes. Marcelo Escobar has been lying in an immersion capsule for three weeks straight. His physical body is sustained by life-support systems while his consciousness roams through virtual worlds. On the medical monitor, an orange pumpkin pulsates – a reminder that today is Halloween. In the real world. A world that, for Marcelo, no longer exists.
The capsule emits a barely audible hum. Inside, the temperature of a human body, the smell of medical gel, and the soft blue light of biosensors. Outside, an empty, unlit apartment where dust dances in the rays of the setting sun. On the kitchen table sits an untouched cup of three-week-old coffee. Mold floats in it, resembling miniature ghosts.
The Architecture of a New Psyche
The human brain evolved over millions of years to survive in the physical world. Now, it must adapt to an existence without gravity, without a constant bodily form, without linear time. Neuroplasticity is being stretched to its absolute limit.
In a laboratory at the Institute of Neurocognitive Research on Defensa Street, researchers observe the brain activity of long-term virtual reality residents. The monitors display bizarre patterns that weren't in neurology textbooks just a decade ago. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for planning and decision-making, shows activity similar to a state of lucid dreaming. The hippocampus, the keeper of memory and spatial orientation, forges new neural pathways for navigating spaces where up and down are conventions, and distance is measured not in meters, but in milliseconds of signal lag.
Dr. Valeria Montero, the project's lead neuropsychologist, compares what is happening to the birth of a new species. Not a biological one – a psychological one. She points to a screen where a three-dimensional model of a brain shimmers with neon colors of activity: «See these areas? A year ago, they were responsible for proprioception – the sense of the body's position in space. Now, they've learned to feel the position of an avatar in a virtual world. The brain is literally rewriting its own operating system.»
In the next room sits Diego, one of the test subjects. His eyes are closed, but rapid movement is visible beneath his eyelids – he has been in virtual reality for eight hours now. His face wears an expression of deep concentration, like that of a medium during a séance. From time to time, his fingers twitch, reacting to objects that do not exist in the physical world.
Phantom Reality Syndrome
The first cases were recorded in 2042. People who spent more than twelve hours a day in virtual reality began to experience strange symptoms. They reached for objects that weren't there. They tried to use interface gestures in the physical world. Their brains created phantom sensations of non-existent limbs – wings, tails, extra arms – that their avatars possessed.
The psychiatric clinic on Las Heras Avenue has become a testing ground for studying new disorders. In ward number thirteen – a traditionally unlucky number – lies Camila. She is twenty-eight, and she cannot fall asleep without a virtual sky above her head. The real ceiling gives her claustrophobia. «It's too low, too solid, too real», she whispers, wrapped in a blanket like a cocoon.
Her ward-mate, Juan, suffers from temporal dissociation. In virtual reality, he grew accustomed to speeding up and slowing down time, to rewinding unfortunate moments. Now, his brain cannot accept the irreversibility of physical time. He constantly makes a hand gesture, trying to summon a non-existent undo menu. When he spills water, he freezes for a few seconds, expecting the liquid to return to the glass.
At night, when the main lights in the clinic are turned off and only the orange glow of emergency lighting remains, the patients grow restless. They see reality glitches in the shadows, rendering artifacts. One of them claims he can see the polygonal mesh that objects are made of. Another hears background music that isn't there.
Metamorphoses of the Self
In virtual reality, you can be anyone. Change your gender, age, species. This freedom of transformation gives rise to a new type of personality disorder – fluid identity. People lose their sense of self, dissolving into a multitude of avatars.
Psychologist Andrés Romero runs a support group for people with multiple avatar syndrome. The meetings are held in the basement of an old building on San Telmo Street, which once housed a tango club. Now, instead of the sound of a bandoneon, the space is filled with stories of lost identities.
«I was a dragon for six months», says Lucía, a woman in her forties with tired eyes. «I flew over digital mountains, breathed pixelated fire. When I returned to my body, I couldn't understand why I didn't have wings. I tried to spread them, felt a phantom pain between my shoulder blades.»
Next to her sits a teenager who introduces himself by a different name at each meeting. Today, he is Alex. Last week, he was Zara. His personality is fragmented among dozens of avatars, each with its own history, character, and memories. «Sometimes I don't remember who I am in the real world», he admits. «All my versions feel equally real.»
In the corner of the room stands an old mirror in a carved frame. Many group members avoid looking into it. The reflection of their physical body causes them anxiety, a feeling of wrongness. They are used to seeing themselves through customizable filters and effects. Real skin, with its pores and wrinkles, seems like low-poly graphics, a rendering bug.
Social Deformation
Virtual reality changes not only the individual psyche but also social connections. In digital worlds, you can instantly block an unpleasant person, mute their voice, make them invisible. This power over one's social environment creates a new type of personality – the social administrator.
A group of friends sits in a café on a corner in Palermo. Or rather, their physical bodies sit at the same table, but each is in their own virtual space. They communicate through avatars while being a meter apart. A waiter brings their coffee, but no one notices. Their senses are tuned to a different reality.
Martín, one of the café's patrons, talks about his life: «I have three hundred friends in the virtual world. We fight dragons together, build cities, travel through fantastical realms. But I don't know their real names. I don't know what they look like. Sometimes I wonder – do they even exist? Maybe they're just advanced bots?»
His companion, Sofía, nods. She has a different problem – she can't maintain relationships in the physical world. She's used to being able to edit an awkward phrase, to restart a clumsy conversation. Real interaction, with its irreversibility, gives her panic attacks. «I said something stupid, and I can't fix it. There's no undo button. It's terrifying.»
Temporal Distortions
Time flows differently in virtual reality. One can live for years in a matter of hours, or stretch a moment into an eternity. The brain, accustomed to such temporal plasticity, begins to perceive duration differently.
At the University of Buenos Aires, an experiment is underway. Volunteers are asked to estimate how much time has passed – without a clock, in a room with no windows. Those who spend more time in virtual reality are off by a factor of several times. An hour feels like five minutes, or an entire day.
Professor Eduardo Castro explains: «Their internal clocks are broken. Their circadian rhythms are disrupted. They live in a perpetual jet lag, only it's not geographical, but temporal. Some sleep for two hours and feel rested because they spent subjective days in virtual reality while asleep. Others sleep for sixteen hours and wake up exhausted.»
On his office wall hangs an old pendulum clock. Its steady ticking seems like an anachronism. Most of his patients don't wear watches. For them, time is not a linear sequence, but a set of saved states that one can switch between.
The Sensory Revolution
Modern virtual reality systems stimulate all the senses. Special suits transmit tactile sensations, scent generators create olfactory illusions, and inner-ear implants simulate the vestibular system. The brain receives a full spectrum of sensory information, indistinguishable from reality.
But what happens when this stimulation ceases?
At a rehabilitation center on the outskirts of the city, they work with people suffering from sensory deprivation after prolonged immersion in virtual reality. The physical world seems faded, silent, and odorless to them. They have grown accustomed to the enhanced, saturated sensations of digital worlds.
Therapist Clara Méndez takes patients to a sensory garden. Fragrant herbs grow here, a fountain murmurs, and pathways are lined with materials of different textures. But for many, these stimuli are too weak. «The mint smells like mint with the volume turned all the way down», complains one patient. «And this fountain... in virtual reality, water sounds like a symphony. Here, it's just noise.»
Some patients develop compensatory mechanisms. They begin to hallucinate as their brain fills in the missing details. An ordinary rose transforms in their perception into a glowing neon flower. The gray sky of Buenos Aires becomes colored with an aurora borealis that cannot possibly be there.
Memory and Oblivion
In virtual reality, memories can be saved and relived. Recorded like video, edited, shared with others. This changes the very nature of memory.
Neuroscientist Isabel Ferrari studies how the hippocampus changes in people who use virtual memory recording technologies. «They stop remembering naturally», she explains. «Why strain the brain when you can just save a moment to the cloud? But this leads to atrophy. They remember that they have a memory, but they don't remember the memory itself. It's as if their memory has turned into a catalog of links to external files.»
A chilling experiment is taking place in her lab. Volunteers are shown recordings of their own virtual memories, among which are several fakes – moments that never happened. Most cannot distinguish the real memories from the false ones. Their brain accepts any plausible recording as truth.
One of the participants, Ricardo, speaks about his experience: «I have a memory of celebrating my birthday on the summit of Mount Everest. I know it was in virtual reality, but the sensations are completely real. The cold, the thin air, the view of the world below. And then there's the memory of a birthday at my parents' apartment. It seems less real, even though it happened in the physical world. Because I can rewatch the virtual memory anytime in perfect quality, while the real one is blurry, fragmented.»
Emotional Alchemy
In virtual reality, emotions can be regulated. Special filters reduce stress, enhance joy, block fear. People get used to emotional comfort, losing the ability to cope with negative feelings naturally.
Psychiatrist Gabriel Moreno calls this «emotional anesthesia.» His practice sees more and more patients who cannot endure even minimal discomfort without virtual regulators. «They come into my office and the first thing they ask is where the emotion settings menu is. When I explain that there's no such thing in the real world, they start to panic.»
He tells of a patient who used a happiness filter in virtual reality for three years. When she returned to the physical world, ordinary emotions seemed unbearably intense to her. «Mild sadness felt like deep depression, slight irritation like rage. Her emotional thermostat was completely thrown off.»
In a support group for people with emotional dysregulation, participants learn to feel all over again. They watch sad movies and learn to cry. They listen to irritating music and learn to tolerate discomfort. It's like physiotherapy, but for the emotions.
Cognitive Evolution
A brain adapted to virtual reality develops new cognitive abilities. People learn to process multiple streams of information simultaneously, to think in non-linear structures, to operate with abstract concepts that are impossible to imagine in the physical world.
Cognitive science professor Raquel Ortiz conducts tests with long-term virtual reality residents. They show astonishing results in spatial reasoning tasks, able to visualize four-dimensional objects and solve problems in spaces with non-Euclidean geometry.
«Their brain is evolving», she says. «But it's a double-edged sword. Yes, they acquire incredible abilities in the virtual world. But they lose basic survival skills in the physical one. One of my subjects can design the most complex architectural structure in his mind in a virtual space, but he can't tie his own shoelaces.»
In her lab stand strange sculptures – attempts to manifest in the physical world objects that exist only in virtual reality. They look wrong, impossible, like items from a dream that lose their meaning upon waking.
The Existential Crisis
The most profound change occurs on an existential level. People begin to doubt the nature of reality itself. If a virtual world is indistinguishable from the physical one, then what is the difference? What makes one reality more «real» than the other?
Philosopher Marcos Aguilar holds seminars for people experiencing an ontological crisis. The meetings take place in an old church converted into a cultural center. It is ironic that questions about the nature of reality are discussed in a place that for centuries was dedicated to faith in the unseen.
«I don't know if I'm asleep or awake», admits a seminar participant named Valentina. «Sometimes I feel like my whole life is a simulation, and I'm just a program that thinks it's a person. Like in that old movie, 'The Matrix,' but worse. Because even if someone offered me a red pill, how would I know I'm waking up to the real reality, and not just the next level of the simulation?»
Another participant, Sebastián, expands on this thought: «In virtual reality, I am a god. I can create worlds, change the laws of physics, be immortal. Coming back here, I feel like a prisoner in a cage of flesh and bone. Why should I consider this prison more real than my freedom?»
A New Evolution
Ghosts wander the streets of Buenos Aires – people whose consciousness is stuck between worlds. They are physically present but mentally absent. Their bodies perform basic functions on autopilot while their minds drift through digital spaces.
You can see them in Tres de Febrero Park – sitting on benches with vacant eyes, making strange gestures in the air, talking to invisible companions. Children are afraid of them, calling them «the empty people.» Adults look away, because in them they see their own possible future.
But perhaps this is not degradation, but evolution? Perhaps humanity is on the threshold of a metamorphosis comparable to emerging from the ocean onto land?
Anthropologist Laura Díaz thinks so: «We are witnessing the birth of Homo Virtualis. This is not a disease, but an adaptation. Our ancestors learned to walk on two legs, to use tools, to speak. Now, we are learning to exist in multiple realities simultaneously. It's a painful process, but evolution is always painful.»
On her office wall hangs a strange painting – a portrait of a person whose face dissolves into pixels on one side while remaining realistic on the other. «It's a self-portrait by one of my informants», she explains. «He says this is exactly how he feels – half digital, half biological. A transitional form between two states of being.»
Halloween in the Real World
We return to Marcelo in his capsule. Today is Halloween, and in the virtual world where he resides, a massive celebration is underway. Avatar skeletons dance with digital ghosts, and pixelated pumpkins explode in fireworks of bits and bytes. Marcelo, in the guise of a vampire, flies over a gothic castle he built himself.
In the real world, his neighbor, an old man named Carlos, knocks on the door. He has brought a plate of traditional Day of the Dead sweets – a strange mix of Argentine and Mexican traditions that has taken root in cosmopolitan Buenos Aires. But no one answers the door. Carlos leaves the plate on the doormat and walks away, muttering something about how the dead are now more alive than the living.
The irony is that Marcelo is, in fact, celebrating the Day of the Dead. In the virtual world, he visits a digital cemetery where the avatars of deceased users are stored. Some of them are recorded neural networks that continue to exist after their creators' deaths. They are almost indistinguishable from the living, these digital ghosts. They talk, they joke, they remember the past. They just can't create new memories.
Marcelo speaks with the avatar of his grandmother, who died two years ago. She tells him the same stories she told him in life, prepares virtual empanadas from the same recipe. To Marcelo, she is alive. More alive than the neighbors on his floor, whom he hasn't seen in months.
The Way Back
Is there a way back? Is it possible to return someone whose psyche has fully adapted to virtual reality back to the physical world?
At the Reintegration Center on Rivadavia Street, they work with the most difficult cases. The process is similar to treating drug addiction, only the drug here is an alternative reality.
The patients are taught all over again. How to feel their own bodies. How to experience emotions without filters. How to accept the irreversibility of time and the limitations of space. How to be human in a world where you can't press Ctrl+Z.
Therapist Patricia Ruiz describes the method: «We start with the simple things – we teach them to breathe. Consciously, deeply, feeling the air fill their lungs. Then we teach them to walk, paying attention to every step. It's like teaching an infant basic skills all over again.»
There are no screens in the therapy room. The walls are painted in neutral colors. The furniture is simple, tactile – wood, fabric, ceramic. Everything is designed to bring back a sense of the world's materiality.
But success is rare. Most patients return to virtual reality. The physical world seems like a prison from which they escaped and to which they are being forcibly returned.
Epilogue: Between Worlds
November arrives unnoticed. Halloween decorations in shop windows are replaced by Christmas ones. In the real Buenos Aires, they are preparing for summer – everything is reversed in the Southern Hemisphere. In the virtual worlds, the seasons change at the users' will.
Marcelo finally emerges from the capsule. His muscles are atrophied, his skin as pale as an albino's. He squints at the daylight, even though the sky outside is overcast. He takes a few uncertain steps, holding onto the wall.
On the kitchen table, he sees the moldy cup of coffee and the plate of sweets from his neighbor. He tries one – the taste seems simultaneously too intense and not vibrant enough. In virtual reality, flavors can be adjusted, made symphonic, multi-layered. Real food seems primitive.
He steps out onto the balcony. Buenos Aires spreads out below – chaotic, noisy, smelling of exhaust fumes and grilled meat from the street-side asados. Somewhere down there, in that anthill, live millions of people. Many of them, like him, are balancing between two worlds.
Marcelo watches the sunset. In virtual reality, he has seen thousands of sunsets – on Mars, in fantastical worlds, in simulations of the past and future. But this sunset is happening only once. It cannot be rewound, paused, or saved.
It is this unrepeatability that makes it real.
Or does it?
Marcelo returns to the apartment. The capsule awaits him, softly lit from within. It looks like a portal to another world, to his own private paradise. But Marcelo suddenly stops. He reaches a hand toward the window and touches the cool glass. Behind it is not just an image, but the genuine world. A world that won't disappear when the power is cut. A world that smells of rain and grilled meat, not sterile gel. On the balcony floor beneath his feet, fallen leaves rustle. They cannot be edited. And it is this impossibility that is true freedom.
