Reality shifting: psychological features of an emergent online daydreaming culture.
Eli Somer, Etzel Cardeña, Ramiro Figueiredo Catelan, Nirit Soffer-Dudek
Current Psychology October 30, 2021 DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-02439-3 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Keywords | Fantasy Hypnosis Maladaptive daydreaming Reality shifting |
| Citations | 19 |
| Key points | Argues that reality shifting is an important, uninvestigated emerging phenomenon with a phenomenology comparable to hypnosis, tulpamancy, dissociation, daydreaming, and lucid dreaming, and proposes a theoretical model of interactive factors that give rise to it. |
Abstract
Reality shifting (RS) is a trendy mental activity that emerged abruptly following the flare-up of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and seems to be practiced mainly by members of the post-millennial generation. RS, described as the experience of being able to transcend one's physical confines and visit alternate, mostly fictional, universes, is discussed by many on Internet platforms. One RS forum boasts over 40,000 members and RS clips on some social media platforms have been viewed over 1.7 billion times. The experience of shifting is reportedly facilitated by specific induction methods involving relaxation, concentration of attention, and autosuggestion. Some practitioners report a strong sense of presence in their desired realities, reified by some who believe in the concrete reality of the alternate world they shift to. One of the most popular alternate universes involves environments adopted from the Harry Potter book and film series. We describe the phenomenology of RS as reported online and then compare it to related phenomena such as hypnosis, tulpamancy, dissociation, immersive and maladaptive daydreaming, and lucid dreaming. We propose a theoretical model of interactive factors giving rise to RS, and conclude that it is an important, uninvestigated emerging phenomenon and propose future research directions.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dreaming: a conceptual framework for philosophy of mind and empirical research | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming | 2015 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Experimental Research on Dreaming: State of the Art and Neuropsychoanalytic Perspectives | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 4
- Sensed Presence, Attenuated Psychosis, and Transliminality: At the Threshold of Consciousness. Psychopathology 2023
- The felt-presence experience: from cognition to the clinic. The Lancet Psychiatry May 1, 2023
- Reality Shifting among Social Media Users: An Investigation of Psychological Phenomenology Imagination, Cognition and Personality February 13, 2026
- Does ASMR propensity reflect a mentally flexible mindset? Exploring the relationship between ASMR propensity, transliminality, emotional contagion, schizotypal traits, roleplaying ability, and creativity. Consciousness and Cognition August 1, 2023
Cites 12
- Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Sleep September 1, 2009
- Neural Correlates of Dream Lucidity Obtained from Contrasting Lucid versus Non-Lucid REM Sleep: A Combined EEG/fMRI Case Study Sleep June 29, 2012
- Metacognitive Mechanisms Underlying Lucid Dreaming Journal of Neuroscience January 21, 2015
- Applications of lucid dreams: An online study heiDOK (Heidelberg University) 2012
- Are Lucid Dreams Good for Us? Are We Asking the Right Question? A Call for Caution in Lucid Dream Research Frontiers in Neuroscience January 24, 2020
and 7 more in the library