At the very beginning of our thought experiment, (watch here), we talk about how our natural ability of dreaming might be used to make us experience this virtual reality and directly “render” it within our brain.
Before reading this article, it is highly recommended to watch the movie Inception and be familiar with the concepts that are being shown there.
At first, let us have a look on what steps/milestones are necessary to what Rizwan Virk, author of the highly recommendable books “The Simulation Hypothesis” and “The Simulated Universe”, calls the “Simulation Point”.
Meaning, which technological achievements are necessary until virtual realities can be created which cannot be distinguished from reality:
- Stage 0 — Text adventures (1970s–mid-1980s)
Early game “worlds” expressed as text (e.g., Zork): the idea of a separate, computable game-world. - Stage 1 — Early graphical arcade & console games (1970s–1980s)
Simple graphics give concrete visual pixels and objects — the first visible “rendering” of virtual spaces. - Stage 2 — Graphical adventure / RPG games (1980s–1990s)
Richer single-player worlds with characters, narratives and more complex rendered environments. - Stage 3 — 3D-rendered MMORPGs and virtual worlds (1990s–today)
Massively multiplayer 3D worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft, Fortnite) where many real people share persistent virtual spaces. - Stage 4 — Immersion using virtual reality (VR)
Headsets and immersive displays that increase presence and sensory fidelity. - Stage 5 — Photo-realistic augmented & mixed reality (AR/MR)
Overlaying photo-real virtual content on the physical world (glasses or displays) so virtual and real blur.
**We are roughly around this stage.** - Stage 6 — Real-world rendering (light-field displays & 3D printing)
Rendering that doesn’t rely on screens or glasses — projecting or fabricating objects so information → physical pixels. - Stage 7 — Mind interfaces
Brain-computer interfaces that read (and later write) neural signals — enabling direct sensory and motor hookup to virtual systems. - Stage 8 — Implanted memories
The ability to implant or alter memories so virtual experiences are encoded as real subjective experiences. - Stage 9 — Artificial intelligence and NPCs
AI agents become rich, autonomous, and human-like — non-player characters indistinguishable from humans in behavior and conversation. - Stage 10 — Downloadable consciousness / digital immortality
Scanning, emulating or otherwise “downloading” minds so consciousness can run as information independent of biological hardware.
Now let’s have a look at how Rizwan Virk describes a possible technology to use our natural ability of dreaming to let such a virtual reality being rendered directly inside our brain/mind:
- Dreams as Mini-Simulations
- Virk argues that when we dream, our brain is already running “mini-simulations.” In dreams, we generate rich environments, characters (NPC-like figures), narratives — much like a virtual world.
- While inside these dreams, things feel real — there’s a strong subjective realism, even though it’s all internally generated.
- Lucid Dreaming = User Control
- He especially highlights lucid dreaming (when you’re aware that you’re dreaming) as analogous to interacting with a virtual world.
- In lucid dreams, people can intentionally control the dream environment (flying, changing scenery, making characters appear, etc.). Virk recounts experiences (in interviews) of him and others doing exactly that.
- This mirrors how, in a simulation or a video game, a “player” might create or manipulate the world consciously.
- Eastern Spiritual Traditions: Dream Yoga
- Virk draws on Buddhist (especially Tibetan) traditions, pointing out that “dream yoga” teaches practitioners to recognize that they are dreaming and retain awareness even while asleep.
- According to these traditions, such awareness helps the “dreamer” realize there’s a part of consciousness outside of (or beyond) the dream — in Virk’s analogy, that could correspond to a “player” or higher-level consciousness.
- He connects that to the idea that we might have a “self” or “player” outside our perceived reality, much like a gamer outside a virtual world.
- Dreams as Evidence / Metaphor for Simulation
- For Virk, the fact that we can be thoroughly immersed in a dream that feels “real” suggests that consciousness is comfortable running in internally generated virtual worlds.
- That biological capacity (to simulate “reality” in our heads) gives a kind of precedent: we already do something very similar to “virtual reality” every night, on our own.
- He uses this to bolster the plausibility of larger-scale, external simulations: if nature (our brains) can simulate realistic worlds, then advanced civilizations might also simulate entire realities for conscious beings.
- Glitches & “Waking Up”
- Virk mentions “glitches” in dreams (and in life) — like deja vu or synchronicities — as reminiscent of “bugs” or “edge cases” in a simulation.
- The idea of “waking up” in a dream (becoming lucid) becomes a metaphor for perceiving that our “physical” reality might itself be part of a larger simulation. In his view, training via lucid dreaming could be a kind of “practice” or evidence for recognizing simulated layers of reality.
- Consciousness & Spiritual “Player”
- In his analogy, there is a “player” (or soul) that exists both inside and outside the simulation: the Eastern traditions he refers to suggest a higher self that “plays” in the dream but also “watches” from outside.
- This supports his broader view that consciousness might not be fully bound by the simulated “world” we live in: there could be a level of ourselves that is “outside” or fundamental — similar to a gamer outside a game.
It’s interesting that in the Inception movie for every dream (virtual reality) there is one architect necessary who creates the world and then everybody else may join (login to) this dream and experience it as a shared dream (reality).
Of course, you remember the architect from the Matrix movies:
So this architect would be the main controlling AI of this virtual reality, some call it the Demiurge or Yaldebaoth. We could also call it Master Control, according to the Tron movies.
What does that mean in practical terms?
I imagine it like this: to enter the virtual reality, the player is placed into a sleep-like state in which dreaming is possible. The way the world inside the game is created and managed is not fundamentally different from a regular computer game.
The major difference is that no “screen device” of any kind is required. Instead, there must be technology capable of taking the rendering information from a server or computer, translating it into signals the brain can process, and inducing the brain to incorporate this information into its own mechanisms for creating dreams.
This allows the experience to feel perfectly real, because each player generates the surrounding reality directly within their own mind. The environment is “rendered” only in the areas where the player perceives themselves to be.
For this to work, the information flow must also function in the opposite direction: every change a player makes to the dream world must be translated back into signals that the server can understand. The server can then apply these changes to the shared game world, ensuring that all players perceive those changes consistently. And, of course, the system must be capable of storing all this information in the Akashic game database.
Some points that are being mentioned in the Inception movie as well to further think about:
- Time is running much faster inside the virtual reality.
It is said that 1 hour outside equals 12 hours inside.
If it is being staggered (simulation within simulation), it is 1 hour outside equals 6 months inside.
And with another layer: 1 hours outside is even 10 years inside. - The dreamers can only wake up after a timer ran out (the sleep-inducing drugs/chemical lose their effect), when they day inside the dream or via a shock induced from outside like being thrown into a bathtub full of water.
— Oliver
The topic of Shared Dreaming is discussed in the article here.
My view and understanding of shared dreams here, inside this matrix, is available in the blog post here.
As can be seen in the article mentioned above, there is already a technology available here, to share dreams. Also, there have been studies that show people share dreams too (read here).
You can say it all falls under the umbrella of Collective Consciousness.
–Savitha
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