> And as hard as it is to articulate the effects, it may prove even harder to identify its cause. How is this sensation any different from any other existensia

> And as hard as it is to articulate the effects, it may prove even harder to identify its cause. How is this sensation any different from any other existensial crisis? There are many causes for that, widely discussed both in Western and Eastern Philosophy. E.g. Sartre's most known work, Being and Nothingness, is very much focused on this. Sartre's Nothingness is, despite what you might think, a positive force and ultimately what provides for our free will; it resembles somehow the tabula rasa of Aristotle, the mind being a clean slate. You can imagine anything you want, completely unconstrained. This is in sharp conflict with Being; as a human in the physical world you are bound by external constraints: time, money, family etc. Most people will deny the conflict, believing that the constraints of their Being are compatible with their Nothingness. Acknowledgement of the conflict provokes existential crisis. When we step into a VR world, we are brought away from the Being and closer to the true experience of Nothingness. We can literally experience anything, unconstrained. Thus when we return, we are forced to reconsider the Being, to reacknowledge its conflict with our inherent Nothingness. Accordingly, the difference between this crisis and the ones experienced after the end of any immersive escapist experience, be it cinema, books or even music, is at best a matter of degree.