Haven’t read PA in years, but I was just thinking about this yesterday: I got Beat Saber pretty recently and one of the things I really enjoy about it is the complete dissociation from your visible body. Any kind of physical activity is, for me, inevitably very bogged down by anxiety about how ugly and ridiculous my body looks. But in VR, all I’ve got is the controller indicators and the physical space sense awareness that my body exists—I can’t get distracted by my reflection in the window or be struck by sudden worry about what a stranger sees when they glance my direction.
Do I look like an idiot in reality? Probably! (My partner, the only witness, is wisely keeping silent.) But the experience is SO much more enjoyable than moving my body around has been for years.
