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Consensual Hallucination

Heard the phrase "consensual hallucination" in a documentary about WeWork and had to learn more about. I found the book where it originally came from and it's on my reading list. Also found this essay on the topic. Bit of a long read but its interesting:

Increasingly, while still notionally embodied as users sitting at our desks or hunched over consoles in arcades, we project ourselves elsewhere. Our bodies and consciousnesses are losing their definition, distributing themselves across some version of Gibson's matrix. For many people, this appears continuous with the experience of the shaman or the curandero projecting into the spirit world. Access to the digital dreamtime is solely dependent on the quality of the interface, and the hardware driving it. The shift from phonecalls to full body meltdown becomes a question of improvements in processor speed and interface design. This is not a specious point. It is here that the relationship between computers and drugs ceases to be metaphorical. Both are prosthetics. The only difference is that one technology is based on semiconductors, the other on chemistry.

The idea of the computer connected to the internet being a prosthetic has definite merit. If a person does not force themselves to consciously disconnect from cyberspace, the machine does become a part of them, an extension of their physical and emotional identity. The always-on way of life hurts the ability of the person to connect with another human being without digital distraction getting in the way.

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