Embodiment and Virtual Reality - Brain Bee Ideas – SBNeC Escola – SfN 2025 Kids

The Body Feels Before It Knows
Brain Bee Ideas – SBNeC Escola – SfN 2025 Kids

Imagine entering a virtual reality game. Suddenly, your body starts to sweat, your heart races, and you feel in danger — even though you know it's just a simulation.
What's happening?

This is Embodiment: the lived experience of being physically present and acting, even when everything is happening only in your senses and brain.

The Mind Is Born From the Body

Modern neuroscience shows that we don’t think only with the brain.
Our thoughts, emotions, and decisions are shaped by signals from the body — heartbeats, breathing, muscle tension, skin temperature. This process is called interoception and proprioception, and it's central to the Damasian Mind.

These signals give rise to what we call Tensional Selves — modes of being and acting that emerge from bodily tensions in response to the environment.

Virtual Reality: A Lab for the Self

In Virtual Reality (VR), the brain believes it is somewhere else — and reacts as if it's real.
VR is a powerful tool to study how Tensional Selves are formed and reorganized.

For example:

• A teenager afraid of public speaking can practice in VR and safely reshape that Self.
  
  

• Someone who avoids social contact can explore empathy and belonging in simulated environments.
  
  

• VR can induce relaxation, focus, or trauma healing — by activating different zones of the body and brain.
  
  

Avatars and Embodiment

Our six internal Avatars help us understand what’s happening during VR experiences:

• Brainlly absorbs everything intensely — sounds, images, sensations.
  
  

• Iam tries to organize the emotional chaos inside the virtual world.
  
  

• Olmeca filters the cultural patterns of the game, environment, and characters.
  
  

• Yagé seeks freedom and new experiences, exploring the edge of reality.
  
  

• Math Hep maps internal and external tensions, trying to stabilize the experience.
  
  

• DANA interprets the deeper meaning — ethical, spiritual, or social.
  
  

If any of these Avatars is muted (due to fear, ideology, or lack of guidance), the user may enter Zone 3 — an overactivated state of consciousness dominated by external ideologies and patterns, which block creativity and reduce critical thinking.

Enjoyment and Metacognition in Virtual Environments

VR has great potential for enabling Enjoyment (Fruição) — the state of feeling the body in a safe, stimulating, and exploratory environment.
This state supports the reorganization of Tensional Selves and fosters learning and personal growth.
However, caution is needed: if the simulation is too ideological, aggressive, or repetitive, it may reinforce defensive patterns (Zone 3), blocking critical awareness.

What Does Neuroscience Suggest?

• Use VR as a safe extension of the body to explore new experiences.
  
  

• Monitor bodily responses (SpO₂, GSR, heart rate, etc.) to assess how the Self is being shaped.
  
  

• Encourage experiences that promote belonging, freedom, and creativity — not just control, fear, or reward.
  
  

• Listen to the internal Avatars during and after the experience.
  
  

A Question for You to Reflect On:

If your body reacts before your mind,
who is programming what you feel?