Embodiment and Virtual Reality: When the Body Enters the Digital World

First-Person Consciousness — Brain Bee Style

I’ve always found it strange how my body reacts inside Virtual Reality.
Even when I know it’s “not real,”
my body behaves as if it is.

My balance shifts,
my breathing changes,
my muscles respond to every visual detail.

It was only when I started reading recent studies on embodiment that this became clear:

The brain doesn’t ask if something is real.
It asks if my body needs to respond.

And when the answer is “yes,”
it creates a tensional self for that world—
even if that world is purely digital.

1. Embodiment is not a metaphor: it’s physiology

The study I analyzed this week shows something powerful:

When I’m in VR,
my sensorimotor networks reorganize as if my body were truly inside that space.

This means that:

• my posture recalibrates,
  
  

• my center of mass shifts,
  
  

• my bodily projection extends into the scene,
  
  

• and my motor predictions enter a kind of “digital Apus.”
  
  

The body enters the virtual scene,
even though that scene doesn’t exist physically.

2. The body creates a “digital tensional self”

The research suggests that, inside VR, the brain generates:

a tensional self that doesn’t exist in the physical world,
but fully exists in the virtual one.

This digital tensional self is built from:

• proprioception artificially re-mapped,
  
  

• interoception modulated by visual input,
  
  

• anticipatory micromuscular corrections,
  
  

• and movement prediction based on what I see.
  
  

In other words:

embodiment is the brain expanding the body into a space that is not its own.

3. Zone 2 can emerge even in digital environments

The most fascinating part of the study is this:

When the simulation is stable, coherent, and immersive,
the body enters a kind of Digital Zone 2:

• deep attention,
  
  

• rhythmic breathing,
  
  

• slightly increased CO₂ and prefrontal blood flow,
  
  

• sustained focus,
  
  

• a sense of presence,
  
  

• fruition.
  
  

It’s the same mechanism as physical Zone 2,
but now triggered by an artificial environment.

This confirms that:

Zone 2 does not depend on the “real world”;
it depends on coherence between body and stimulus.

4. When VR fails → the body falls into Zone 3

If the virtual environment is incoherent, laggy, too fast, or poorly designed:

• posture collapses,
  
  

• balance becomes unstable,
  
  

• breathing shortens,
  
  

• the body goes into defense mode.
  
  

This is Digital Zone 3:

a narrow, unstable, stressful perception—
exactly like in the physical world when there is threat.

This reaction is final proof that:

the brain does not react to what is objectively real;
it reacts to what the body perceives as real.

5. Digital Apus: when the body’s anticipation is hacked

VR acts directly on what we call Apus —
extended proprioception.

In VR, the body:

• prepares for falls that never happen,
  
  

• feels movements that never occurred,
  
  

• stabilizes the trunk for impacts that will not come,
  
  

• adjusts breathing to speeds that are only visual.
  
  

This is living evidence that:

cognition is anticipatory movement,
not a replay of what has already happened.

6. First-person conclusion — The body always enters first

After diving into this study, I see that:

there is no such thing as a purely mental experience.
Every experience is bodily,
even when it happens in the digital realm.

Embodiment is the body saying to the world:
“If you give me enough cues,
I will enter.”

And VR makes this visible in the clearest way:

my body builds tensional selves, zones, perceptions, and decisions
even when the world is only an algorithm.

Scientific Reference Supporting This Blog

(Highlighted following the pattern of recent scientific publications)

This blog is grounded in findings from a post-2020 study on embodiment, sensorimotor processing, and Virtual Reality, showing how the brain reorganizes bodily networks in response to coherent digital environments.

Highlighted reference:
“The embodied brain in virtual environments: neural, sensorimotor and cognitive mechanisms of presence and body ownership.”

The study shows that:

• VR recruits sensorimotor networks in a way that closely resembles physical-world engagement;
  
  

• the sense of presence emerges from predictive coherence between body and environment;
  
  

• physiological and neural states equivalent to Zone 2 can arise within virtual scenarios;
  
  

• breakdowns in simulation coherence induce defensive patterns equivalent to Zone 3;
  
  

• the body constructs “digital tensional selves,” directly supporting our notions of Apus and an extended Damasian Mind.