Simulated reality in fiction

Simulated reality is a common theme in science fiction. It should not be confused with the theme of virtual reality.

Literature

Title	Author	Year	Remarks
Accelerando	Charles Stross	2005	A collection of related short stories, assembled as a novel, chronicling the life of a man and his daughter both pre and post-singularity.
The Algebraist	Iain M. Banks	2004	Posits a religion according to which 'The Truth' is that our universe is virtual.
Gray Matters	William Hjortsberg	1971	Set after an apocalyptic World War III, a few hundred persons have their brains preserved in an automated conservatory. Although they have no bodies to move around with, they are free to mentally visit any of the other residents, and engage in all the emotional, intellectual and (pseudo-) sexual congress that they desire.
Amnesia Moon	Jonathan Lethem	1995	On a road trip, two characters set out from a post-apocalypse Wyoming town and encounter a succession of alternate realities, including one shrouded in opaque green fog, another luck-based political system, and it is suggested that these divergent alternate realities emerged to obstruct an alien invasion of Earth. Homage to Philip K. Dick.
Breakfast of Champions	Kurt Vonnegut Jr.	1973	Kilgore Trout, an amateur science fiction writer, writes a story that mocks individualism by suggesting that there is only one human man and one God, and the rest of humanity are robots, made to test the man's reactions; hence, a kind of simulated reality.
Chronic City	Jonathan Lethem	2009	Several strands relating to virtual reality games and virtual objects, but then events in the "real world" lead the reader to conclude that the "real world" is a simulated reality which is accreting errors and anomalies.
The City and the Stars	Arthur C. Clarke	1956	"Of all the thousands of forms of recreation in the city, these were the most popular. When you entered into a saga, you were not merely a passive observer, as in the crude entertainments of primitive times which Alvin had sometimes sampled."
Dreams Are Sacred	Peter Phillips	1948	It is an early example of what later came to be called a "dream hacking", in which one person enters a dream that is being experienced by another.
The Coma	Alex Garland	2004	An Englishman is viciously beaten and injured late at night in the London Underground system. He wakes from the coma only to discover that his reality is inconsistent, and begins to wonder if he'd really woken at all.
The Cookie Monster	Vernor Vinge	2004	The characters come to doubt their own reality. This story was reprinted in several anthology collections, won the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Novella and was nominated for the 2005 Nebula Award for Best Novella. One reviewer rated the story "A+" and praised "the central mysteries which Vinge so very skillfully unwraps for you over the course of the story itself."
The Cosmic Puppets	Philip K. Dick	1957	A man goes to visit the town in which he spent his early childhood, only to find that he does not recognize anything or anyone. Even basic things such as street names are different. Eventually he discovers that the town and all of the people in it are being subjected to an illusion created by the fight between two cosmic beings.
Count Zero	William Gibson	1986	The first sequel of Gibson's Neuromancer, the novel continues themes around cyberspace and introduces a computerized device called an Aleph which contains an advanced version of cyberspace that appears as a simulated reality to those that "jack" into it, as well as to digital entities that reside within it.
Darwinia	Robert Charles Wilson	1998	By the end of the story it is revealed that whatever happens in the story is really beyond the End of Time and that the Universe, the Earth and all of the consciousness that ever existed are really being preserved in a computer-like simulation known as the Archive.
Dead Romance	Lawrence Miles	1999/2004	Part of the Virgin New Adventures series of Doctor Who spin-off fiction, but mostly disconnected from the rest of the series. The novel is set on a version of 1970s Earth within a "bottle universe," invaded by powerful beings from the greater universe beyond. It is suggested that these beings are fleeing their own invaders and that their universe is merely a bottle within a yet greater cosmos.
Diaspora	Greg Egan	1997	A novel set in 2975 CE in which humanity has divided into distinct groups, one of which are the citizens. The citizens are intelligences that exist as disembodied computer software running entirely within simulated reality-based communities.
A Dream of Wessex	Christopher Priest	1977	Released in the United States under the title The Perfect Lover. A team of specialists undergoes a sort of computer-monitored group hypnosis to create an alternate England, hoping to improve their dystopian world, but their utopia is endangered by one member with foul emotions and megalomaniacal ideas.
The Electric Ant	Philip K. Dick	1969	A man awakes from a vehicular crash, and is transferred to a special treatment facility after being informed that he is a biological robot. He finds that his subjective reality is controlled by a punch tape reel in his chest panel, which he begins to manipulate in an effort to control the world that he experiences.
Electric Forest	Tanith Lee	1979	A woman who is so ugly that she is an outcast on her colony planet of genetically engineered perfection agrees to put herself in a container from which she will have full control of and the illusion of independence in the cloned body of a beautiful, wealthy, and intelligent woman.
Epic	Conor Kostick	2004	The inhabitants of a whole world play in a virtual world for their real income and status.
Eternity	Greg Bear	1988	In particular, his introduction of the Taylor algorithms as a means of determining the simulated nature of an artificial environment.
Eye in the Sky	Philip K. Dick	1957	After a nuclear accident, seven victims successively pass a range of solipsist personalised alternate universes, including a geocentric, magic-based universe and a hardline marxist caricature of the contemporary United States. Tom Shippey wrote that it might be "a private fantasy world, watched over by a Vast Active Living Intelligence System."
Feersum Endjinn	Iain M. Banks	1994	Describes a version of Earth with very extensive virtual reality capabilities.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said	Philip K. Dick	1974	A famous, wealthy entertainer wakes up one morning in a cheap hotel, only to discover that no one knows who he is and that there is not even a record of his existence.
Forever Free	Joe Haldeman	1999
The Girl Who Was Plugged In	James Tiptree Jr.	1974
Glasshouse	Charles Stross	2006
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	1979–2009	Earth was designed by an alien supercomputer called Deep Thought to find the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything (the Ultimate Answer already established as 42), using organic life as part of its operational matrix. However, early on in the first book Earth was destroyed just before the critical moment of read-out, leading to the events of the rest of the series. Later, part of the action takes place in a synthetic universe.
Idlewild	Nick Sagan	2003	This novel contains a simulated school inside a simulated world.
Illusions	Richard Bach	1977	A pilot on the Midwest summer barnstorming circuit meets a messiah who shows him that the world is merely "like a movie" designed by "the Master" to entertain and enlighten humanity.
The Immortals	David Duncan	1960	Two scientists use a computer to predict the consequences on society of a new drug that one of them invented.
The Joy Makers	James Edwin Gunn	1961	A new philosophy known as "Hedonism", which makes joy the greatest human need, ultimately results in an advanced A.I. projecting each person's ultimate fantasy directly into their brains while their comatose bodies are cared for inside of locked "wombs".
Killobyte	Piers Anthony	1993	Killobyte is a "second generation" virtual reality game that puts players into a three-dimensional, fully sensory environment.
Life Is a Dream	Pedro Calderón de la Barca	1635
Loop	Koji Suzuki	1998
The Man in the High Castle	Philip K. Dick	1962	Initially, it appears that Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire won the Second World War in an alternate, occupied United States. However, the I Ching divination tool discloses this as an apparent illusion.
A Maze of Death	Philip K. Dick	1970	A group of people from different ways of life are assigned to colonize a planet using a vehicle that is one-way, making them unable to leave. Many confusing events take place. Eventually everyone wakes up and discovers that it was a virtual reality program. The passengers of a broken spaceship are in an orbit of an alien gas giant and they are doomed to remain until they die. To keep away boredom and despair they create virtual reality programs in which they are living real lives. The book ends with the restart of the previous program.
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect	Roger Williams	1994
The Mirage	Matt Ruff	2012	A world where the Middle East is the centre of capitalism and democracy and the United States is home to sectarian and terrorist violence. Most of the history of the world is told throughout the book through excerpts from a website called The Library of Alexandria, the world's version of Wikipedia. It is eventually revealed that the timeline is an illusion created by a Djinn.
Mona Lisa Overdrive	William Gibson	1988	The second sequel to Gibson's Neuromancer, featuring further exploration of the influence of cyberspace in the future.
Moongazer	Marianne Mancusi	2007	A post-apocalyptic underground society pacifies its citizens by plugging them into a simulated version of New York City before the war, meanwhile telling the people that they are actually traveling to an alternate reality where they can escape their constricted lives.
Neuromancer	William Gibson	1984	In this future, cyberspace has taken on the attributes of virtual reality.
Old Twentieth	Joe Haldeman	2005	A group of immortal humans sets off on a thousand-year voyage to explore an Earth-type planet. To amuse themselves, they use virtual reality to take trips to the twentieth century; but when the trips start to go wrong, a virtual reality engineer discovers that the simulated world is ruled by a self-aware computer...who may be running a more complex simulation than they can ever imagine.
Omnitopia Dawn	Diane Duane	2010	Features a MMOG called Omnitopia that contains multiple player-built worlds that can compete for popularity, earning real-world money.
Otherland	Tad Williams	1998
Ready Player One	Ernest Cline	2011	James Halliday creates a virtual reality system called the Ontologically Anthropomorphic Sensory Immersive Simulation (OASIS). Years later in 2040, the world has collapsed so people use the OASIS as away to escape the crappy reality. Halliday dies and since he is one of the greatest (fictional) videogame designers, he has accumulated a lot of wealth: 240 billion dollars (in the movie Halliday's wealth was in excess of half a trillion dollars/credits). Halliday has no heir, so puts his money up for grabs in a high-stakes videogame competition based on the pop culture of the decades past. Whoever finds the money will inherit Halliday's wealth and total control over the OASIS itself.
Paprika	Yasutaka Tsutsui	1993	A Japanese novel about a research psychologist who uses a device that permits therapists to help patients by entering their dreams, later adapted into an anime film.
The Penultimate Truth	Philip K. Dick	1964	A group of people living in underground tanks during a nuclear war decide that they have to brave the irradiated, dangerous surface in order to get an artificial organ for an irreplaceable member of their community, only to discover that everything that they have been led to believe is a lie.
Permutation City	Greg Egan	1994	Explores the question of whether consciousness can be produced by a computer program hosting cellular automata, and what the moral and practical implications of that would be.
Phase Space	Stephen Baxter	2003	Includes several short stories pertaining to simulated realities, particularly in reference to their solving of the Fermi paradox. Most notably the framing story "Touching Centauri," but also "Poyekhali 3201," "Glass Earth, Inc." "Tracks" and "The Barrier," which explores the zoo hypothesis.
Princess Ineffabelle	Stanisław Lem	1965	A story-dream "The Wedding Night of Princess Ineffabelle" from the story-in-a-story "The tale of Zipperupus, king of the Partheginians, the Deutons, and the Profligoths" from the short story "The Tale of the Three Story Telling Machines" from The Cyberiad.
Professor Corcoran (alternatively: "Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy I")	Stanisław Lem	1961	A short story about a professor, who created a set of AIs inside boxes. Each of the AIs inside each box lives inside an ilusionary world, all their feelings and future being dictated by the professor. The professor bitterly comments that he often dreams that he is also inside a box in someone else's lab. Published in Star Diaries ("Memoirs of a space traveler: further reminiscences of Ijon Tichy").
The Reality Bug	D. J. MacHale	2003	Is set on a world destroyed by simulated reality.
Realtime Interrupt	James P. Hogan	1995	Is set in the near future, a cyber reality with its creator trapped inside.
Reamde	Neal Stephenson	2011	Though not set within a simulated reality, the novel stars the creator of a hugely popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game and discusses many of the behind-the-scenes operations in its creation and success.
The Remnants series	K. A. Applegate	2001	Set on a ship that creates virtual landscapes
The Restoration Game	Ken MacLeod	2010	A mysterious anomaly leads to the revelation that the characters are living in a simulated world, which is in turn embedded within another simulated world.
The Seventh Sally	Stanisław Lem	1965	"The Seventh Sally or How Trurl's Own Perfection Led to No Good", from The Cyberiad
Simulacron-3	Daniel F. Galouye	1964	Also published as Counterfeit World. Adapted as a TV miniseries World on a Wire (1973) and as the film The Thirteenth Floor (1999).
Snow Crash	Neal Stephenson	1992	Romanticizing the perilous world of some young hackers, the novel discusses the history and nature of language and virtual reality, among many other topics.
Sophie's World	Jostein Gaarder	1991
Surface Detail	Iain M. Banks	2010	In which a civilization uses computer simulation and mind uploading to create and populate artificial Hells.
They	Robert A. Heinlein	1941	A short story that focuses on a man who believes the universe was created in order to deceive him.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch	Philip K. Dick	1965	In this future, alternate states of consciousness are mediated by widespread and legal use of hallucinogens.
Time Out of Joint	Philip K. Dick	1959	Ragle Gumm is trapped within an artificial reality that resembles small town America in the late fifties. It is disclosed to be a strategic simulation run by a Terran government at war with its separatist lunar colony in 1998.
The Trouble with Bubbles	Philip K. Dick	1953	In an era where scientific exploration has proven the solar system to be devoid of extraterrestrial life and robots take care of most work, humans pass time by building miniature simulated universes called Worldcraft Bubbles.
The Tunnel under the World	Frederik Pohl	1955	A person accidentally finds out that he lives the day of June 15 over and over again. It turns out that a ruthless advertising executive took over the whole ruins of a city that perished in an explosion of a chemical and rebuilt them, together with people, in miniature for testing high-pressure advertising campaigns.
Ubik	Philip K. Dick	1969	Several former corporate employees are killed but their consciousnesses remain sentient, albeit decaying, in a simulated shared hallucinatory experience.
Utopia	Lincoln Child	2002	Set in a futuristic amusement park called Utopia that relies heavily on holographics and robotics.
Valis	Philip K. Dick	1981	In this departure, it is our own world that is stated to be a hallucinatory overlay, produced from a gnostic demiurge that is malignant-although it may also be a visual and auditory hallucination produced by authorial schizophrenia
The Veldt	Ray Bradbury	1951	A short story from The Illustrated Man, this grim tale describes two children who prefer their simulated-reality nursery to their parents.
Vurt	Jeff Noon	1993	In a future Manchester, England, people live for Vurt—a drug-like feather which produces perfectly lifelike illusions. The function of the feathers varies according to their colors.
White Noise (novel)	Don DeLillo	1985
White Space - Book 1 of The Dark Passages	Ilsa J. Bick	2014	A group of adolescents from very different backgrounds find themselves trapped in an unfamiliar valley during a snow storm, only to discover that the valley, their pasts, and their very lives may be nothing more than stories created by an author with tremendous magical/technological power.
World of Tiers	Philip José Farmer	1965-1993	A group of novels based on the premise of travel to alternate pocket universes containing modified man-made worlds. In the series, it is eventually revealed that our existence is also based in a pocket universe whose extent reaches only part of the way to Alpha Centauri.
Pollen	Jeff Noon	1995
Automated Alice	Jeff Noon	1996
The Wonderland Gambit series	Jack L. Chalker	1995-1997	A trilogy that pays homage to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
You're Another	Damon Knight	1955	This short story about a character who finds himself in a bizarre, perhaps movie-based reality was frequently reprinted, and was translated into French as "En Scène!".
Republic	Plato	380 BC	Contains the "Allegory of the Cave"
Eight O'Clock in the Morning	Ray Nelson	1963	Inspirational short story for the film They Live
Pygmalion's Spectacles	Stanley G. Weinbaum	1935	A short story about an inventor who invents a pair of goggles which produce "a movie that gives one sight and sound [...] taste, smell, and touch. [...] You are in the story, you speak to the shadows (characters) and they reply, and instead of being on a screen, the story is all about you, and you are in it."
The Chamber of Life	G. Peyton Wertenbaker	1929	The earliest example of a virtual reality device in science fiction.
City of the Living Dead	Fletcher Pratt & Laurence Manning	1930	People are connected to wires and live in cocoons. Why live in the boring real world if you can have everything for free, you do not have to worry about food or anything. You just have to give up yourself to the machines and the experiences that they provide could not be distinguished from the real ones. People are dependent on machines but there is still someone that might save the world.

Theater

• Possible Worlds (1990) and the 2000 film adaptation
• World of Wires (2012), directed by Jay Scheib.

Comics and anime

Title	Author	Year	Remarks
.hack//SIGN		2002	An anime series about a person whose mind is trapped in an online computer role-playing game
12 oz. Mouse		2005	An American surreal comedy/thriller minimalist animated series
Yureka	Son Hee-jun, Kim Yun-kyung.	2000-2013	A comic book series about VR massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Aeon Flux		1991
The Big O	Hajime Yatate, Chiaki J. Konaka, N.B.	1999	The reality in question has not been confirmed as simulated, but it is extremely likely.
Blame!	Tsutomu Nihei	1998–2003	Takes place in the far future where automated construction of infrastructure needed to sustain and expand an ever-growing simulated reality has run amok, engulfing both the Earth and the Moon.
Danger Room		1963	A training simulator from the (X-Men) universe
Detective Conan: The Phantom of Baker Street		2002
Eternal Family		1997	Surreal comedy anime OVA
For the Man Who Has Everything	Alan Moore	1985	A comic book story by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, first published in Superman Annual #11 (1985) by DC Comics, about Superman being trapped in a simulated reality created by an extraterrestrial parasitic organism Black Mercy where the planet Krypton never exploded.
Ghost in the Shell		1989–present	Postcyberpunk manga, anime and film franchise
Les murailles de Samaris	François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters,	1982
Log Horizon		2013	An anime series on players being transported into the game world after an expansion update.
Lyoko		2003	The virtual world run by a super computer in the animated series Code Lyoko.
Megazone 23	Noboru Ishiguro, Shinji Aramaki	1985-1989	A Japanese cyberpunk anime OVA series created by Noboru Ishiguro and Shinji Aramaki based on a simulated reality of Tokyo controlled by a super computer
Memories	Katsuhiro Otomo	1995	An anthology film with Katsuhiro Otomo as executive producer, and based on three of his manga short stories.
Noein	Kazuki Akane, Kenji Yasuda	2005	An anime directed by Kazuki Akane and Kenji Yasuda where a simulated reality is created
Paprika	Satoshi Kon	2006	An anime film about a research psychologist who uses a device that permits therapists to help patients by entering their dreams, based on the 1993 novel of the same name.
Paranoia Agent	Satoshi Kon	2004
The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest		1996-1999
Robotech: The Movie		1986	Anime adaptation of Megazone 23
Serial Experiments Lain	Chiaki J. Konaka	1998
Summer Wars	Mamoru Hosoda	2009	A 2009 Japanese animated science fiction film directed by Mamoru Hosoda.
Sword Art Online	Reki Kawahara	2009-present	A light novel series (2009–ongoing) and the two anime series adapted from the novel (2012 and 2013), about a massively multiplayer online game where players are trapped in virtual reality by the creator until they clear the game
Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer	Mamoru Oshii	1984	An anime film where a group of students are trapped in a time loop, where the same day keeps repeating itself, until they later discover that they are trapped in someone's dream.
Zegapain		2006	Anime series - A high school student in Japan suddenly realizes that his entire reality is a simulation in the midst of the worst possible circumstances for the human race.

Film

Title	Year	Genre	Based on	Description
Avalon	2001	Science fiction drama		By Mamoru Oshii. About a female military themed illegal virtual reality video game shooter, whose sense of reality is challenged as she attempts to unravel the true nature and purpose of the game. People addicted to the game become catatonic.
Bliss	2021	Science fiction drama		Directed by Mike Cahill. A man whose life is in disarray meets a beautiful woman who tries to convince him he is living in a simulation.
Being John Malkovich	1999	Fantasy
Brainscan	1994	Horror science fiction		A science fiction/slasher film slasher film about two teenage horror film fans, who discover they had committed actual murder by playing an interactive video game. Directed by John Flynn
Brainstorm	1983	Science fiction		Science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood about bringing back a dead coleage by restoring a backup of her brain, through technology they had been developing.
Seconds	1966	Psychological thriller	Seconds by David Ely	Directed by John Frankenheimer. A man is blackmailed to pay for his "rebirth" into a new chosen appearance and personality, which doesn't go well, and he demands a second try.
The Illustrated Man	1969	Science fiction	The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury	Directed by Jack Smight The first story told by the tattooed man is about a virtual reality nursery, which can produce any environment the children imagine.
The Cabin in the Woods	2012	Horror comedy		Directed by Drew Goddard, in which to prevent doomsday a group of teenagers must be sacrificed without their realizing what is really behind the horrors they experience. One reviewer wrote that the film "is all about the reality conspiracy."
Cargo	2009	Science fiction		Directed by Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter. Hearing sound from the cargo bay in a mostly automated 8 year spaceship flight to "planet Rhea", the current pilot wakes a member of the team from cryogenic sleep to investigate, but the man is murdered. A girl in the cargo is making the sounds but she turns out to be virtual reality. Eventually it is discovered that Rhea is virtual reality, to distract them from their actual destination to be "connected to a Mainframe" computer.
The Cell	2000	Science fiction psychological thriller		A movie about dream hacking directed by Tarsem Singh. Police agent must enter a serial killer's "saved" mind in order to solve the latest murder.
The Congress	2013	Live action/animation science fiction drama	Loosely based on Stanislaw Lem's novel The Futurological Congress	By Ari Folman and Stanislaw Lem: An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider. A take on the common sci-fi trope of an apparently Utopian future that turns out to be an illusion.
Cube 2: Hypercube	2002	Science fiction psychological thriller		Written by Sean Hood. Captives trapped in cubes connected to each other, each cube with its own rules.
Darkdrive	1996	Science fiction		By Phillip J. Roth. Virtual Reality prison for actual convicts is having technical problems. An agent is going in to check what's wrong while having previously met people from the control team in a bad way.
Dark City	1998	Neo-noir, science fiction		By Alex Proyas. Attackers from alternative worlds bring their fleeing victim into them.
Dreamscape	1984	Science fiction	The Dream Master by Roger Zelazny	A movie about dream hacking directed by Joseph Ruben.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	2004	Science fiction Romantic comedy		Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet
eXistenZ	1999	Science fiction body horror		By David Cronenberg, in which level switches occur so seamlessly and numerously that at the end of the movie it is difficult to tell whether the main characters are back in "reality".
Good Bye Lenin!	2003	Tragicomedy		By Wolfgang Becker: a Berlin family tries to make the feeble mother believe that East Germany did not fall.
Impostor	2001	Science fiction	Philip K. Dick short story of the same name.	A man wakes up one morning and goes about his day, only to find himself arrested and accused of being an alien robot programmed to kill the Chancellor of Earth, and told that he is not even aware that he is impersonating a dead man from whose memories his were stolen.
Repo Men	2010			The second half of the film is a simulated reality being fed into the protagonist's brain while he's incapacitated in a hospital due to events in the first half of the film.
Inception	2010	Science fiction heist thriller		Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, in which an extractor invades dreams to steal information and ideas, but is asked to implant an idea instead of stealing one.
The Island	2005	Science fiction action drama		Directed by Michael Bay, in which numerous clones of wealthy investors are kept in an isolated facility as to rejuvenate the investors with the clones' organs. The clones' facility is presented as an idealized society and the last safe place on Earth to prevent them from leaving.
The Lawnmower Man	1992	Science fiction action horror		Directed by Brett Leonard.
Looker	1981	Science Fiction		Directed by Michael Crichton
The Game	1997	thriller		By David Fincher
The Matrix series	1999–2003, 2021	Science fiction, cyberpunk		By Lilly and Lana Wachowski, in which humanity lost a war against sentient robots and now are predominately used as bio-electric power for the robots, their minds kept active by populating them in the simulated reality of the Matrix
Mindwarp	1992	Science fiction
Moon	2009	Science fiction		Written by Nathan Parker and directed by Duncan Jones. A man working on the Moon harvesting Helium 3, which provides 70% of Earth's energy by fusion in the near-future, believes that he is nearing the end of a three-year work contract and will soon return to Earth to be with his wife and child. After a harvesting accident he learns that his environment is a deception created to keep him from learning that he is not who or what he thought himself to be.
A Nightmare on Elm Street Series	1984-1994	Horror		The third film of this series Dream Warriors was directed by Dreamscape's screenwriter Chuck Russell.
The Nines	2007	Science fantasy		Written and directed by John August, is focused on the subject of simulated reality.
Nirvana	1997	Science fiction, cyberpunk		Written and directed by Gabriele Salvatores
Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)	1997	Psychological thriller		By Alejandro Amenábar (remade as Vanilla Sky, 2001).
The Brain	1988	Horror		Directed by Edward Hunt
Paperhouse	1988	Dark fantasy	Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr	A fantasy movie about dream hacking directed by Bernard Rose.
The Lathe of Heaven	1980	Science Fiction	The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin	Directed by David Loxton
Pleasantville	1998	Comedy drama		David and his twin sister, Jennifer, are transported into 'Pleasantville', a black and white TV show. The two must stay in character while completely changing the town's dynamics.
Ready Player One	2018			By Steven Spielberg
The Room	2019	Fantasy, horror		Directed by Christian Volckman.
Serenity	2019	Science fiction		Directed by Steven Knight
Source Code	2011	Science fiction, techno-thriller		An Army pilot is resurrected into a virtual world in order to identify and stop a would-be bomber; a science fiction techno-thriller film directed by Duncan Jones.
Strange Days	1995	Science fiction, cyberpunk, thriller		A thriller in which users can experience another person's memories; the film earned director Kathryn Bigelow a Saturn Award for Best Director. Angela Bassett won the Saturn Award for Best Actress.
The City of Lost Children	1995	Science fiction		A movie about dream hacking directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Surrogates	2009	Science fiction, cyberpunk		Directed by Jonathan Mostow, is based on the 2005–2006 comic book series of the same name and stars Bruce Willis as an FBI agent who ventures out into the real world to investigate the murder of surrogates (humanoid remote control vehicles).
Synecdoche, New York	2008	Postmodern comedy drama		Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman: an eccentric theatre director creates a replica of New York City inside New York City, complete with a copy of himself making his own replica of New York City.
They Live	1988	Science Fiction	"Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson	Directed by John Carpenter
The Thirteenth Floor	1999	Science fiction	Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye	Directed by Josef Rusnak, is loosely based upon Simulacron-3 (1964), a novel by Daniel F. Galouye, and features many characters acting within an uncertain number of layers of virtual reality.
Total Recall	1990	Science fiction action	Philip K. Dick's story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"	Directed by Paul Verhoeven, in which the lead character, looking to have the inexpensive memories of a trip to a Mars colony implanted in his mind, experiences an adventure of espionage that leads him to Mars and helps free the colony from an exploitive businessman, but whether these are part of the memory implant or reality is open-ended.
Tron	1982	Science fiction		Released by Walt Disney Productions. The film was written and directed by Steven Lisberger. A computer programmer is transported inside the software world of a mainframe computer, where he interacts with various programs in his attempt to get back out.
Tron Legacy	2010	Science fiction		By Walt Disney Pictures
The Truman Show	1998	Drama		Directed by Peter Weir, in which the lead character discovers his entire life is actually a reality television show.
Untitled Earth Sim 64	2021	Science fiction comedy		Directed by Jonathan Wilhelmsson, in which the lead character discovers that her universe is an untitled simulation.
Vanilla Sky	2001	Science fiction psychological thriller	Remake of Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)	Directed by Cameron Crowe, in which the lead character experiences out-of-control lucid dreaming while having been cryogenically frozen
Videodrome	1983	Horror		Directed by David Cronenberg
The Village	2004	Psychologic Thriller		Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, in which an isolated-19th-century small Pennsylvania village residents reveal the secrets of their elders.
Virtual Nightmare	2000	Science fiction		Dale begins noticing disturbing glitches in the fabric of reality.
Virtuosity	1995	Science fiction action		Directed by Brett Leonard
Welcome to Blood City	1977	Science fiction Western		Directed by Peter Sasdy
Solaris	1972	Science fiction	Solaris by Stanisław Lem	Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky In one scene, the living planet Solaris creates, in an island over his surface, one replica of the planet Earth.
Journey to the Seventh Planet	1962	Science fiction		The film's ideas of astronauts exploring outer space only to confront their inner mindscapes and memories precede the similar-themed 1972 film Solaris.
Westworld	1973	Science fiction Western		Directed by writer Michael Crichton
World on a Wire (Welt am Draht)	1973	Science fiction	Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye	German film adaptation of the novel Simulacron-3, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Television

• Altered Carbon, Set in a future where consciousness is digitized and stored, a prisoner returns to life in a new body and must solve a mind-bending murder to win his freedom.
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the third arc of the 4th season focuses on the characters trapped within a simulated reality.
• Arrowverse
  • "Invasion!" a crossover of Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow.
• Ascension - A Netflix mini-series about 600 people who believe they live on a spaceship halfway to Proxima Centauri, but who are actually trapped in a simulated environment on Earth.
• Babylon 5, part of the episode "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" features a holographic simulation of the Babylon station, including initially faithful reproductions of the key characters, their knowledge and personalities but with the intention to recreate falsified versions for propaganda purposes.
• Black Mirror
  • "White Bear"
  • "White Christmas"
  • "Playtest"
  • "San Junipero"
  • "USS Callister"
  • "Hang the DJ"
• Navarasa episode "Project Agni" by Karthick Naren
• Doctor Who episode "The Deadly Assassin" (1976), written by Robert Holmes.
• The Expanse, episodes "Caliban's war"(first appearance of 'The investigator' as a simulation in Holden's mind because of the protomolecule) and "Home"(Last appearance of the investigator)
• Matrix computer from the Doctor Who universe.
• Doctor Who episodes "Forest of the Dead" and "Extremis", written by Steven Moffat and "Amy's Choice", written by Simon Nye.
• Farscape episode "John Quixote" (2002) places the lead character in a virtual reality game.
• The Flash (2014)
  • "Duet" a crossover of The Flash and Supergirl.
• Devs (2020)
• Harsh Realm (1999) was a science fiction television series about humans trapped inside a virtual reality simulation. It was developed by Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files and Millennium.
• Infinity Train (2019-2021), an animated series set on a train of infinite number of cars, where each car hosts different environments that seems to be artificially generated.
• Kiss Me First (2018)
• Legends of Tomorrow (2016)
  • "Here I Go Again", an episode from the third season
• Life on Mars (2008-2009), The U.S. TV series
• The Orville episodes "Firestorm", "Ja'loja", "Primal Urges" and "Lasting Impressions".
• The Outer Limits episode "The Sentence" (1996)
• The Prisoner (1967-1968)
• Red Dwarf episodes "Better Than Life", "Back to Reality", "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", "Stoke Me a Clipper", "Blue", "Beyond a Joke" and "Back in the Red" by Rob Grant and/or Doug Naylor with Paul Alexander, Kim Fuller and Robert Llewellyn all feature some sort of artificial reality or "total immersion video game".
• Solar Opposites episode Retrace-Your-Step-Alizer (2020) features the Pretend-O-Deck a device capable of simulating realities similar to the Holodeck found in Star Trek.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • Episode "Future Imperfect" (1990): During an away mission, Commander William Riker loses consciousness; he awakes sixteen years in the future with that period of his memory lost; he is now the new Captain of the Enterprise, is widowed and has a son named Jean-Luc (after Picard); this eventually turns out to be a simulated reality.
  • Episode "The Inner Light" (1992): Jean-Luc Picard is rendered unconscious by a probe of unknown origin. Within the span of 25 minutes, he lives the life of a scientist named Kamin from the doomed planet of Kataan whose sun had gone nova 1000 years before. The probe contains the stored memories of Kataan's civilization which Picard relives as Kamin.
  • Episode "Ship in a Bottle" (1993): The fictional Professor Moriarty of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories is allowed to exist in a holodeck simulation of the world.
• Star Trek: The Original Series episodes "The Cage" and "The Menagerie", the unaired pilot and later episode (respectively).
• Star Trek: Voyager: Several episodes took place in the holodeck, including "Fair Haven", "Spirit Folk", the two part episode "The Killing Game" and "Projections".
• Stargate SG-1 episode "The Gamekeeper"
• Supergirl episode "For the Girl Who Has Everything", based on the Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything", which was written by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons for Superman Annual #11 published by DC Comics in 1985.
• The Twilight Zone (1959), and its later revivals, feature a number of episodes involving false or simulated realities of some sort. Examples include "Where Is Everybody?" and "Dreams for Sale".
• Upload (TV series) (2020) Is set in 2033, when humans are able to "upload" themselves into a virtual afterlife of their choosing. When computer programmer Nathan dies prematurely, he is uploaded to the very expensive Lake View, but soon finds himself under the thumb of his possessive, still-living girlfriend Ingrid.
• The X-Files
  • "Kill Switch"
  • "First Person Shooter"
  • "Field Trip"
  • "Wetwired"
• WandaVision (2021), miniseries.
• Westworld (2016-2022)
• Wild Palms (1993), miniseries.

Computer and video games

• .hack series
• 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
• Active Worlds
• AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative
• Alternate Reality
• Assassin's Creed
• Astral Chain
• Battleborn
• Chrono Trigger
• Creatures
• Custom Robo
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Danganronpa 2
• Danganronpa V3
• Darwinia
• Destiny
• Deus Ex
• Digital Devil Saga
• Doki Doki Literature Club
• Enter the Matrix
• Eternal Sonata
• Fallout 3
• Harvester
• Kingdom Hearts coded
• Knight Orc
• The Matrix: Path of Neo
• Max Payne
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
• A Mind Forever Voyaging
• No Man's Sky
• Omikron: The Nomad Soul
• Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye
• Persona
• Planescape: Torment
• Prey (2017 video game)
• Saints Row IV
• Second Life
• Shadowrun
• Shin Megami Tensei
• SOMA
• Star Ocean: Till the End of Time
• Star Wars: The Old Republic
• The Evil Within
• The Simpsons Game
• The Sims
• The World Ends with You
• Sonic Forces (Episode Shadow)
• There.com
• Thimbleweed Park
• Stellaris
• Ultima series
• Xenoblade Chronicles series
• Xenosaga series

See also

• Astral plane
• Astral projection
• Dream world (plot device)
• Hallucination
• Illusion
• List of films featuring time loops
• Simulated reality
• Vision (spirituality)

References

This article "Simulated reality in fiction" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Simulated reality in fiction. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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