Cyberspace/Virtual Reality

“Cyberspace is a habitat of the imagination, a habitat for the imagination.          Cyberspace is the place where conscious dreaming meets subconscious dreaming, a landscape of rational magic, of mystical reason, the locus of triumph of poetry over poverty...cyberspace flies in the face of the most ancient dream of all magic, or the desire to will the world into action"(226). 

                                                            -Beth E. Kolko

        Cyberspace enables individuals to escape the physical anchor of gender, race, socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. however are not free from virtual misconduct such as cyber rape, deceit, and violence.  Once we become immersed in cyberspace as seen in MOOs/MUDs, the participants transform into their online identities.  In "Cyberspace, Or, The Unbearable Closure of Being" by Slavoj Zizek contends that when we are immersed  in Virtual Reality, "we lose contact with reality (134).  Participants of Cyberspace in narrative discourse that occurs in the MOOs and MUDs are formed through communal agreement  thus the words become reality.  In the essay "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up?" by Sandy Stone she defines cyberspace as  "VR, one of a class of interactive spaces that are coming to be known by the general term cyberspace, is a three- dimensional consensual locus".  Cyberspace grants individuals freedom to utilize their imagination and power of language. Cyberspace (virtual reality) is a" community more dependant on the imagination than most (Bailey 37)."  Bailey suggest that although cyberspace is "disembodied communication, cyberspace challenges...In the online world, identity is often chosen, played with, subverted, or foregrounded as a construct.  There appears to be a demonstration of freedom"(30).

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