Fenomenologie dell'immersione. Sogno e ambiente virtuale

Building on insights from aesthetic and media studies, the research explores the long-term convergence between the experiences of dreaming and media, particularly focusing on virtual reality environments. Utilizing methodological and conceptual tools derived from the phenomenological tradition, the study undertakes a systematic and comparative analysis of the dream experience alongside the experiences facilitated by new virtual reality environments. This analysis is conducted through the lens of the notion of immersion as conceptualized within phenomenology, thereby reframing immersion as an intrinsic potential of subjective experience—allowing one to engage with a fantasy world, as in dreams, or an image-world, as in virtual reality systems. However, this capacity for abstraction from the immediate horizon of presence can only be fully understood in connection with the human ability to detach from contingent circumstances. This capability is not merely a conscious or intellectual function; rather, it is rooted in a virtuality inherent to the body schema, which fundamentally supports the human capacity to temporarily withdraw from the perceptual horizon and “inhabit” alternative scenarios.