Simulated Reality in Fiction | Encyclopedia MDPI

Simulated Reality in Fiction: History

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Simulated reality is a common theme in science fiction. It is predated by the concept "life is a dream". It should not be confused with the theme of virtual reality.

reality

1. 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.
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.^[1]
Ant Farm: God and His Computer Simulation	CJ Choi	2017	A coming of age story introducing God as a teenage programmer, who creates Earth within a pre-made Universe simulation and unsuccessfully attempts to guide its progress from genesis and beyond.
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 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.^[2] 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."^[3]
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 Dueling Machine	Ben Bova	1969	Dueling as a means of settling disputes has been revived by the invention of the dueling machine, which allows two adversaries to have at each other in the imaginary world of their choosing, with no danger to either other than humiliation and the loss of the point in dispute—until the Kerak Worlds found a way to kill with the machine.
"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."^[4]
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
Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality	Philip Zhai	1998	A philosophical speculation on the ontological status of the extreme form of virtual reality that combines with teleoperation, in comparison with what we perceive as the "actual" or "physical" reality. An array of thought experiments is constructed for the purpose of philosophical investigations.
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"^[5]	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
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
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.
Reality Crash	Lou Grantt, Cyd Ropp	2008	A programmer in a post-apocalyptic future in England is used to living his life across a variety of virtual reality channels, but thinks his real life is not that bad. One day he hits his head at work and starts seeing a version of reality where everyone is dirty and underfed, where the restaurants serve goo and where even a baptism is not what it first appears to be.
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.
The Song of Synth	Seb Doubinsky	2015	Markus, a former hacker on restricted parole, begins to take the largely untested psychedelic drug called Synth because his life and past are so miserable. Synth creates simulated and augmented reality in the brain that is totally indistinguishable from real life. At first Synth enables Markus to endure his misery by creating false realities for him, but then it begins to synthesize reality even when he does not take the drug.
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.
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!".^[6]
"Crystal Nights"	Greg Egan	1992	This short story is a tale of a group of scientists that create a simulation of a world to explore evolution and societal development. Eventually they reveal themselves to the inhabitants and are treated as gods, but then their creations realize that there is more than meets the eye and plot their escape.

2. Theater

Possible Worlds (1990) and the 2000 film adaptation

3. Animation, Anime, Light Novel, Manga and Cartoons

Title	Author	Year	Remarks
"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 were never exploded.
.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 cartoon
Aeon Flux		1991	Took place in a cartoon world
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.
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
Ghost in the Shell		1995	Postcyberpunk anime film and series
Lyoko		2003	The virtual world run by a super computer in the animated series Code Lyoko
Log Horizon		2013	An anime series on players being transported into the game world after an expansion update.
Megazone 23	Noboru Ishiguro, Shinji Aramaki	1985-1989	An anime OVA series created by Noboru Ishiguro and Shinji Aramaki based on a simulated reality of Tokyo controlled by a super computer
Noein	Kazuki Akane, Kenji Yasuda	2005	An anime directed by Kazuki Akane and Kenji Yasuda where a simulated reality is created
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		2009-present	a light novel series (2009 - ongoing) and the two anime series adapted from the novel (2012 and 2013), about the Massively multiplayer online game players trapped in virtual reality by the creator until they clear the game
Zegapain		2006	Anime series

4. Film

Title	Year	Genre	Based on	Description
Avalon	2001	Science fiction drama		By Mamoru Oshii
Brainscan	1994	Horror science fiction		A science fiction/horror film about a teenager 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
Brazil	1985	Science fiction		Directed by Terry Gilliam
The Cabin in the Woods	2012	Horror comedy
Cargo	2009	Science fiction		Directed by Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter.
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
Darkdrive	1996	Science fiction		By Phillip J. Roth
Dark City	1998	Neo-noir, science fiction		By Alex Proyas
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind	2004	Science fiction Romantic comedy
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	2002	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.
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.
Jacob's Ladder	1990	Psychological horror		Thriller directed by Adrian Lyne
The Lawnmower Man	1992	Science fiction action horror		Directed by Brett Leonard.
Lost Highway	1997	Neo-noir, psychological mystery thriller		By David Lynch
Mindwarp	1992	Science fiction		Directed by Steve Barnett
Nirvana	1997	Science fiction, cyberpunk		Written and directed by Gabriele Salvatores
The Matrix series	1999–2003	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
The Nines	2007	Science fantasy		Written and directed by John August, is focused on the subject of simulated reality.
Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes)	1997	Psychological thriller		By Alejandro Amenábar (remade as Vanilla Sky, 2001).
Paperhouse	1988	Dark fantasy		Directed by Bernard Rose. Based on the novel Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr.
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.
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.
The Thirteenth Floor	1999	Science fiction	Daniel F. Galouye's Simulacron-3	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
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
Virtuosity	1995	Science fiction action		Directed by Brett Leonard
World on a Wire (Welt am Draht)	1973	Science fiction	Daniel F. Galouye's Simulacron-3	German film adaptation of the novel Simulacron-3, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Welcome to Blood City	1977	Science fiction Western		Directed by Peter Sasdy
Westworld	1973	Science fiction Western-thriller		Directed by writer Michael Crichton

5. Television

Doctor Who episode "The Deadly Assassin" (1976), written by Robert Holmes.
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.
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.
Kiss Me First (2018)
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".
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" or the two part episode "The Killing Game".
Stargate SG-1 episode "The Gamekeeper"
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".
The X-Files features a number of episodes involving simulated realities of some sort, such as "Kill Switch" and "First Person Shooter", both written by William Gibson and Tom Maddox.
The U.S. TV series Life on Mars (2008-2009)
Black Mirror
- "White Christmas"
- "Playtest"
- "San Junipero"
- "USS Callister"
- "Hang the DJ"
The third arc of the 4th season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. focuses on the characters trapped within a simulated reality.
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.
"Invasion!" a crossover of Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow.

6. Interactive Fiction

A Mind Forever Voyaging (1985) by Steve Meretzky

6.1. Computer and Video Games

.hack series
Active Worlds
Alternate Reality
Assassin's Creed
Battleborn
Chrono Trigger
Creatures
Custom Robo
Cyberpunk 2077
Darwinia
Destiny
Digital Devil Saga
Doki Doki Literature Club
Enter the Matrix
Eternal Sonata
Evil Within
Harvester
Kingdom Hearts coded
The Matrix
Max Payne^[7]
Metal Gear Solid 2^[8]
No Man's Sky
Omikron: The Nomad Soul
Persona
Planescape
Prey (2017 video game)
Saints Row IV
Second Life
Shadowrun
Shin Megami Tensei
SOMA
Star Ocean
Star Wars
The Sims
The World Ends with You
Sonic Forces (Episode Shadow)
There.com
Thimbleweed Park
Ultima series
Xenosaga series

The content is sourced from: https://handwiki.org/wiki/Simulated_reality_in_fiction

References

Kelleghan, Fiona (July 1998). "Private Hells and Radical Doubts: An Interview with Jonathan Lethem". Science Fiction Studies. http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/letheminterview.htm. Retrieved March 30, 2014.
Von Ruff, Al. "Bibliography: The Cookie Monster". Internet Speculative Fiction Database. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?246511. Retrieved March 30, 2014.
Alexander, Justin. "What I'm Reading #46 - The Short Stories of Vernor Vinge". The Alexandrian. http://www.thealexandrian.net/reviews/wir/wir046-vinge1.html. Retrieved March 30, 2014.
Shippey, Tom (Aug 17, 2012). "We Can Build You: Tom Shippey reviews Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick, and How to Build An Android by David F. Dufty". The Wall Street Journal . https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444873204577536981635981756. Retrieved March 30, 2014.
Duncan, David (October 1960). "The Immortals". Galaxy Science Fiction: 162–193. https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v19n01_1960-10#page/n81/mode/1up.
Von Ruff, Al. "Bibliography: You're Another". Internet Speculative Fiction Database. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57082. Retrieved March 30, 2014.
Max hallucinating on Valkyr - [the note reads] You're in a graphic novel & Michelle Payne: [the note reads] You're in a computer game, Max.
http://kotaku.com/metal-gear-solid-2-was-a-twisted-experiment-in-mind-con-1785833195

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