First there was Pac-man.

Anyone remember Pac-man? A computer game where you guided a little nothing to swallow other little nothings. Big whoop. Then came Oregon Trail, where you faced pioneer challenges that could kill you (but not really, of course, you always remained in your comfy suburban bedroom). And Sims, where you could manipulate virtual people in their virtual world — though not in the actual world. And then virtual Reality, making it seem like you’re in another place. And of course all those video games where you’re some fearsome warrior slaughtering foes.

Except that you know you’re still actually Wally Wussman, a weenie who works at Walmart.

But now Realityplus, Inc., has taken it to the next level.

Where all those earlier paradigms were deficient was in that Wally problem. However thrilling and immersive their created world was, your Brain still knew it was just a game. Not real. Playing at killing monsters is not the same as actually killing them. A thrill of a whole different order.

Realityplus’s breakthrough has solved this. It’s not mere “gaming.” Not mere “virtual reality.” A new term is required: Rebraining.

Because it works not just by simulating the sights and sounds, etc., of the desired experience, but the actual brain events. Our brains, our minds, work by gathering incoming sensory signals and composing them into a model of reality, conformed to all our pre-existing understandings. So when you play a conventional video game, or engage with virtual reality, you do get the suite of sensory inputs, but when your brain makes sense of them, it does so, again, in the context of all your foundational background knowledge and experience. Including, of course, always remembering the fact that you’re still actually Wally who works at Walmart.

Realityplus’s new rebraining technology overrides that. It (temporarily) disables the pre-existing contents of your brain and replaces them with new ones that mesh with the different reality you’ll now experience. Note importantly that this has no “hardware” ramifications. It reprograms your neurons, rather like reprogramming a computer. And of course, when you’re ready to return to being Walmart Wally, you just reverse that reprogramming. Like “return to factory settings.”

But in the meantime you won’t be Wally anymore. You will be Thor the Giant Slayer, will be Wonder Woman, or whoever or whatever it is. The experience of being that other entity will be total. Talk about “out-of-body” experiences — this goes way beyond, it’s an out-of-self experience.

Neuroscientists, pondering how consciousness arises from material brain functioning, call that the “hard problem.” And philosophers too, long wrestling with how a sense of self actually works, may query whether your rebrained other-identity jaunts are in fact experienced by you at all. Since, after all, your own self has been sidelined — so who or what is doing the experiencing?

This issue has been field-tested with volunteer subjects. Who, debriefed after their rebrainings, universally reported the effect was as advertised: they were that other identity, experienced being it. And the experience of actually being someone else was, you might say, mind-blowing. (Concededly, this may actually have been an illusion, but some thinkers postulate that “the self” is itself an illusion.)

Warning: Users should be sure to press the “return to self” button within a reasonable time. Your actual body will still require actual food, etc.

Meantime, stand by for the coming X-rated version!