Does Virtual Reality Consist in Veridical, Illusory or Hallucinatory Experience?

Does virtual reality (VR) involve: (i) illusory or hallucinatory experience of things that are not there? or (ii) veridical experience of computational objects? I argue that traditional thinking about this issue involves a false dichotomy. I articulate my own account of illusion and hallucination, and argue that it entails VR experience is complex with veridical and non-veridical elements. I begin by presenting new cases of illusion and hallucination that have not heretofore been identified. These cases show that the traditional accounts of illusion and hallucination are incorrect. I provide a taxonomy of all the different kinds of illusion and hallucination. New instances of illusion and hallucination provide much needed, important data for testing theories of experience and perception—and can illuminate the nature of virtual reality experience. I go on to discuss virtual reality experience of the sort that is produced today, and show that we need to take account of the nature of the technology in thinking about the veridicality of the experience.