Reality shifting

Reality shifting is a name given to a recent Internet social movement and subculture that began in the late 2010s, primarily associated with the social media platform TikTok. It is generally associated with a subset of the New Age movement.

Overview

The term desired reality, or "DR" for short, is used by adherents to refer to a theoretical process meant to "shift" a person's consciousness from or into what proponents describe as a "desired reality".

The theory is based on the Multiverse hypothesis, where every event in history caused a hypothetical branching path, thus creating another supposed universe where said thing did or did not happen.

It can range from alternate history in our universe to purely fictional realities such as the universes in various movies, TV shows, cartoons, video games, anime and other forms of speculative fiction.

History of the "reality shifting" trend

The reality shifting subculture, which largely grew out of an earlier mid-2010s trend titled Dimensional Jumping, began in the late 2010s, but didn't get its start until the COVID-19 pandemic, when it started to become a trend on the social media platform TikTok, where teenagers and young adults, mostly within the Generation Z demographic, began "shifting to fictional realities and places", such as Hogwarts from the Harry Potter franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside other media, mainly anime and video game universes.

Likely in part due to often "holistic" views on the world, and possibly also in association due to many of its members being associated with younger demographics, there is a tendency amongst a high number of adherents to hold progressive viewpoints and advocate various politically correct positions, such as support for cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, anti-racism, gender equality, LGBT rights, and globalism/globalization.

Terminology

"Shift", "Shifting": The act of "transporting a person's consciousness to a different reality."

"DR" "Desired Reality": This is the main reality that a person makes up in their mind, it can be based on a fictional reality of an already existing work or completely made up.

"CR" "Current Reality": This is the reality we currently live in right now that the person was biologically born in.

"WR" "Waiting Room": This is an optional form of visualization that a person can use to immerse themselves to shift.

"Method": An optional set of steps that can be modified to aid the person in "shifting".

"OC" "Original Character": A fictional character created by someone. When it comes to shifting, this character is often created for the purpose of "Shifting" to a reality as or with that fictional character.

Scripting

"Scripting" is a term used by adherents. In relation to "reality shifting", it is a detailed or simple description of what the purported desired reality is to be like, typically starting from an original character that the person makes into desired self in their desired reality to the life their desired self lived to simple things like their personal life, their friends, their appearance and even what they like or hate.

Criticisms of the "reality shifting" trend

After the "reality shifting" phenomenon rose to online prominence, many news articles were highly skeptical towards it, claiming that it was nothing more than just lucid dreaming and that Generation Z was "just going crazy" after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The "reality shifting" concept is often dismissed by critics as a pseudoscience. TheOdd1sOut, a YouTube animation creator, released a video in which he claimed that reality shifting is merely lucid dreaming and that it is a damaging belief system that adherents would grow out of.

See also

•  Psychonautics
•  Astral projection
•  Lucid dream
• Tulpa
• Multiverse
• Alternate history
• Possible world
• Mandela Effect