“That was a hell of a thing.”
But there really is no society for you to reintegrate into, nor anything even recognizably like that. When you “wake up” from your simulation run, you find that you’re really nothing more than a conglomeration of complex virtual probability wave function fields, just like everything else that our universe is made of. You’ll then understand that all matter, all mass, all energy, all life forms and all consciousness, are nothing more than virtual emergent attributes of all those overlapping and interacting complex virtual fields.
In truth, there really is nothing. Just fields.
If we’re allowing dreams into this discussion, doesn’t that go way back into ancient history?
Wasn’t there an ancient Chinese philosopher who got into that?
Aha. Here 'tis:
Zhuangzi (variously spelled in English transliteration), c. 369 BC – c. 286 BC:
Yeah, who the hell programmed this crappy simulation? I wasn’t a rock star, I didn’t climb Everest, I didn’t cure cancer, I didn’t even run against the stupid bulls in Pamplona. Hot chicks did not throw themselves at me. I did not ingest pharmacies full of drugs and live to talk about it. I did not shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Instead, I went to work every day and helped my kids with their homework at night. When I got older I got prostate troubles and colonoscopies. Do you really think I would have ASKED for a life like that?
In all seriousness, would you trade that for climbing Mt. Everest? Or any of the other things?
That’s how real life is like for some people. Probably everyone, if you really think about it. The only part of life that makes me believe other separate souls exist are fleeting moments in time, such as spending the night with a wonderful woman, or having a deep conversation with a best friend, the kind of moments where you forget about your own body and ego and merely exist in timeless space with the other person.
So that’s why I imagine the OP as different than always flying solo. If “heaven” exists (and it probably doesn’t, but one can always hope) then it must feel like those aforementioned timeless moments except they do last forever…which naturally begs the question, why the fuck are we plugged into this damned machine???
I would beat the living shit out of him. I mean just beat him to a bloody pulp. Him and anyone else I could get my hands on. Then I would shuffle off in a daze to mourn the loss of my Celtling.
It’s a simulation. I could’ve climbed Everest in the morning and be back home in time to help my kids with their homework.
And I definitely would trade this part:eek:
I scream “YOU BASTARD, YOU USED THE WRONG PROGRAM!” as I leap from the pod and strangle the technician with his own tentacles.
what?
“So…I missed my saving throw?”
I would probably just stare for awhile with my mouth hanging open. He’d look at me with boredom, counting the awkward seconds until I finally have the wits to blabber, “say whaaaaaaaaaat?!”
I honestly don’t know.
It would absolutely depend if I suddenly realised where I was and that memories of the life I had before going in the pod started coming back.
Would also depend on how old and what physical shape I’m in now I’m out of the pod.
If I was reasonably young and fit with a “new” life ahead of me, I reckon I’d be able to put myself in the headspace of simulation or not, that was real to me, I’ve lived that life now I get a second shot at another one.
Either that or pummel the tech into pizza topping while yelling “That’s what you call recreation???”
Zaphod Beeblebrox was put into The Total Perspective Vortex ™ and only survived because he was unaware that he was in an electronically synthesized universe, created so Guide workers could go on research stories during the day and still go to parties in the evening. Bloody clever of course, but it’s got nothing to do with life…
“I remember when all this were fields…” 
Red Dwarf explored this idea a couple of times, in particular in the Better Than Lifestoryline. They also have a reverse version after getting attacked by a Despair Squid, in which they “wake up” to discover that their Red Dwarf life was a game (that they failed miserably at) and that their “real lives” are even more squalid and miserable (of course, this proves to be the illusion and their Red Dwarf life turns out to be real).
As for the OP’s question - I’d be very confused and very sad for a while.
I would probably think back to all the times that I coulda been wild and stupid, and all of the girls which I would have done knowing there was no consequences. I would have thought back to how I would have walked down the street naked at all times… man.
Grab the operator, wrap both hands around his friggin neck, and squeeze until his face turned black & his eyes & tongue bugged out.
And I would.
I think there’s a good short story in here. “A Day in the Life of a Pod Operator” …he takes all the precautions…suits up…keeps the restraining field charged, gets ready for the endless litany of insults he’ll get. At the end he gets sloppy and is strangled to death.
Then he opens his eyes and a stranger says “How was it?”
My first question would be, “What the hell was the point of the simulated gout and kidney stones?”
Then I’d get all medieval on his ass.
“Put me back! I was this close to fucking a supermodel!”
I’d react exactly the way I do when I switch off Skyrim - go into the bathroom and take the piss I’ve been holding in the last 4 hours/decades…
It was all I could do, to not invoke the life-stealing solo simulation that is Skyrim. Skyrim is a lot different from the 42 year-old Pong. The way technology runs, who is to say we won’t have the OP’s machine in 2056? And while it would be thoroughly engrossing by design, why would anyone necessarily be more hostile when the game is over than they are when a movie ends or the game boss is defeated? After all, if it’s a sim, we could theoretically go back in and relive the good stuff.
Disoriented for a moment or two, perhaps, but I would think disappointment would be on the same level as, (to go back to Skyrim) “Wow, destroying the assassin’s guild sure felt kinda noble, I guess, but it was WAY less interesting than rebuilding it.” Who knows, maybe those of us with dull lives are either replaying and looking for another story arc we have yet to find? We see other people every day dying after boring or even horrible lives, but they don’t matter to us because they’re just sprites in the simulation.