ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the psychological dimensions of human virtuality as it manifests in the interior psychic spaces that depth psychology equates with the inner world of imagination, dream, and fantasy. We show how the self, so radically turned outward and made transparent in the digital media, shifts from the private consciousness of the individual to the collective consciousness of a networked group-mind. Staying with our pharmacological method, we show how this emergence of the digital self can both bar access to our own inner virtuality, as well as open us to the deeper reaches of our subjectivity. The question of narcissism is introduced in this chapter, as we investigate how the digital magnifies the self, placing it at the center, where its innermost desires can be instantly gratified. This unending supply of the virtual-real, where we can have as much of anything we want, virtually, raises the question about the role of illusion in our digital lives and the impoverishment of the real in our experience. We close the chapter considering the implications of this for how we live out our sexuality in the digital era.
