But what if the world around us is merely an illusion? On the occasion of the centenary of Stanisław Lem’s birth, we recall a few disturbing visions from the works of this exceptionally gifted writer.

“What can a person connected to a phantomatic generator experience? Everything. He can climb the Alps, wander around the Moon without a spacesuit or an oxygen mask, conquer medieval towns or the North Pole while heading a committed team and wearing shining armor.”¹ When he wrote these words (published in his weighty tome of scientific essays entitled Summa technologiae, 1964) and fantasized about the directions taken by technological development that would allow people to pass imperceptibly into a fictional world, Stanisław Lem already had to his name several novels and short stories, in which he had successfully explored problems of phantomology, and was still to produce several more. Not all of his visions resemble benign role-playing games. For Lem, virtual reality usually had a much darker aspect.

From amusement to control

The first steps taken by Hal Bregg, who returns to Earth after 127 years of space exploration, are accompanied by bewilderment. The world has changed beyond recognition; the station itself resembles a great organic city. Robots are at work everywhere, people carry themselves differently from before, speak differently and spend differently their free time, of which they have more than enough. In addition, certain buildings, interiors and landscapes look as though they’re not part of tangible reality. Bregg’s premonitions that this is in fact the case are confirmed the following day when he