Entering the Realm of Huan : Rethinking Immersion Through Early Modern Chinese Accounts of the Strange

Abstract This essay explores how immersion—its generative mechanisms, specific experiences, and cultural implications—was imagined and conceptualized in early modern accounts of the strange (yi 異). Rather than locating historical precursors to modern immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR), it isolates immersion as an experiential mode from technologically driven paradigms that foreground presence within computer-simulated worlds. Drawing on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century accounts of the strange, particularly Pu Songling’s 蒲松齡 (1640–1715) Strange Tales from Liaozhai, this essay demonstrates that immersive experience emerges not from make-believe or technological sophistication but through multisensory engagement with liminal spaces where reality and illusion intermingle. Central to these tales is the rendering of huan 幻—as not abstract illusion but a deeply felt condition of absorption, triggered by techniques such as huanxi 幻戲 (illusion show) and media like murals and narrative writing. These stories depict immersion as arising when everyday environments shift into the extraordinary and when multisensory experiences challenge established perceptual frameworks. They reveal a phenomenological understanding of the interplay between embodied sensory cognition and mediated environments. By approaching immersion from within these historical narratives and the reading experience they afford, this essay highlights the critical potential of accounts of the strange to illuminate a culturally specific, pluralistic understanding of immersion that technology-centered discourses frequently overlook.