It’s about making someone question the validity of their perception of reality. It’s emotional abuse, not simply tricking or lying someone.
When I was a kid, my parents weren’t gaslighting me when they convinced me the tooth fairy was real by putting money under my pillow and taking the baby teeth. They weren’t making me feel like I couldn’t trust my perception of reality, or that my feelings were invalid.
(Real world example): My best friend as a teenager tried convincing me he wasn’t trying to seduce my girlfriend at the time. He convinced me that my expressions of discomfort with all the “accidental” touching was me being a prude, and when I told him I thought he had ulterior motives trying to hang out with her alone and swim in his pool so often he convinced me that I was being up-tight. Lo and behold, one day in a drug-fueled stupor he admitted to me that he loved her the whole time. Making me feel like I couldn’t trust my own feelings on the matter was gaslighting. Now I have trust issues.
You’re overthinking this a bit, the whole point of the matrix is that our reality is fake. Making someone believe they are in the matrix is to make them question their perception of reality. Making someone question their perception of reality is gaslighting.
Sounds like making someone believe they are in the matrix fits this perfectly but I’m no englishmatologist
It’s about making someone question the validity of their perception of reality. It’s emotional abuse, not simply tricking or lying someone.
When I was a kid, my parents weren’t gaslighting me when they convinced me the tooth fairy was real by putting money under my pillow and taking the baby teeth. They weren’t making me feel like I couldn’t trust my perception of reality, or that my feelings were invalid.
(Real world example): My best friend as a teenager tried convincing me he wasn’t trying to seduce my girlfriend at the time. He convinced me that my expressions of discomfort with all the “accidental” touching was me being a prude, and when I told him I thought he had ulterior motives trying to hang out with her alone and swim in his pool so often he convinced me that I was being up-tight. Lo and behold, one day in a drug-fueled stupor he admitted to me that he loved her the whole time. Making me feel like I couldn’t trust my own feelings on the matter was gaslighting. Now I have trust issues.
You’re overthinking this a bit, the whole point of the matrix is that our reality is fake. Making someone believe they are in the matrix is to make them question their perception of reality. Making someone question their perception of reality is gaslighting.