Virtual Reality 

In a digital virtual environment, anything you create through your avatar can normally be edited by you. For example, if I build a simple wall and attempt to walk through it, I cannot do so because it has been given physical properties. However, since I created it, I can modify those properties so that I can pass through it. I can also change its shape or delete it entirely because I am its owner.

By contrast, there are many objects in the same environment that I cannot alter because I did not create them and do not have permission to modify or remove them. The same basic principle applies in non-digital contexts: you generally cannot change your surroundings unless you created them, helped create them as part of a group, or have been granted permission.

This idea is sometimes used to explain why, in lucid dreams, people may be able to alter their surroundings — the dream is their own mental construct. In reported out-of-body experiences, however, people often describe being unable to change their environment, which they interpret as entering a shared space similar to what we conventionally call the “real” world.