<p>Even though virtual reality (VR), taken in a narrow sense, i.e., as a virtual environment generated by a binocular head-based system, has been developing since the 1960s, there only exist a handful of authors from the phenomenological tradition who have focused on its nature so far, and fairly recently at that. This paper will attempt to add to the Husserlian discussion of VR environments and the corresponding exprience, by both treading in the steps of current contributors and by disputing a key presupposition made in most of them. Indeed, one of the claims commonly put forth regarding VR experience is that it amounts to what, in Husserlian terms, one would call acts of image consciousness (<i>Bildbewusstsein</i>). Against this claim, the main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that VR experience consists in acts of phantasy (<i>Phantasie</i>) instead. My analysis will involve two steps: (1.) demonstrating that VR experience should not be understood as Husserlian image consciousness, given that it does not display the structural features which distinguish it from phantasy; (2.) and demonstrating that it should be understood as phantasy instead, specifically as a kind of “perceptual phantasy” (<i>perzeptive Phantasie</i>).</p>