In The Matrix, the story starts with Neo in essentially an imagined world, far different from that which his physical body is experiencing. Morpheus offers Neo the choice of taking the blue pill; continuing his blissfully ignorant life in this imagined world, or the red pill, opening his eyes to reality.
Have you read the tyranny of metrics?
https://mrnickhart.wordpress.com/2022/03/10/the-tyranny-of-school-metrics/