I mean it literally... figuratively-speaking, of course. [It's an obvious deflection, but House knows well enough that Pierce probably had other things he was reading up on than Angel and Miranda's theories about his daddy issues.]

And the environment could be constructed for neural pathways. If you put us all in the same construct box, we'll see the same thing, even if it isn't what's real. The alternative in my mind is that we're all in Norfinbury and the nanites in our bodies are making us see and feel all of this while our bodies do something else. Wouldn't be the first time.