This brief provocation suggests how media history and theory might be thought through the concept of "immersion." It focuses on the aspiration for immersive VR, discussing emerging gaming platforms such as Oculus Rift in relationship to 19th century forms of panoramic and stereoscopic imaging. It argues that we should shift away from tracing any linear history of immersive media and, instead, ask what it at stake as the metaphor of immersion is itself re-imagined. Fantasies of immediacy change alongside cultural and technological transformations of mediation.