It might just be because I’m not a meatspace racer. When I’m out on my bike in the outside world, I’m either commuting or riding for recreation. I do the occasional time trial, and for those I use heart rate to gauge my effort. I do this because id I just go my feel, I don’t push as hard. If my HR is only 150, I know I can go harder even if it’s feeling tough.
On the indoor trainer I have power as well, so again I use this to keep myself from slacking off. If it feels hard but I’m only doing 200W, I know there’s a bit more. I use the G graph as well, as I know that yellow means I’m not at the limit yet.
I might feel differently if I’d done a lot of real world racing purely on feel.
As Gerrie says in his post, I think my problem is the floating dissociated view. There’s nothing to “ground” me in the world. In a first-person shooter, I can see the gun model. Being able to see handlebars if first person view on Zwift might help me to embrace it more.