I read a book, Planet of the Dreamers, by John MacDonald many years ago. As my memory serves me, it went something like this.

Humanity has perfected a machine that allows you to live in a perfectly realistic dream world. In this dream world you can compress time, which allows you to effectively live forever, in whatever circumstances you choose.

Your body is kept in perfect health and you have the ability to pause your dream and tweek the program from time to time. In other words, if you tire of your life as King, you can change to a life as a great painter, poet, or whatever.

On the surface this seems to be a pretty good deal. In the story our hero must find a way to wake everyone up to save the world.