Old short story - bored sick of virtual reality

[Incanto]

This was a short story which I first read in the 70s or 80s. A man lives in some kind of console, unable to do anything but select from a list of entertainment-options one after another, his body nourished by some automated system which keeps him alive, replacing organs as they fail.

He experiences the entertainment as what we would now call virtual reality, replete with 100% vision, smell, sound, etc. One of the scenes involved him playing chess against a chessmaster.

The problem is that he has replayed all the scenes tens of thousands of time, and he is bored to death. All he really wants is to press the sleep-button, but the machine will only let him select periodic sleep after he has run through a certain number of entertainment-options. After an eternity of entertainment-reruns he finally finds relief by somehow wedging his hand or foot against the sleep-button, allowing him to sleep indefinitely.

He is eventually discovered in this position by a robotic overseer, who promptly orders (wait for it) a brain-transplant.

Why the memory of this story should haunt my mind I do not know. Does anyone know author, title, or anthology?

 

[CassFrank]

This could be a faded memory of James Tiptree Jrs’ “Painwise” (1971).

 

[Ravensquawk]

Although it only matches the part of the question about living in a console -- or near coffin -- and forced to live a virtual reality, "Spectator Sport" by John D. MacDonald is gruesomely that description.

The protagonist who traveled into the future gets drugged and "grafted" into a permanent entertainment console. They call it a "Perm". The ones doing it to him think they are doing the right thing by him!

The bored technicians ... stripped the unprotesting Rufus Maddon, took him inside his cubicle, forced him down onto the foam couch. They rolled him over onto his side, made the usual incision at the back of his neck, carefully slit the main motor nerves, leaving the senses, the heart and lungs intact. They checked the air conditioning and plugged him into the feeding schedule for that bank of Perms.

And the techs envy him!

“Is it fair he should get it for free?” Cramer asked.

They work their whole lives in order to get it themselves.

Al sighed enviously. “Nothing to do for as long as he lives except twenty- four hours a day of being the hero of the most adventurous and glamorous and exciting stories that the race has been able to devise."

Thinking of the story makes me feel like losing my lunch. But then, that repulsion is probably one of the reasons for writing social commentary "If This Goes On...." science fiction warning stories.

That is the only matching point for the question. But you never forget a story like that.
(Even if you kinda want to.)