: How to use "I think, therefore I am" in a more fluent manner? I want to allude an experience that feels almost like Descartes' idea of "I think, therefore I am". Because the phrase is a

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Depending on your readership, you could abbreviate the entire last part, and make it something like:

The experience that we had undergone confused our consciousness in the real and virtual worlds and recalled a Cartesian cogito...

Which would work if readers understood that a Cartesian cogito was a reference to Descartes phrase. For the wrong readership, of course, it just sounds completely pretentious.

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How about paraphrasing the quote and showing the reader it is paraphrased. Example:

The experience that we had undergone confused our consciousness in the real and virtual worlds. It made us strive for re-assurance which could be summed up best in Descartes's "Cogitamus ergo sumus." Or simply, "For our thoughts exist, we must be."

Or: For our thoughts exist, we must as well. | Existence is in the mind of the beholder. | Existence is there for the thinker/tinkerer/etc...

So, what do you think?

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It sounds awkward, because you repeat "think":

... made us think with Descartes' "I think, therefore I am".

Besides that, your sentence is missing a logical step, which is another source for your "awkwardness". Descartes' confusion did not make him think "cogito, ergo sum". "Cogito, ergo sum" is the conclusion he arrived at after trying to dissolve this confusion.

So you should somehow show the way from confusion to conclusion. Something like:

The experience that we had undergone confused our consciousness in the real and virtual worlds and culminated in epiphany like Descartes' "I think, therefore I am".

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First of all, you have a tense disagreement: "we had undergone" is past, so you need "confused" and "made."

A few variants:

...made us re-experience Descartes's proclamation: "I think, therefore I
am."
...made us re-experience Descartes's proclamation: Cogito, ergo sum. We
thought, therefore we were.
...made us cling to Descartes to assure ourselves that we were indeed
real: "I think, therefore I am."

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