Did you try regular "foggles?" I suppose their physical presence is less noticable, but they could still give the feeling of being boxed in.
Out of all of my ratings, I think I enjoyed IFR the most, oddly enough. I had a great instructor, and 95% of my time was logged at night, so we got to focus on what mattered most and not have to dick around with other crap. Plus the stack was usually way less empty, so that saved me money by cutting down our hold times and increasing the number of approaches we got per flight. Base level was 3500', and I think we only hit 6500' once or twice. Usually we'd make our call at 10nm, and by the time we were two minutes out, it was our turn to enter the base of the stack, so we'd get right in and make our first approach. Good memories!
