7 ms·

I wonder if the author has ever experienced the joy of reading a good book, or the first showing an amazing movie. Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let do

I wonder if the author has ever experienced the joy of reading a good book, or the first showing an amazing movie. Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them. The realm of fictional worlds are often more engaging, and seem superior to the world you live your day-to-day life in. The actions and experiences in those stories were more fulfilling, the characters had more agency; their lives or stories were more "real" than ours. After experiencing the greatness of our imaginations, how can our bleak reality measure up? I often find that I start reading my next book immediately after finishing the previous one in attempt to recapture this high, to re-experience the betterness one more time. I don't think this effect is specific to a medium. That it can happen with VR is a sign that the technology has matured.

frankhorrigan 10y ago
Yeah, I tend to agree. I think you can probably toss this on the list of lessons that human beings seem completely incapable of learning (myself included). That escapism doesn't really work.
- dv_dt 10y ago
  I am more optimistic. Some people may react to those feelings by going and constructing some of that world in reality. Isn't that sort of the link between a whole range of SciFi/Comic books in the 50's and landing on the moon? And we can not only hope that the Star Trek economics of abundance comes about, but that it is made true through a combination of technology and new economic thought.
careersuicide 10y ago
A few years ago I started reading "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan. I had somehow timed it so that the week I finished the thirteenth book "Towers of Midnight" the fourteenth book "A Memory of Light" came out. I blew through the first chunk of the book and then got to a chapter that was over a hundred pages long, maybe even longer, Google says it was over fifty thousand words. It was the last battle, the moment the previous four million words had been leading up to. I read a few pages and then set it down. For six months. It was obvious the series was going to end in a way that was bittersweet (as all good stories end) but I just couldn't bear the thought of there being nothing left. By putting it down I was freezing the moment I had left it in time. When I returned to finish the book I felt that familiar sense of sadness. A period of my life (fourteen months!) was over. I'll probably re-read the books someday, but I know it won't be the same. I often get that feeling when I finish a work of fiction I enjoyed greatly. But there was something about "The Wheel of Time' that made it much more profound. Any medium that can tell a story that people find intense and immersive will produce that same feeling. Why would VR be any different?
- scott_s 10y ago
  I purposefully read both the last Harry Potter (which I assume everyone knows) and Lev Grossman's "The Magician's Land" (which I assume less people know) slow for that very reason.
  - bbctol 10y ago
    Yeah, reading the Magician's Land took me longer than the previous two combined, because as much as I wanted to know what happened next, I also wanted to preserve that feeling of wanting to know what happens next.
- Afforess 10y ago
  Finishing "A Memory of Light" and the The Wheel of Time series left me in a funk that lasted a whole week. I sometimes regret finishing the series, I now know how it ends, so I can not go back and re-read the series for a 4th time.
  - abakker 10y ago
    Audiobook the whole thing! Re-reading is hard, but taking the slow path with audiobooks is great. Personally, I've had some of the best memories of the books while listening to them while hiking. Especially for fantasy books, walking/adventuring while listening is great fun.
    - Ntrails 10y ago
      Re-reading is anything but hard. It's like slipping back into my 17 year old self, complete with breaks to jump around like an idiot because I'm so hyped and I need to expend a bit of this pent up energy before getting back to the whole reading thing.
  - Apocryphon 10y ago
    At least there's fanfiction. It might not be ever up to snuff as the original author's work, but some are quite entertaining, albeit in different ways.
digi_owl 10y ago
As long as the developers didn't chunks up the ending with silly mechanics to draw out the experience, games can also have this effect.
pipio21 10y ago
When I was in Congo and experienced talking to the women that had been raped, the tortures, the children that had killed their parents or raped their sister at gunpoint and even being involved in a shooting, with bullets whistling over your head I entered into a psychological shock. I could not stop thinking: This can't be real, this can't be reality BUT IT IS reality. You start realizing really what the people experienced in WWII and how reality surpasses fiction, how terrible and how amazing life could be. I was an avid reader but it is one thing to read on the safety on your house and a completely different thing experiencing it in reality. I can't stand reading war novels now like War and peace because it really hurts me after experiencing some of it. And then you have this "living dangerous" thing in which you want more and more of this war experience, like going deeper in the jungle and talk with people in arms even when you are risking your life and a mistake means death. You watch things you don't want to remember but you want more and more for some stupid reason. VR will be a great tool for people learning but it could be dangerous with some things too.
randyrand 10y ago
What is the longest this effect has lasted on you?
kordless 10y ago
> I don't think this effect is specific to a medium. Your assertions are going to be wrong if the medium is the current reality around us. The question then becomes where does that line begin and end?
brilliantcode 10y ago
Yeah I was going to add that I get sad after a good book or tv show or film or video games but reading the article it seems to talk about a much more debilitating effects related to the increased immersion from VR. I think it warrants some closer study specifically because it reminds me of that scene from Inception, where people prefer their VR life over their own and end up like junkies in an opium den. If you look at how good computer graphics have gotten, it's no a far stretch to see where it will be in 20 years, 40 years. Suddenly, the are-we-in-a-simulation philosophical debate comes to mind.
- vanderZwan 10y ago
  Sounds like the HyperNormalisation[0] will only get worse [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM
mark_kalvelage 10y ago
"That’s what I love about this place, all the secrets, all the little things I never noticed even after all these years. You know why this beats the real world, Lawrence? Real world is just chaos. It’s an accident. But in here, every detail adds up to something."
- throwanem 10y ago
  For those of us who don't watch the show, what's the context here?
eriknstr 10y ago
>Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them. For whatever reason I've never heard anyone say this before but that's exactly the experience I had after I went and saw James Cameron's "Avatar" (2009) in 3D at the cinema back when it came out. I think I may have had that same feeling after finishing a couple of books as well -- probably after Catch-22 and after Cryptonomicon -- and likely some other movies too but Avatar is the one that I remember having had that feeling after. Anyway, thanks for making me aware that others have felt the same way about fiction. Of course, I don't believe that any of my feelings are unique in the way that nobody else has felt the same but I hope you get what I mean. Also, when I say that I remember the feeling, I don't mean mean to say that I still keep wishing I could travel to Pandora or interact with the blue catpeople -- the feeling itself faded within a few hours or days or something like that, but the memory of having had that feeling stuck with me :)

frankhorrigan 10y ago

Yeah, I tend to agree. I think you can probably toss this on the list of lessons that human beings seem completely incapable of learning (myself included). That escapism doesn't really work.

dv_dt 10y ago
I am more optimistic. Some people may react to those feelings by going and constructing some of that world in reality. Isn't that sort of the link between a whole range of SciFi/Comic books in the 50's and landing on the moon? And we can not only hope that the Star Trek economics of abundance comes about, but that it is made true through a combination of technology and new economic thought.

careersuicide 10y ago

A few years ago I started reading "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan. I had somehow timed it so that the week I finished the thirteenth book "Towers of Midnight" the fourteenth book "A Memory of Light" came out. I blew through the first chunk of the book and then got to a chapter that was over a hundred pages long, maybe even longer, Google says it was over fifty thousand words. It was the last battle, the moment the previous four million words had been leading up to. I read a few pages and then set it down. For six months. It was obvious the series was going to end in a way that was bittersweet (as all good stories end) but I just couldn't bear the thought of there being nothing left. By putting it down I was freezing the moment I had left it in time. When I returned to finish the book I felt that familiar sense of sadness. A period of my life (fourteen months!) was over. I'll probably re-read the books someday, but I know it won't be the same. I often get that feeling when I finish a work of fiction I enjoyed greatly. But there was something about "The Wheel of Time' that made it much more profound. Any medium that can tell a story that people find intense and immersive will produce that same feeling. Why would VR be any different?

scott_s 10y ago
I purposefully read both the last Harry Potter (which I assume everyone knows) and Lev Grossman's "The Magician's Land" (which I assume less people know) slow for that very reason.
- bbctol 10y ago
  Yeah, reading the Magician's Land took me longer than the previous two combined, because as much as I wanted to know what happened next, I also wanted to preserve that feeling of wanting to know what happens next.
Afforess 10y ago
Finishing "A Memory of Light" and the The Wheel of Time series left me in a funk that lasted a whole week. I sometimes regret finishing the series, I now know how it ends, so I can not go back and re-read the series for a 4th time.
- abakker 10y ago
  Audiobook the whole thing! Re-reading is hard, but taking the slow path with audiobooks is great. Personally, I've had some of the best memories of the books while listening to them while hiking. Especially for fantasy books, walking/adventuring while listening is great fun.
  - Ntrails 10y ago
    Re-reading is anything but hard. It's like slipping back into my 17 year old self, complete with breaks to jump around like an idiot because I'm so hyped and I need to expend a bit of this pent up energy before getting back to the whole reading thing.
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  At least there's fanfiction. It might not be ever up to snuff as the original author's work, but some are quite entertaining, albeit in different ways.

digi_owl 10y ago

As long as the developers didn't chunks up the ending with silly mechanics to draw out the experience, games can also have this effect.

pipio21 10y ago

When I was in Congo and experienced talking to the women that had been raped, the tortures, the children that had killed their parents or raped their sister at gunpoint and even being involved in a shooting, with bullets whistling over your head I entered into a psychological shock. I could not stop thinking: This can't be real, this can't be reality BUT IT IS reality. You start realizing really what the people experienced in WWII and how reality surpasses fiction, how terrible and how amazing life could be. I was an avid reader but it is one thing to read on the safety on your house and a completely different thing experiencing it in reality. I can't stand reading war novels now like War and peace because it really hurts me after experiencing some of it. And then you have this "living dangerous" thing in which you want more and more of this war experience, like going deeper in the jungle and talk with people in arms even when you are risking your life and a mistake means death. You watch things you don't want to remember but you want more and more for some stupid reason. VR will be a great tool for people learning but it could be dangerous with some things too.

randyrand 10y ago

What is the longest this effect has lasted on you?

kordless 10y ago

> I don't think this effect is specific to a medium. Your assertions are going to be wrong if the medium is the current reality around us. The question then becomes where does that line begin and end?

brilliantcode 10y ago

Yeah I was going to add that I get sad after a good book or tv show or film or video games but reading the article it seems to talk about a much more debilitating effects related to the increased immersion from VR. I think it warrants some closer study specifically because it reminds me of that scene from Inception, where people prefer their VR life over their own and end up like junkies in an opium den. If you look at how good computer graphics have gotten, it's no a far stretch to see where it will be in 20 years, 40 years. Suddenly, the are-we-in-a-simulation philosophical debate comes to mind.

vanderZwan 10y ago
Sounds like the HyperNormalisation[0] will only get worse [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM

mark_kalvelage 10y ago

"That’s what I love about this place, all the secrets, all the little things I never noticed even after all these years. You know why this beats the real world, Lawrence? Real world is just chaos. It’s an accident. But in here, every detail adds up to something."

throwanem 10y ago
For those of us who don't watch the show, what's the context here?

eriknstr 10y ago

>Finishing an amazing story, you feel a let down afterwords; the characters were not real and you can never interact with them. For whatever reason I've never heard anyone say this before but that's exactly the experience I had after I went and saw James Cameron's "Avatar" (2009) in 3D at the cinema back when it came out. I think I may have had that same feeling after finishing a couple of books as well -- probably after Catch-22 and after Cryptonomicon -- and likely some other movies too but Avatar is the one that I remember having had that feeling after. Anyway, thanks for making me aware that others have felt the same way about fiction. Of course, I don't believe that any of my feelings are unique in the way that nobody else has felt the same but I hope you get what I mean. Also, when I say that I remember the feeling, I don't mean mean to say that I still keep wishing I could travel to Pandora or interact with the blue catpeople -- the feeling itself faded within a few hours or days or something like that, but the memory of having had that feeling stuck with me :)