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Virtual Reality Can Leave You with an Existential Hangover

103 points by Fjolsvith 10y ago

wlesieutre 10y ago
The ad I got to the right of the article is a steel top straight out of Inception. Anyone else, or is that just a weird coincidence? http://i.imgur.com/0ao0aSQ.png http://i.imgur.com/0ao0aSQ.png > “I understood that the demo was over, but it was [as] if a lower level part of my mind couldn’t exactly be sure. It gave me a very weird existential dread of my entire situation, and the only way I could get rid of that feeling was to walk around or touch things around me.” > It seems that VR is making people ill in a way no one predicted. And as hard as it is to articulate the effects, it may prove even harder to identify its cause. Ok, I know Inception was technically about dreams and not "strap a screen on your face" VR, but really? "No one predicted"? I've only ever tried an Oculus DK1 and didn't experience anything like this, but I think they're stretching it to say nobody imagined that this could happen.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  The Matrix is literally this
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    At least the first movie seemed to make it pretty clear that there was the Real World, and The Matrix. The sequels did blur the line - Neo's abilities outside the Matrix seemed to hint that there was a higher level above ours.
    - bookbinder 10y ago
      Well if that was a hint, The Architect was practically screaming about multiple levels of The Matrix, but it was lost in his (intentionally?) verbose dialogue with Neo.
- aub3bhat 10y ago
  No its just the comapny behind those steel tops is advertising very heavily. I must have seen those ads like at least 100 times last few weeks.
- wcummings 10y ago
  The ad even says memorable, could be a savvy marketer content matching VR or some other phrase in the article.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  > Ok, I know Inception was technically about dreams and not "strap a screen on your face" VR, but really? "No one predicted"? ExistenZ predicted exactly this, except with more advanced technology. I don't know if the author of the article just didn't do much pop-culture research, or if ExistenZ just happened to slip by her radar - as I recall, it wasn't very well received (unfortunately!)
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    Oh right, I've seen that movie! Not nearly as memorable as Inception, but more technologically analogous.
    - jacobush 10y ago
      eXistenZ is better
  - apeconmyth 10y ago
    Here's the scene... https://youtu.be/-rdG7ug_icw?t=1m18s https://youtu.be/-rdG7ug_icw?t=1m18s eXistenZ is paused!
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      This reminds me of the time I was asleep and realized I was dreaming, and freaked out and wanted to wake up. Luckily, I did, and stayed awake for a few minutes before going back to sleep. The next morning, I remembered this and realized I had never actually woken up, I just dreamt I had woken up. Unsettling.
      - ajuc 10y ago
        I've had similar experience. Had a dream about my dead grandpa (at some point I realized he's dead and he turned into a zombie along with other people around - not very nice dream). Then I dreamt that I've woken up, I've seen the dormitory in which I really slept, went to open door cause somebody wa ringing, and it was the zombies :/, at which point I've woke up again, for real this time. My friend from the room said I've sat up on the bed and "looked at him" with closed eyes for like 5 minutes, before waking up. It might have sth to do with drinking like 2 liters of strong tea and studying for exam whole night and day before.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  > And as hard as it is to articulate the effects, it may prove even harder to identify its cause. How is this sensation any different from any other existensial crisis? There are many causes for that, widely discussed both in Western and Eastern Philosophy. E.g. Sartre's most known work, Being and Nothingness, is very much focused on this. Sartre's Nothingness is, despite what you might think, a positive force and ultimately what provides for our free will; it resembles somehow the tabula rasa of Aristotle, the mind being a clean slate. You can imagine anything you want, completely unconstrained. This is in sharp conflict with Being; as a human in the physical world you are bound by external constraints: time, money, family etc. Most people will deny the conflict, believing that the constraints of their Being are compatible with their Nothingness. Acknowledgement of the conflict provokes existential crisis. When we step into a VR world, we are brought away from the Being and closer to the true experience of Nothingness. We can literally experience anything, unconstrained. Thus when we return, we are forced to reconsider the Being, to reacknowledge its conflict with our inherent Nothingness. Accordingly, the difference between this crisis and the ones experienced after the end of any immersive escapist experience, be it cinema, books or even music, is at best a matter of degree.
  - extr 10y ago
    I'm struggling to find the exact passage, but in Thomas Metzinger's Being No One, he brings up a similar concept in regard to lucid dreaming. There we find ourselves with access to the full spectrum of experience that we are capable of mentally modeling without regard to what is physically possible. I found this concept interesting but it wasn't explored fully, thanks for linking it back to Sartre, perhaps I should read some of him next.
  - markatkinson 10y ago
    Unbelievable to stumble on this comment. I just started Being and Nothingness. It isn't an easy read but really fascinating and now I have more motivation to get through it as I also make VR games as a hobby.
- failrate 10y ago
  Well, you've been in the simulation so long that the only way we can safely bring you out is through subtle hints like that. I am kidding, of course, and those ads seem to be everywhere these days.
- blubb-fish 10y ago
  > The ad I got to the right of the article is a steel top straight out of Inception. Anyone else, or is that just a weird coincidence? Spooky - but it's just a targeted google ad. Somebody who reads about existential shenanigans will most likely have seen and enjoyed inception - and there's the top.
NikolaeVarius 10y ago
I don't understand. You don't even need to be using VR to experience things like this. It's a standard brain/body signal interpretation issue that is already the subject of alot of study. For example, the experiment where people seeing a fake arm in place of their real arm feeling whatever the fake arm "should" feel. Hell according to the wiki, it even lists a specific VR case study from 2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion#cite_note-slater2010-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion#cite_no...
partiallypro 10y ago
I would argue that movies can do this. I often walk out of a movie and the world outside seems surreal. With VR though, I'm so drawn out of it, rather than into it (like a film) that it more feels like I'm just playing with a toy. VR tech, at least to my eyes is just not there enough to draw me in. I can see the pixels and there's nothing interesting and non-gimmicky in the sphere.
hathawsh 10y ago
I've often wondered how other people deal with the questions of existence. What is real, after all? The only thing I feel certain of is that I exist in some form. "I think, therefore I am." I have no absolute certainty of anything else beyond that; I have to accept everything else with varying degrees of faith. I came to understand that years ago. It was agonizing at first, but I've come to terms with it. I learned that if I align myself with things that are probably true, I can be happy. Certainty is simply not required anymore. It seems to me that people who don't understand this principle (that almost nothing is certain) would be more prone to dissociative effects. As for myself, I find it hard to imagine VR would have any effect on my state of mind since I'm not convinced reality isn't VR anyway. :-)
- dsp1234 10y ago
  I've often wondered how other people deal with the questions of existence. What is real, after all? My dad had an old saying: "There's shit you can do shit about, and there's shit you can't do shit about". Definitely can't do anything about whether we are in VR right now, or whether or not we actually exist.
  - rjbwork 10y ago
    A philosophical mantra repeated many times throughout history in varying amounts of eloquence and simplicity - Stoics, Buddhists, X Anonymous type groups, Jews, and even freaking Mother Goose! I don't think it particularly bad advice myself.
  - azeirah 10y ago
    Yes we can, we can try to send a message to the creatures in higher levels of reality.
    - willismichael 10y ago
      I'll take the bait, people have been doing that for thousands of years and call it prayer.
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gallerdude 10y ago
I love how Cyberpunk our world is becoming.
- jbpetersen 10y ago
  Ditto
wrs 10y ago
A mild form of this happened to me after watching Tron -- the original -- which must have been one of the first opportunities to become immersed in (nearly) totally artificial visuals. I walked out of the theater into the parking lot, which had a Tron-like simplicity of geometry and bright color scheme, and had a disturbing feeling of unreality that lasted several minutes.
carlmcqueen 10y ago
A quick google search[1] about the movie Avatar showed in 2010 people couldn't go see Avatar without being unhappy with the world they had to live in here. Surprised this article gets a new flavor every year about what people feel they wish they had. [1] Mine was 'people experiencing loss after watching avatar'
- newswriter99 10y ago
  I remember reading about that. James Cameron's reply was something along the lines of "go walk in a forest" as though city people and urbanites have access to the beauty of real nature anymore. I mean, don't get me wrong there's all kinds of beauty to appreciate in a downtown metropolis. It just won't be raw.
  - linkregister 10y ago
    What metros in the U.S. don't offer the opportunity to go to a forest? SF: Muir Woods (available by bus), a dozen other forests by car. NYC: Liberty State park, Jersey City. Miami: Everglades, a 30 minute drive from Miami Beach in no traffic DC: Rock Creek Park Dallas: Roosevelt Park
- shostack 10y ago
  We're not far away from living in a storage room like Hiro Protagonist. For many people, the ability to "escape reality" like that might seem like an upgrade on life.
LastZactionHero 10y ago
I haven't used VR for long enough to have sadness, but a 15 minutes is enough for me to have a very subtle, vague confusion about what I can manipulate in real life. But I guess was a little disappointed that I had to drive home, since I flew home from space in Google Earth a few minutes prior.
harwluk 10y ago
Certainly this is not a new occurrence as a reaction to media of any kind. Some of my favorite novels have left me experiencing a similar melange of feelings and detachment from the real world (not to a severe extent by any means). Turning the last page has left me with the reminder that not only will I not ever be able to experience the world of the novel in a physical sense, but won't even be able experience the thrill and excitement of vicariously living the story of the characters through reading, not knowing what will happen next.
- electronvolt 10y ago
  Having experienced slight feelings of melange/detachment following novels, video games, and movies in the past, and having experienced what this article is describing: it's not quite the same feeling. With movies/novels/etc., I've always experienced what you're describing as something similar to a feeling of loss--the world you experienced or the story you were involved in or the characters you cared about will no longer be there as a new experience, no longer have new experiences as characters, etc. That 'world' is gone. With VR, even if I don't really miss the experience, I've experienced what I'd describe as a "readjustment" phase of between 10 minutes and a couple hours (depending on length of experience and how recently I'd been in VR) where the real world feels disconnected/less real. It's a much more intense and visceral feeling, and doesn't have the same undertone of 'loss' that movies/novels have. It isn't a "Man, I'm not actually a space pilot in the year 3000" feeling, or a "I'll never be able to experience that world again" feeling, it's more of a visceral disassociation from the real world, as though my senses don't feel like they can quite trust the inputs they're receiving anymore.
duckingtest 10y ago
I like depersonalization. Used to get it relatively often as a kid and teen, sadly very rarely now. Guess I'm going to buy a vr! It's like playing a rpg with 'your' body as an avatar. Which means there's (almost) nothing left except pure will. Very useful, can be used to make a character do things it wouldn't normally do and/or become much more efficient. Everything seems inherently pointless, may as well go with inertia of old goals. That's how I imagine the first transhumans to think, only with more than one body and hopefully truly independent (ie. mind uploading, distributed computing or something similar).
- mattbettinson 10y ago
  Weird you enjoy it. Depersonalization was a hellish experience for me.
  - duckingtest 10y ago
    Could you elaborate what was hellish about it?
    - mattbettinson 10y ago
      Imagine feeling like you're in a video game and can't step out of the unreality of existence. Everything that felt full feels distant, like you're watching someone else. I hated every moment of it, I'm very glad it's over.
unclebucknasty 10y ago
The San Junipero episode of Black Mirror nailed it--limiting people's time in VR to avoid "side effects". That show is just hauntingly prescient with its straddle between what's possible now and what's just-slightly-out-of-reach. Growing numbers of people preferring an alternative reality is scary to me. And the idea that it may cause a psychological break with reality for a significant number of people is even scarier--as if we need more people disassociated and thus capable of committing heinous or anti-social acts. Strange that we're just cruising into this with little alarm. Stranger still that we don't find any issue with a relatively small number of people literally jockeying to redefine reality for the masses for commercial gain. The times they are a changin'.
- andybak 10y ago
  > Stranger still that we don't find any issue with a relatively small number of people literally jockeying to redefine reality for the masses for commercial gain. That's unusually harsh. A lot of people involved in VR love it and want others to experience it. You make it sound like they are spreading a virus.
  - alasdair_ 10y ago
    >That's unusually harsh. A lot of people involved in VR love it and want others to experience it. You make it sound like they are spreading a virus. This is the entire plot of the novel "Snow Crash"
  - unclebucknasty 10y ago
    I don't think it's harsh at all, but I'm not quite sure which part raises an issue for you. If you're saying that they are motivated by their desire to "spread their love" much more than the economic benefit they seek, then why not do this in a non-profit fashion? But, I won't quibble with that point. I mean, I do think that the economic benefit sets up the potential to "taint" the benovolenct love fest, but my much bigger point is WRT the very idea that a relative few people would redefine reality for everyone else by any motivation. It's an incredible amount of power to hand over and I think it warrants caution. That they are seeking to profit from it simply underscores this point and adds an additional "Dystopian Future Sci-fi Creep Factor".
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anotherarray 10y ago
This is interestingly related to two psychiatric conditions named derealization and depersonalization: http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/derealization http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/derealization A friend that suffers from the condition could never really explain what it felt like. Then, he tried VR for the first time.
throwaway713 10y ago
I wonder if the more concrete and down to earth someone is, the more drastic this "non-reality" sensation feels. Despite all of its flaws, I wonder if S-types in the MBTI classification system would have a harder time than N-types; i.e., would an ISTJ feel weirder after being in VR than an INTJ?
failrate 10y ago
I don't think this is isolated to VR. The effects of playing conventional video games can lead to a similar syndrome (I never drive after playing driving games for this reason). There's even a psychological experiment where you can quickly convince someone's brain that a prosthetic is actually their arm. I assume that this effect is general to any situation where a person projects their identity into a nonperson.
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nsomaru 10y ago
For those interested in the nature of Reality and existence itself, and the possibility that our experience may in some way be illusory or "VR like," please allow me to suggest the Vedanta Treatise by A. Parthasarathy[0]. If you're going that route, read the last section of the book first and then come back to the first two sections (: Edit: interestingly, it seems the Wachowski brothers (sisters?) were inspired by the Vedanta (Upanishads), mantras of which may be heard chanted during key scenes such as the fight between Neo and Smith. Of course the grandeur of the philosophy in the Upanishads does not need the validation of a pop culture movie, but it's an interesting reference. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9381094160/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YW2A40F3J3PSEPR6N780 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9381094160/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_...
randyrand 10y ago
I've been in this hangover (vr induced DPDR) for over 5 months now. if you have any questions, AMA. Glad to see people are beginning to report on it more.
- tcoff91 10y ago
  How long after each session do you feel your state of mind altered?
  - randyrand 10y ago
    This is hard to answer, I've quit cold turkey since my DPDR developed 5 months ago. It hasn't gone away since then. It comes in waves. I just want to put this out there first: DPDR sucks. It's maybe the worst feeling I've ever felt. You feel completely alone. That your memories are not real. That you aren't the person you see in the mirror. At times even loved ones seem fake. It's scary. If you think you may be susceptible, stay away from VR. It's not worth it. I don't think VR is the main cause of it, but I also don't think it would have happened without it. I've been using VR for 3 years now on and off. Mostly off. About a year ago, after my longest VR session of ~1hr I felt DPDR for the first time and the effects of that lasted up to a few hours. Around 5 months ago DPDR was triggered, but I was not using VR when it was happened. I don't think it would have been triggered without VR, but these all played a large role too: 1. I moved to a completely new city for the first time. 1.5 years ago 2. my best from from my hometown visited me the weekend it was triggered. 5 months ago 3. a stressful night the moment it was triggered. 5 months ago. stress was the trigger. It's hard to say what role VR played. Clearly it was not the actual trigger. But I think it was large a part for a few reasons: 1. The feelings of DPDR after my trigger is essentially the same feelings as when it was temporarily induced from VR before the trigger 2. VR was my introduction to depersonalization. The first time I felt DP was from VR. 8 through 5 months ago. 3. I have never had anxiety problems or any mental health problems before. 4. ive been stressed plenty of times before =) I think VR should best be avoided for anyone that is may be susceptible to DPDR.
- tsunamifury 10y ago
  I'd suggest to you to consider that the VR is not the issue. DPDR is often an anxiety issue, one that you sometimes reach out to other events in your life to blame.
e1ghtSpace 10y ago
I've had the dream-like state happen to me. Right after I tried VR for a bit longer than 30 minutes it felt like all my senses were dulled. It was very weird.
- bemmu 10y ago
  I get this when walking out of a movie theater, less so from VR.
stimpak 10y ago
VR is never going to be capable of providing me with anything I actually want. I don't understand why people care about it. It sounds like Ultima Online, but with something close to Real Dolls™ maybe. I guess, just like cosplay and furries, there's a subculture that's ambivalent enough about their own combination of desperation for stimulus, to give it a try and find attachment and occupy themselves within this form of media...
pmyjavec 10y ago
I had my first experience with VR yesterday, maybe I'm differenent but I actually found it kind of boring, at first it was scary and exciting, but after about 10 minutes I just got sick of killing zombies and flying through the air. The fact it was a simulation was just too obvious for me. This can obviously change as the technology get's better but that's just how I felt. It was no doubt a cool / new experience but it felt like a gimimck. I did question reality a little bit on the way home etc, but that would surely be normal? I do remember feeling great taking off the goggles and thinking to myself how good it is to actually be alive and walking on the earth. I've heard others say the real world felt boring to them, but I felt the opposite. If I felt dread about anything, it was seeing my friends son running around the room while his playmate sat there watching him for hours on end and vice-versa. I felt a little sad that's how some kids are now spending holiday time together. I guess they're probably having fun but it did seem a little anti-social and unhealthy. Infact, I thought about it a lot today.
sprafa 10y ago
I mentioned this to John Carmack over twitter once. He ignored me, I was an early dk2 owner and was close to having panic attacks in the beggining. I later learned that it had partially triggered PTSD in me (it came from another cause entirely, a traumatic event in my past) and it took me months to get over it. This is all entirely down to personal subjective experience, but it was strange to see back then how I couldn't get any attention on the issue. I've met a few people who have had strong negative reactions of anxiety and dread after experiencing VR.
aigeek 10y ago
Denying something does not make it not real. What's not real is our perception of reality - the mental model. VR only helps us realize that this is the case because it completely fucks with that model. Now, the reality that we have an inaccurate model of is, imho, actually there, so there no need to worry - the problem is with you not with the reality (is that comforting?). Anyhow, I really don't want to see VR banned because some people find it hard to acknowledge bugs in their brains.
tluyben2 10y ago
I have had these feelings since I touched computers in the 80s and more so when 3d ish stuff started to become out in the 90s. I would walk to university with my best friend and we would try to describe the world in the form of 3d primitives with 'effects' (did not know shaders back then). Since I had the Oculus and recently the PSVR, we (that same friend recently moved to the tiny mountain village as I, 2500km from our home town) can see that soon (for many already, but some people are more sensitive to it than others, like said, I never even needed VR or fancy graphics to feel reality while playing) brains will find it impossible to find the difference between that and reality. Playing simple games on psvr for more than a few minutes, for me, is real; I can feel movement, I get scared of dropping of cliffs; in rush of blood, my brain adds wind and smell even. And I am not the only one; on my birthday a few days ago, I had complete computer illiterate people who never played games try and; one got ill straight away, two said it looked fake, but at least 4 ask how it was possible to feel movement and wind while sitting in a chair or feel like you might drop of an edge or feel real and actual dread while getting pulled deeper into the experience. That makes me see we are finally there (sure, if you are a gamesgeek you complain about framerate and resolution but that will improve rapidly now that there is money in it) and I know now what my next company is going to do. Edit; I also do see the kind of sadness some people describe after lsd/shrooms; the real world disappoints. It is literally going from something like Disneyworld straight to your own boring appartment the second you take off the helmet. Hell, new rides in theme parks are infested with VR; if you can have one of those robot chairs in your livingroom you actually have a modern themepark at home.

103 points by Fjolsvith 10y ago

The ad I got to the right of the article is a steel top straight out of Inception. Anyone else, or is that just a weird coincidence? http://i.imgur.com/0ao0aSQ.png http://i.imgur.com/0ao0aSQ.png > “I understood that the demo was over, but it was [as] if a lower level part of my mind couldn’t exactly be sure. It gave me a very weird existential dread of my entire situation, and the only way I could get rid of that feeling was to walk around or touch things around me.” > It seems that VR is making people ill in a way no one predicted. And as hard as it is to articulate the effects, it may prove even harder to identify its cause. Ok, I know Inception was technically about dreams and not "strap a screen on your face" VR, but really? "No one predicted"? I've only ever tried an Oculus DK1 and didn't experience anything like this, but I think they're stretching it to say nobody imagined that this could happen.

dsp1234 10y ago
The Matrix is literally this
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  At least the first movie seemed to make it pretty clear that there was the Real World, and The Matrix. The sequels did blur the line - Neo's abilities outside the Matrix seemed to hint that there was a higher level above ours.
  - bookbinder 10y ago
    Well if that was a hint, The Architect was practically screaming about multiple levels of The Matrix, but it was lost in his (intentionally?) verbose dialogue with Neo.
aub3bhat 10y ago
No its just the comapny behind those steel tops is advertising very heavily. I must have seen those ads like at least 100 times last few weeks.
wcummings 10y ago
The ad even says memorable, could be a savvy marketer content matching VR or some other phrase in the article.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
> Ok, I know Inception was technically about dreams and not "strap a screen on your face" VR, but really? "No one predicted"? ExistenZ predicted exactly this, except with more advanced technology. I don't know if the author of the article just didn't do much pop-culture research, or if ExistenZ just happened to slip by her radar - as I recall, it wasn't very well received (unfortunately!)
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  Oh right, I've seen that movie! Not nearly as memorable as Inception, but more technologically analogous.
  - jacobush 10y ago
    eXistenZ is better
- apeconmyth 10y ago
  Here's the scene... https://youtu.be/-rdG7ug_icw?t=1m18s https://youtu.be/-rdG7ug_icw?t=1m18s eXistenZ is paused!
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    This reminds me of the time I was asleep and realized I was dreaming, and freaked out and wanted to wake up. Luckily, I did, and stayed awake for a few minutes before going back to sleep. The next morning, I remembered this and realized I had never actually woken up, I just dreamt I had woken up. Unsettling.
    - ajuc 10y ago
      I've had similar experience. Had a dream about my dead grandpa (at some point I realized he's dead and he turned into a zombie along with other people around - not very nice dream). Then I dreamt that I've woken up, I've seen the dormitory in which I really slept, went to open door cause somebody wa ringing, and it was the zombies :/, at which point I've woke up again, for real this time. My friend from the room said I've sat up on the bed and "looked at him" with closed eyes for like 5 minutes, before waking up. It might have sth to do with drinking like 2 liters of strong tea and studying for exam whole night and day before.
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
> And as hard as it is to articulate the effects, it may prove even harder to identify its cause. How is this sensation any different from any other existensial crisis? There are many causes for that, widely discussed both in Western and Eastern Philosophy. E.g. Sartre's most known work, Being and Nothingness, is very much focused on this. Sartre's Nothingness is, despite what you might think, a positive force and ultimately what provides for our free will; it resembles somehow the tabula rasa of Aristotle, the mind being a clean slate. You can imagine anything you want, completely unconstrained. This is in sharp conflict with Being; as a human in the physical world you are bound by external constraints: time, money, family etc. Most people will deny the conflict, believing that the constraints of their Being are compatible with their Nothingness. Acknowledgement of the conflict provokes existential crisis. When we step into a VR world, we are brought away from the Being and closer to the true experience of Nothingness. We can literally experience anything, unconstrained. Thus when we return, we are forced to reconsider the Being, to reacknowledge its conflict with our inherent Nothingness. Accordingly, the difference between this crisis and the ones experienced after the end of any immersive escapist experience, be it cinema, books or even music, is at best a matter of degree.
- extr 10y ago
  I'm struggling to find the exact passage, but in Thomas Metzinger's Being No One, he brings up a similar concept in regard to lucid dreaming. There we find ourselves with access to the full spectrum of experience that we are capable of mentally modeling without regard to what is physically possible. I found this concept interesting but it wasn't explored fully, thanks for linking it back to Sartre, perhaps I should read some of him next.
- markatkinson 10y ago
  Unbelievable to stumble on this comment. I just started Being and Nothingness. It isn't an easy read but really fascinating and now I have more motivation to get through it as I also make VR games as a hobby.
failrate 10y ago
Well, you've been in the simulation so long that the only way we can safely bring you out is through subtle hints like that. I am kidding, of course, and those ads seem to be everywhere these days.
blubb-fish 10y ago
> The ad I got to the right of the article is a steel top straight out of Inception. Anyone else, or is that just a weird coincidence? Spooky - but it's just a targeted google ad. Somebody who reads about existential shenanigans will most likely have seen and enjoyed inception - and there's the top.

NikolaeVarius 10y ago

I don't understand. You don't even need to be using VR to experience things like this. It's a standard brain/body signal interpretation issue that is already the subject of alot of study. For example, the experiment where people seeing a fake arm in place of their real arm feeling whatever the fake arm "should" feel. Hell according to the wiki, it even lists a specific VR case study from 2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion#cite_note-slater2010-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion#cite_no...

partiallypro 10y ago

I would argue that movies can do this. I often walk out of a movie and the world outside seems surreal. With VR though, I'm so drawn out of it, rather than into it (like a film) that it more feels like I'm just playing with a toy. VR tech, at least to my eyes is just not there enough to draw me in. I can see the pixels and there's nothing interesting and non-gimmicky in the sphere.

hathawsh 10y ago

I've often wondered how other people deal with the questions of existence. What is real, after all? The only thing I feel certain of is that I exist in some form. "I think, therefore I am." I have no absolute certainty of anything else beyond that; I have to accept everything else with varying degrees of faith. I came to understand that years ago. It was agonizing at first, but I've come to terms with it. I learned that if I align myself with things that are probably true, I can be happy. Certainty is simply not required anymore. It seems to me that people who don't understand this principle (that almost nothing is certain) would be more prone to dissociative effects. As for myself, I find it hard to imagine VR would have any effect on my state of mind since I'm not convinced reality isn't VR anyway. :-)

dsp1234 10y ago
I've often wondered how other people deal with the questions of existence. What is real, after all? My dad had an old saying: "There's shit you can do shit about, and there's shit you can't do shit about". Definitely can't do anything about whether we are in VR right now, or whether or not we actually exist.
- rjbwork 10y ago
  A philosophical mantra repeated many times throughout history in varying amounts of eloquence and simplicity - Stoics, Buddhists, X Anonymous type groups, Jews, and even freaking Mother Goose! I don't think it particularly bad advice myself.
- azeirah 10y ago
  Yes we can, we can try to send a message to the creatures in higher levels of reality.
  - willismichael 10y ago
    I'll take the bait, people have been doing that for thousands of years and call it prayer.

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gallerdude 10y ago

I love how Cyberpunk our world is becoming.

jbpetersen 10y ago
Ditto

wrs 10y ago

A mild form of this happened to me after watching Tron -- the original -- which must have been one of the first opportunities to become immersed in (nearly) totally artificial visuals. I walked out of the theater into the parking lot, which had a Tron-like simplicity of geometry and bright color scheme, and had a disturbing feeling of unreality that lasted several minutes.

carlmcqueen 10y ago

A quick google search[1] about the movie Avatar showed in 2010 people couldn't go see Avatar without being unhappy with the world they had to live in here. Surprised this article gets a new flavor every year about what people feel they wish they had. [1] Mine was 'people experiencing loss after watching avatar'

newswriter99 10y ago
I remember reading about that. James Cameron's reply was something along the lines of "go walk in a forest" as though city people and urbanites have access to the beauty of real nature anymore. I mean, don't get me wrong there's all kinds of beauty to appreciate in a downtown metropolis. It just won't be raw.
- linkregister 10y ago
  What metros in the U.S. don't offer the opportunity to go to a forest? SF: Muir Woods (available by bus), a dozen other forests by car. NYC: Liberty State park, Jersey City. Miami: Everglades, a 30 minute drive from Miami Beach in no traffic DC: Rock Creek Park Dallas: Roosevelt Park
shostack 10y ago
We're not far away from living in a storage room like Hiro Protagonist. For many people, the ability to "escape reality" like that might seem like an upgrade on life.

LastZactionHero 10y ago

I haven't used VR for long enough to have sadness, but a 15 minutes is enough for me to have a very subtle, vague confusion about what I can manipulate in real life. But I guess was a little disappointed that I had to drive home, since I flew home from space in Google Earth a few minutes prior.

harwluk 10y ago

Certainly this is not a new occurrence as a reaction to media of any kind. Some of my favorite novels have left me experiencing a similar melange of feelings and detachment from the real world (not to a severe extent by any means). Turning the last page has left me with the reminder that not only will I not ever be able to experience the world of the novel in a physical sense, but won't even be able experience the thrill and excitement of vicariously living the story of the characters through reading, not knowing what will happen next.

electronvolt 10y ago
Having experienced slight feelings of melange/detachment following novels, video games, and movies in the past, and having experienced what this article is describing: it's not quite the same feeling. With movies/novels/etc., I've always experienced what you're describing as something similar to a feeling of loss--the world you experienced or the story you were involved in or the characters you cared about will no longer be there as a new experience, no longer have new experiences as characters, etc. That 'world' is gone. With VR, even if I don't really miss the experience, I've experienced what I'd describe as a "readjustment" phase of between 10 minutes and a couple hours (depending on length of experience and how recently I'd been in VR) where the real world feels disconnected/less real. It's a much more intense and visceral feeling, and doesn't have the same undertone of 'loss' that movies/novels have. It isn't a "Man, I'm not actually a space pilot in the year 3000" feeling, or a "I'll never be able to experience that world again" feeling, it's more of a visceral disassociation from the real world, as though my senses don't feel like they can quite trust the inputs they're receiving anymore.

duckingtest 10y ago

I like depersonalization. Used to get it relatively often as a kid and teen, sadly very rarely now. Guess I'm going to buy a vr! It's like playing a rpg with 'your' body as an avatar. Which means there's (almost) nothing left except pure will. Very useful, can be used to make a character do things it wouldn't normally do and/or become much more efficient. Everything seems inherently pointless, may as well go with inertia of old goals. That's how I imagine the first transhumans to think, only with more than one body and hopefully truly independent (ie. mind uploading, distributed computing or something similar).

mattbettinson 10y ago
Weird you enjoy it. Depersonalization was a hellish experience for me.
- duckingtest 10y ago
  Could you elaborate what was hellish about it?
  - mattbettinson 10y ago
    Imagine feeling like you're in a video game and can't step out of the unreality of existence. Everything that felt full feels distant, like you're watching someone else. I hated every moment of it, I'm very glad it's over.

unclebucknasty 10y ago

The San Junipero episode of Black Mirror nailed it--limiting people's time in VR to avoid "side effects". That show is just hauntingly prescient with its straddle between what's possible now and what's just-slightly-out-of-reach. Growing numbers of people preferring an alternative reality is scary to me. And the idea that it may cause a psychological break with reality for a significant number of people is even scarier--as if we need more people disassociated and thus capable of committing heinous or anti-social acts. Strange that we're just cruising into this with little alarm. Stranger still that we don't find any issue with a relatively small number of people literally jockeying to redefine reality for the masses for commercial gain. The times they are a changin'.

andybak 10y ago
> Stranger still that we don't find any issue with a relatively small number of people literally jockeying to redefine reality for the masses for commercial gain. That's unusually harsh. A lot of people involved in VR love it and want others to experience it. You make it sound like they are spreading a virus.
- alasdair_ 10y ago
  >That's unusually harsh. A lot of people involved in VR love it and want others to experience it. You make it sound like they are spreading a virus. This is the entire plot of the novel "Snow Crash"
- unclebucknasty 10y ago
  I don't think it's harsh at all, but I'm not quite sure which part raises an issue for you. If you're saying that they are motivated by their desire to "spread their love" much more than the economic benefit they seek, then why not do this in a non-profit fashion? But, I won't quibble with that point. I mean, I do think that the economic benefit sets up the potential to "taint" the benovolenct love fest, but my much bigger point is WRT the very idea that a relative few people would redefine reality for everyone else by any motivation. It's an incredible amount of power to hand over and I think it warrants caution. That they are seeking to profit from it simply underscores this point and adds an additional "Dystopian Future Sci-fi Creep Factor".

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anotherarray 10y ago

This is interestingly related to two psychiatric conditions named derealization and depersonalization: http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/derealization http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/symptoms/derealization A friend that suffers from the condition could never really explain what it felt like. Then, he tried VR for the first time.

throwaway713 10y ago

I wonder if the more concrete and down to earth someone is, the more drastic this "non-reality" sensation feels. Despite all of its flaws, I wonder if S-types in the MBTI classification system would have a harder time than N-types; i.e., would an ISTJ feel weirder after being in VR than an INTJ?

failrate 10y ago

I don't think this is isolated to VR. The effects of playing conventional video games can lead to a similar syndrome (I never drive after playing driving games for this reason). There's even a psychological experiment where you can quickly convince someone's brain that a prosthetic is actually their arm. I assume that this effect is general to any situation where a person projects their identity into a nonperson.

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nsomaru 10y ago

For those interested in the nature of Reality and existence itself, and the possibility that our experience may in some way be illusory or "VR like," please allow me to suggest the Vedanta Treatise by A. Parthasarathy[0]. If you're going that route, read the last section of the book first and then come back to the first two sections (: Edit: interestingly, it seems the Wachowski brothers (sisters?) were inspired by the Vedanta (Upanishads), mantras of which may be heard chanted during key scenes such as the fight between Neo and Smith. Of course the grandeur of the philosophy in the Upanishads does not need the validation of a pop culture movie, but it's an interesting reference. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9381094160/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YW2A40F3J3PSEPR6N780 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9381094160/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_...

randyrand 10y ago

I've been in this hangover (vr induced DPDR) for over 5 months now. if you have any questions, AMA. Glad to see people are beginning to report on it more.

tcoff91 10y ago
How long after each session do you feel your state of mind altered?
- randyrand 10y ago
  This is hard to answer, I've quit cold turkey since my DPDR developed 5 months ago. It hasn't gone away since then. It comes in waves. I just want to put this out there first: DPDR sucks. It's maybe the worst feeling I've ever felt. You feel completely alone. That your memories are not real. That you aren't the person you see in the mirror. At times even loved ones seem fake. It's scary. If you think you may be susceptible, stay away from VR. It's not worth it. I don't think VR is the main cause of it, but I also don't think it would have happened without it. I've been using VR for 3 years now on and off. Mostly off. About a year ago, after my longest VR session of ~1hr I felt DPDR for the first time and the effects of that lasted up to a few hours. Around 5 months ago DPDR was triggered, but I was not using VR when it was happened. I don't think it would have been triggered without VR, but these all played a large role too: 1. I moved to a completely new city for the first time. 1.5 years ago 2. my best from from my hometown visited me the weekend it was triggered. 5 months ago 3. a stressful night the moment it was triggered. 5 months ago. stress was the trigger. It's hard to say what role VR played. Clearly it was not the actual trigger. But I think it was large a part for a few reasons: 1. The feelings of DPDR after my trigger is essentially the same feelings as when it was temporarily induced from VR before the trigger 2. VR was my introduction to depersonalization. The first time I felt DP was from VR. 8 through 5 months ago. 3. I have never had anxiety problems or any mental health problems before. 4. ive been stressed plenty of times before =) I think VR should best be avoided for anyone that is may be susceptible to DPDR.
tsunamifury 10y ago
I'd suggest to you to consider that the VR is not the issue. DPDR is often an anxiety issue, one that you sometimes reach out to other events in your life to blame.

e1ghtSpace 10y ago

I've had the dream-like state happen to me. Right after I tried VR for a bit longer than 30 minutes it felt like all my senses were dulled. It was very weird.

bemmu 10y ago
I get this when walking out of a movie theater, less so from VR.

stimpak 10y ago

VR is never going to be capable of providing me with anything I actually want. I don't understand why people care about it. It sounds like Ultima Online, but with something close to Real Dolls™ maybe. I guess, just like cosplay and furries, there's a subculture that's ambivalent enough about their own combination of desperation for stimulus, to give it a try and find attachment and occupy themselves within this form of media...

pmyjavec 10y ago

I had my first experience with VR yesterday, maybe I'm differenent but I actually found it kind of boring, at first it was scary and exciting, but after about 10 minutes I just got sick of killing zombies and flying through the air. The fact it was a simulation was just too obvious for me. This can obviously change as the technology get's better but that's just how I felt. It was no doubt a cool / new experience but it felt like a gimimck. I did question reality a little bit on the way home etc, but that would surely be normal? I do remember feeling great taking off the goggles and thinking to myself how good it is to actually be alive and walking on the earth. I've heard others say the real world felt boring to them, but I felt the opposite. If I felt dread about anything, it was seeing my friends son running around the room while his playmate sat there watching him for hours on end and vice-versa. I felt a little sad that's how some kids are now spending holiday time together. I guess they're probably having fun but it did seem a little anti-social and unhealthy. Infact, I thought about it a lot today.

sprafa 10y ago

I mentioned this to John Carmack over twitter once. He ignored me, I was an early dk2 owner and was close to having panic attacks in the beggining. I later learned that it had partially triggered PTSD in me (it came from another cause entirely, a traumatic event in my past) and it took me months to get over it. This is all entirely down to personal subjective experience, but it was strange to see back then how I couldn't get any attention on the issue. I've met a few people who have had strong negative reactions of anxiety and dread after experiencing VR.

aigeek 10y ago

Denying something does not make it not real. What's not real is our perception of reality - the mental model. VR only helps us realize that this is the case because it completely fucks with that model. Now, the reality that we have an inaccurate model of is, imho, actually there, so there no need to worry - the problem is with you not with the reality (is that comforting?). Anyhow, I really don't want to see VR banned because some people find it hard to acknowledge bugs in their brains.

tluyben2 10y ago

I have had these feelings since I touched computers in the 80s and more so when 3d ish stuff started to become out in the 90s. I would walk to university with my best friend and we would try to describe the world in the form of 3d primitives with 'effects' (did not know shaders back then). Since I had the Oculus and recently the PSVR, we (that same friend recently moved to the tiny mountain village as I, 2500km from our home town) can see that soon (for many already, but some people are more sensitive to it than others, like said, I never even needed VR or fancy graphics to feel reality while playing) brains will find it impossible to find the difference between that and reality. Playing simple games on psvr for more than a few minutes, for me, is real; I can feel movement, I get scared of dropping of cliffs; in rush of blood, my brain adds wind and smell even. And I am not the only one; on my birthday a few days ago, I had complete computer illiterate people who never played games try and; one got ill straight away, two said it looked fake, but at least 4 ask how it was possible to feel movement and wind while sitting in a chair or feel like you might drop of an edge or feel real and actual dread while getting pulled deeper into the experience. That makes me see we are finally there (sure, if you are a gamesgeek you complain about framerate and resolution but that will improve rapidly now that there is money in it) and I know now what my next company is going to do. Edit; I also do see the kind of sadness some people describe after lsd/shrooms; the real world disappoints. It is literally going from something like Disneyworld straight to your own boring appartment the second you take off the helmet. Hell, new rides in theme parks are infested with VR; if you can have one of those robot chairs in your livingroom you actually have a modern themepark at home.