
Post Virtual Reality Sadness - prostoalex
https://medium.com/desk-of-van-schneider/the-post-virtual-reality-sadness-fb4a1ccacae4
======
Afforess
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.

~~~
careersuicide
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?

~~~
relyio
I felt the same way the day I went to check the results of the french
baccalaureate at my high-school. A warm summer day surrounded with friends,
acquaintances, and other people I went to school with every day for years.
There was joy, sadness sometimes and an overwhelming feeling of excitement
about what the future holds. We were laughing together, drinking already, lots
of discussions. Everyone was here.

I remember everything, every single detail, from the bitter smoke of the
cigarettes to the sweet smell of drying leaves. That's all very vivid. And I
can recall that incredible feeling of solitude. In fact, the certitude that
_this_ was over. That from now on, I would only ever be able to look back on
this period of my life.

Honestly, this was a strange experience. I had the feeling to be extremely
old, on a death bed and looking back to the life I had. When in fact, reality
could not have been further removed from that setting. I was barely 18 years
old, and about to start a whole new life in North-America.

You know there is something incredible about the carelessness of one's youth.
Of course, to appreciate it fully you would need to be aware of it. That, in
fact, would kind of weaken that very state of mind now that I think about it.

Plus France is such a wonderful country to grew-up in. I know it might sound
ridiculous, but at 21 years old, I already feel a little bit like my best
years are behind me. Or rather, that the warmth and happiness I have
experienced will remain unmatched from now on. It's hard to think about the
gardens of Paris or the Cathédrale de Reims' parvis in the summer without a
heavy heart. They were my companions for nearly two decades, and years later I
still don't want to say goodbye...

I guess that's the cost of happiness

~~~
tajen
It's incredible that we haven't found a way to reproduce the social warmth of
a school class. After that period where you're constantly surrounded with a
group of 30+ potential friends with a 1-year cycle, everyone goes their way
and never socializes that much again. They may build families, assume CEO
positions or head for humanitarian causes, I personally flatshared for 14
years after high school, but we tend to surround ourselves with likeminded
people (due to the network in which we meet those people) and we barely ever
meet the variety and intensity of high school relationships. And society has
never built anything similar to high schools for grown-ups.

That said, high school also had its social games. Most people recall having
been bullied or excluded at one point or another during scolarity.

And yes, you're an excellent writer ;)

~~~
relyio
Thank you for the kind words! For what it's worth, I have considered joining
my country's reserve army. It's only a few weeks of commitment per year (and a
couple months of basic training). Friends of mine have already joined, they
almost unanimously enjoy it a lot. You get to meet people from all walks of
life that often share little else than the desire to serve. That aspect has
also been of the major reasons re-instituting mandatory military draft for a
few months to a year is highly popular in France. Conscription has been said
to tear down social barriers between classes and reinforce a common sense of
civic duty. Whether this is true or not, I don't know. That's an old idea that
has massive support in the french society.

And even those who dislike the idea of having a trained conscript army in
addition to regular troops have their own version of conscription. The overall
tone is the same, only the military context is replaced with community work.

Either way, it is hard to imagine the shape and form of such organization
because of the sheer scale at which it has to operate to be even remotely
efficient. I agree with what you said about college. You meet people, lots of
people, and in fact lots of similar people. There is relatively little space
for the kind of variance you see in high-school when the members of the
community are filtered by their performance on a standardized test anyway.-

------
hprotagonist
I don't know that this is VR-specific.

I remember feeling like this after:

\- Playing with MS Paint on Windows 3.1 for hours on end until my eyes burned
when i was 8.

\- Inhaling Lord of the Rings in about a week when i was 10.

\- Playing Ocarina of Time for 12 hours a day as a young teen.

\- Playing WoW in 100-hour weeks as an undergrad on summer break.

~~~
Kurimo
Agreed. This whole phenomenon was reported on widely after "Avatar" came out.
News anchors gleefully reporting that people left the theater feeling
depressed their world wasn't as fantastic as Avatar. More of "the kids aren't
alright!" reporting they love to do to scare parents and elderly folks.

My solution: Move out of the big cities. I live in a small town in the
countryside and my world is that fantastic.

~~~
harryf
> More of "the kids aren't alright!" reporting they love to do to scare
> parents and elderly folks.

Sadly this is one of those topics, like violence in video games, where we
don't get beyond this cycle of "accuse and deny". Which is a shame because IMO
there are really important topics here we need to address collectively such as
how this connects to addiction
[http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html)

The "data point" I've been able to confirm with other parents of small kids
(under 10) is there is a connection between extended periods of computer-aided
escapism and aggression.

The experiment you can try with most kids is give them a smartphone or iPad
for 1-2 hours then take it away again with minimal warning but without using
force. Once you've recovered the device, the next 15-30 minutes will typically
involve aggressive behaviour; shouting, physical aggression towards siblings,
demands to have the device back and something not unlike Gollum desiring his
Precious.

Based on my own experiences, adults can exhibit similar behaviour but extremes
are dampened by conditioning, so harder to detect e.g it manifests itself in
different ways e.g. sadness or depression instead of aggression.

My hypothesis for this is something like 'For every 15 minutes given to a
medium capable of 'fully absorbing' human attention (books, computer games
VR), 5 minutes of "unconscious recovery time" will be required to re-align the
attention to the current "real" reality, during which subjects may display
behaviour such as aggression, sadness or general distractedness / fidgeting'

This ratio of 15 to 5 might be different depending on the medium e.g. VR might
have a more accentuated ratio than reading a book.

Why this is so I can't say for sure, but it's something like a tax on time
spent existing in a disconnected reality vs. the "real reality" our bodies
live in.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The experiment you can try with most kids is give them a smartphone or iPad
> for 1-2 hours then take it away again with minimal warning but without using
> force. Once you 've recovered the device, the next 15-30 minutes will
> typically involve aggressive behaviour; shouting, physical aggression
> towards siblings, demands to have the device back and something not unlike
> Gollum desiring his Precious._

Try the same with a book they show interest in, and you'll get the same
behaviour. But nobody does that with a book because it's ridiculous, right?
But so it is ridiculous to do that with an iPad or a personal computer! I'd
say it's a pretty normal reaction of someone who was concentrated and fully
engaged in an action, only to be unexpectedly and forcibly interrupred.

------
manachar
Sometimes I wonder if VR is building Plato's Cave or revealing more of the way
out of it.

The more we learn about humans the more its clear our narratives and "real
world" are at least partial figments of our imagination. We remember
narratives that we choose to and ignore evidence to the contrary.

VR could help reveal this for people (somewhat the same as is claimed for
hallucinogens). It could also allow us to increasingly choose to build fully
artificial realities. Who wouldn't choose to be a god?

Interestingly, I find this somewhat similar to looking at landscape
photography that people enjoy - especially from vacation destinations. Almost
every picture now has more dynamic range, edge contrast, contrast, and
saturation than the human eye experiences. This means people get to amazing
places but are disappointed when reality doesn't match the photo. Then they
use various apps on their smartphone to try to take a picture that matches the
fantasy (often by erasing any of the local context or culture).

~~~
drzaiusapelord
> It could also allow us to increasingly choose to build fully artificial
> realities.

Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious
technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing
power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these
predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their
super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of
people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful,
they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated
people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently
fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy
of mind is correct). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds
like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by
the advanced descendants of an original race. It is then possible to argue
that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely
among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones.
Therefore, if we don’t think that we are currently living in a computer
simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who
will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.

    
    
        — Nick Bostrom, Are you living in a computer simulation?, 2003

~~~
lomnakkus
> [...] predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in
> the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct.

This bit is seems little bit strange to me in that it's actually not necessary
at all[1]... a simulation runs on its "own timescale", i.e. it doesn't
actually matter how fast/slowly the simulator runs -- the simulation still
experiences time advancing at the proverbial dt/dt. This paragraph just seems
to be scaremongering to the effect of "it'll happen soon because new
processors!"

Regardless: If we're living in a simulation of such fidelity it doesn't really
matter if it's "really real" or a simulation; our lives will still start and
end inside the simulation. (And I daresay this whole thing is just a trivial
rehashing of solipsism with an added tinge of technophilia. I really wish
physicists had more interaction with philosophers.)

[1] I _could_ imagine an argument for positing that e.g. Quantum Computing
would be necessary, but the "enormous amounts of computing power" phrasing is
_incredibly_ vague, so who knows what the actual premise is?

EDIT: Trim pointless "who said what" bit.

~~~
inimino
The argument is that you are likely to be in a simulation, because most minds
will be simulated minds. The precondition of most minds being simulated is
massive computing power. If we can run a simulation but it requires half the
world's computational resources and simulates one second per century of real
time, then obviously most minds (and most moments of lived experience) would
not be simulated.

~~~
lomnakkus
> The precondition of most minds being simulated is massive computing power.

How so? I'm _still_ not following the logic here. AFACS it does not matter how
fast anything runs -- a simulation always proceeds a tick at a time. The
simulated reality cannot (almost by definition) observe time at a smaller time
scale.

~~~
inimino
The key point is _most_ minds.

The argument is that as a conscious being, your prior expectation of "where
you are" should be a uniform distribution over all conscious beings. So the
idea that you are "probably" in a simulation relies on the assumption that
there will be more conscious beings inside simulations than in the top-level
"real" universe.

~~~
lomnakkus
> So the idea that you are "probably" in a simulation relies on the assumption
> that there will be more conscious beings inside simulations than in the top-
> level "real" universe.

I mean I can sort-of-see-it if this is the _assumption_ , but the assumption
itself seems quite circular to me.

EDIT: I also don't understand how this is connected to my point about speed-
of-simulation, but...

------
gerbilly
I have two feelings about this:

1) It reminds me of the quote:

“Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend.”

― William Feather

2) What is the author doing in actual reality that makes it so pale compared
to VR?

It's interesting that the first example brought up is about interacting with a
phone.

For god's sake man! Play a sport, have sex, go for a walk and smell the
leaves, go for a swim in the ocean. Sweat, strain, climb and explore. Be an
_animal_ because that's what we are!

Go and get barrelled on a wave in the ocean and then come back and tell me
that VR is better. :-)

~~~
radiorental
> 2) What is the author doing in actual reality that makes it so pale compared
> to VR?

I don't think it's that straight forward. I have a pretty fine damn time irl
[http://www.pauric.net/blog/?p=22](http://www.pauric.net/blog/?p=22)

I've played a few of the leading titles on PSVR but then hit upon this simple
puzzle game that has burrowed into my mind. I can't wait to get back to it, I
lose hours to this game

[https://youtu.be/YoxJFkFzu98?t=1h56m49s](https://youtu.be/YoxJFkFzu98?t=1h56m49s)

It scratches an itch that is hard to find in the real world (I do enjoy
packing our cases up for vacation though).

I think it's something about the immersion, pulling on your focus so hard that
you loose yourself, like a good book.

VR is all the things you compare it to (wrt pulling focus) except it's on tap.

------
nugget
People talk a lot about futuristic sex robots but what about VR experiences
that are not only physical but deeply emotional - wherein you experience
seduction and actually fall in love? Think about riding in a weeks long 18
hour a day RPG crusade with a Milla Jovovich lookalike Joan of Arc who, in
between battles, is irreparably infatuated with you. The tech needed to
achieve this level of total immersion may yet be decades away but once it
arrives it's scary to imagine - love, not sex, being the real emotional
Achilles tendon of the human experience.

~~~
greggman
Putting 3d models of people in VR is easy. Getting them to do anything
interesting and not just be a few scripted things is much harder and very far
from a solved problem.

Maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe all you need is the character to look you in
the eyes. But I suspect most people would need more. Someone you can actually
talk to. Not just pick multiple choice responses

~~~
794CD01
So part of the product can involve hiring a random human to play the part of
the love interest, with the VR putting an attractive face and voice on their
actions. Heck, that person can even be another customer getting the exact same
thing out of you, chosen because your google/facebook profile suggests your
personalities are sufficiently compatible.

~~~
noonespecial
This comment, and its parent, makes me quite sure that prostitution in the
future is going to be _weird_.

------
jonstokes
The few times I've tried VR I've had post-VR sadness, but mine was sadness
because it totally failed to live up to the hype. I could see the pixels, for
one, so I never forgot I was in VR. And the other thing is, as "magical" as
those experiences are, they just don't measure up to real life. I've played
virtual instruments and games and visited a VR villa and so on, but none of it
was as magical as watching my kids do pretty much anything on a regular basis.
I dunno, though, maybe I haven't tried the right thing in VR.

~~~
mattmanser
It's not that kids playing are engrossing or amazing or anything. Go watch
someone else's kid play for six hours. You're obviously not going to get the
same high, it's pretty boring, pretty quickly. A small amount of people will
enjoy it.

Some chemical's going off in your brain, saying "WOW, my kids are AMAZING".
It's a delusion that helps the human race carry on. How can you compete with a
nature built in drug?

What you going to do for kicks in 10 years time when your kids are teenagers?
The allure will have rubbed off by then.

------
wincy
This is very interesting to read. I personally had an experience that
increased my anxiety by using the video app Whirligig. It has a cinema mode
that puts you in a room, but off to the left there's just a dark, open space.
After reading House of Leaves I found myself really creeped out by the dark,
open void that existed to my left, and found that feeling followed me for
several hours after leaving virtual reality. It seems like in VR it's very
important to have control of your surroundings, because a game/app developer
could easily cause trauma or scare people who aren't expecting it. The
immersion and its effect on your subconscious is really shocking to people who
haven't tried it.

~~~
pault
Hah, I just finished House of Leaves based on a recommendation from a friend,
and I totally understand. I didn't really enjoy the book, but it was so
pervasively creepy I had a hard time reading it, and often felt extremely
uncomfortable at home alone after a reading session.

------
drzaiusapelord
Day 1 Vive owner here. This sounds pretty uncharacteristic of the experience
and I guess this person has some psychological issues or is overplaying the VR
experience for ad impressions. I read /r/vive religiously and no one seems to
have this issue. Yes there's sometimes a "I wish I was playing now" but I've
had that all my life and frankly it was 100x worse when I was playing MMOs or
competitive shooters. This feeling isn't any different than the classic "I
wish I was fishing" sentiment. We simply crave relaxing and rewarding
experiences.

The only legitimate symptom I've heard of is some people, myself included, get
VR dreams in the beginning, but they quickly go away. This has led me to the
idea of making a VR lucid dreamer trainer considering dreams and VR
environments have so much in common, but thus far not a lot of traction on my
part especially in regards what game mechanics would help you achieve lucid
dreams.

That said, I find most of the experiences fairly milquetoast with rare "Wow"
moments which cannot be relived again. Unlike a typical skinner-box game, you
really can't get wow'd over and over, but man, those initial wow's are
incredible. I just flew in Freedom 7 in Alan Shepard's shoes last night in the
beta for 'Go For Launch.' This had the real controls and the real audio in the
mission. I didn't exactly weep, but it did affect me strongly on am emotional
level, especially when I thought someone should ask Shepard to try this and
tell us how realistic it is only to remember he passed away a while ago. I've
been at work all day and haven't wished to be back in the capsule and I know
if I do it again, it'll lose 90% of the magic. I may not ever play that
mission again to be honest.

Savor the moments, guys. Don't pine to be constantly re-living the same stuff
over and over in VR. It'll disappoint you in the end. VR is special in a way,
but its not magical. It follows the same rules all other entertainment does.
If you're finding yourself addicted then you've got a personal addiction
issue. Its not the medium, its you. You probably need help at this point. Ask
any ex-WoW addict how bad it can be and how it ruins lives. Seek out that
help.

~~~
guitarbill
> This sounds pretty uncharacteristic of the experience and I guess this
> person has some psychological issues or is overplaying the VR experience for
> ad impressions.

> If you're finding yourself addicted then you've got a personal addiction
> issue. Its not the medium, its you.

The author gets many things right, such as the change in perception of
distances. I get this from VR, but I also get it from changing from glasses to
contact lenses (and vice versa). Doesn't sound like complete click-bait to me.

I do think it's an interesting point that the escapism VR offers is possibly
equivalent to some dissociatives, and that it hasn't really being considered.
Some people struggle with addiction to (plain) video games. Blaming the person
isn't fair or helpful at all.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I clarified my position. This isn't a blame game. My point is to seek out the
help because if you're experiencing this on this level, then you have a
problem. Its not VR and its not normal.

------
hosh
Not too much different from people coming down from intense psychedelics or
mystical experiences.

Among the spiritual seekers for these kinds of mindblowing experiences, there
is a seeking for greater and more intense experiences. What follows is a sort
of emptiness or depression. It's touching on _dukkha_ , that is, existential
anguish.

The key, as it has always been, to be present in the present moment, whether
that means being present during the VR experience, or being present in
meatspace. Being present to that emptiness will allow it to bleed out and
dissolve.

I'm personally glad to hear about these reports. There is a good possibility
that VR and AR is the gateway towards mainstream exploration of consciousness.
Up until then, honest discussion about existential anguish has been buried and
suppressed, and I don't think that has served our civilization well. Here's a
shoutout to all the explorers to come.

------
VLM
Something I've noticed in many comments is its a mix of the game or story with
perceptual warping.

My own perceptual warping story doesn't come with a game, but I assure you its
super disorienting to spend a couple hours looking thru a low power binoc
microscope to work on electronics and then just get up and walk around, your
hand eye coordination is all messed up for awhile because what you see your
hands do has been times 2 magnified and bent 90 degrees upward for some hours.
Putting a key in a keyhole is a challenge for a couple minutes till reality
snaps back. Its a form of sea sickness, after all. Your position sense doesn't
match your optic sense and that makes some people puke although in low doses
you just feel really weird.

Much like there is a difference between the taste of a beer in a relaxed
setting vs after a long afternoon of yard work, your blood sugar or hormones
or something distort your perception of the taste of the beer. Or DnD /
pathfinder / rpg in general seems more fun when candle-lit. And a zillion
observations in a hundred comments here about drugs or whatever.

I would think there are more technological opportunities to mix perception
alteration with a story or game than just AI or what we've mentioned. Perhaps
someone could scientifically calculate a formula to determine the correct
music for a game. Maybe there is a type of food that naturally goes with
social media use (probably something sugary). Maybe a certain hue of general
room lighting is good for certain TV genres. Aside from VR technology, however
cool it may be, I have this feeling narrative/game plus perception warping is
a large mostly unexplored solution space.

I like to sail. I wonder if, along the lines of the theory above, liking
sailing comes from ultra low dose perceptual warping due to subclinical sea
sickness combined with the purely mechanical labor of sailing. Could you give
me a small dose of anti-anti-sea sickness pills and I'd love basketweaving or
something.

------
jonahrd
Can't the same be said about other forms of media? You go to the movies to
escape, but on the drive home you feel sad that your life isn't as fantastical
as the movies. Similar things can be said about the way we use our
smartphones.

I'm sure after you have the time to become "normalized" to VR, the real world
will seem less depressing. perhaps even refreshing.

~~~
ethanbond
According to the author, yes there are similar effects but no they aren't as
intense.

------
Lich
Hm, never had a feeling like this at all. Been using VR since DK1, DK2, and
CV1. At its current state, I think VR is really cool, and at times immersive,
but it's just not immersive enough for me yet. I don't know about others, but
the fact that I can see the peripheral edges of the lens breaks immersion for
me most of the time. There are moments of immersion, but those are very rare.
I tend to experience it in moments where I'm moving from an enclosed space to
a very large open space (i.e. a tunnel in Half-Life 2 out to a city view). I
think I will find VR very immersive when the lens are somehow able to wrap
around your vision completely so that I can't see that I'm looking through
goggles. Don't misunderstand me though, I think what we have now is incredibly
cool and immersive. I did try the Vive controllers, and that really kicks up
the immersion a whole lot. I'm waiting to buy the Oculus touch controllers.

------
rubicon33
I struggle to believe that this is a serious post, from someone who has
seriously used VR. At the very least, I imagine their experience is very
subjective.

I have the Oculus Rift, but have experienced nothing like what he's
describing. Maybe its the lack of room scale, the lack of hand/arm interaction
(Oculus Touch isn't out yet), or maybe I'm just playing different games?

Oculus never felt magical to me. In fact, if I'm being honest, it was kind of
a let down. Yea it's cool, but the resolution is garbage (even in the
production version I have). This article reads like someone who's never used
VR, but worries about what it COULD do to you... if it really were great.

~~~
eof
Have you used a vive? The resolution I don't think is any better, but the vive
does feel magical to me. Everyone I put in it seems to feel similarly; but the
tracked controllers are probably a big part of that immediately immersive
experience

~~~
rubicon33
I haven't used a vive no. My guess is that the "magical" feel does indeed rely
on your hands showing up in the game ("tracked controllers" as you put it).

Without that hand tracking, it's difficult to feel truly immersed in the
world.

------
dahdum
Having spent many hours in VR (Vive Room Scale) at a stretch, the article
rings true to me. The biggest surprise being that it might not feel perfectly
real at the time, but the memory is much closer.

The next generation of pixel density will make a huge difference IMO. I can
comfortably work in VR with multiple desktops, but the resolution is tad too
low.

~~~
pYQAJ6Zm
>I can comfortably work in VR with multiple desktops, but the resolution is
tad too low.

I am interested in this. Can you, say, write code or read text for long hours,
without having to upsize the text too much?

~~~
dahdum
You've got to up the text size or shorten the distance in VR to be
comfortable, which is the annoying part I think will be solved in the next
gen.

I get around this by adding multiple emulated displays (using Headless Ghost /
Compulab Emulator) that are visible only in VR. Gives more room for window
placement.

I'm used to working with 2-6 monitors on the desktop so it's natural for me to
extend that into VR, but some people don't like the head movement needed.

------
swalsh
I'm not sure "sadness" is the way I'd describe it, but returning back to the
real world is a bit weird if you've been in for a few hours. I've always
attributed it to the wind-down. The crazy part of onward is it literally
invokes a prolonged adrenaline reaction. At least it used to, it's not nearly
as much anymore. Leaving can be exhausting. It's definitely part of the
addicting aspects. The first few times when I dove to the ground because I
heard gunshots near me was exhilarating. I find myself wanting increasingly
more intense moments.

------
eof
I have been using and developing inside my Vive for about a month. It's only
part time, so I am spending ~10 hours a week in VR.

I certainly get some of what the author is talking about in terms of that
coming-out-of-the-matrix feeling: the tetris affect of my chaperone cage is
strong, and objects feel weird to interact with, using the phone UI is kinda
ridiculous.. however, I certainly don't think I am experiencing any type of
postpartum sadness.

Roomscale VR is /ridiculously/ immersive. Every.single.person. I have put in
omg and wtfs; even if they don't particularly care for video games.

------
jfoutz
I haven't experienced that effect myself, but i don't have a rig. I can't help
but think of waking up from really intense dreams. Perhaps like those fever
dreams when a little bit sick. My mind accepts the reality it's making up, and
it's very intense. Perhaps fun, perhaps frightening as the generation drifts
over to nightmare territory.

I understand what others are saying about books, but really vivid dreams seem
like a closer match. You can't control a book, in a dream there's still some
agency, some action that can change everything.

------
badloginagain
A lot of comments here mention this isn't unique to the VR medium. I would
suggest that VR is fundamentally different than reading a good book or
watching a great movie.

I would expect this is closer to when movies were first invented. There's a
story (which may be untrue) of a movie which had a train heading towards the
camera, and people running out of the theater thinking it was real.

I expect the feelings the author is exploring is in part experiencing a brand
new medium. What I really like about this article is how the author isn't
drawing conclusions, but rather saying this is an interesting phenom to
investigate further. VR does provide extensions to fundamental human ability
(I can only thing of the depression a disabled person would feel if they could
move around virtually), and I would be interested to see if there's a
fundamentally addictive quality to extending your interactions with reality.

------
fisherjeff
Seems like a good time to re-read Ray Bradbury's "The Happiness Machine"

[http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-
content/uploads/sateve...](http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-
content/uploads/satevepost/ray-bradbury-the-happiness-machine-SEP.pdf)

------
rikkus
Better watch out for that Despair Squid and check if you have an unexpected
ponytail [1]

[1]
[http://reddwarf.wikia.com/wiki/RD:_Back_to_Reality](http://reddwarf.wikia.com/wiki/RD:_Back_to_Reality)

------
randyrand
I have this and have been dealing with a very similar effect to this for 4
months now. Depersonalization. It's a very odd type of depression and
detachment from reality. It's very uncomfortable and can last indefinitely.

Mine was triggered roughly a year after I had been into VR and also a year
after I moved away from home. It's hard to say which played a bigger role. It
was triggered by my best friend coming to visit me.

It's fucking terrible. And I don't know what to do about it.

------
sandworm101
I wonder how much this has to do with vision correction. VR goggles, like TV
screens, flatten everything into a single plane. If your eyes can focus on
that plane they see everything. The real world is different. None of us have
perfect vision at all distances simultaneously. We have to refocus when
switching between near and far. The result is that nothing in the real world
is every as 'in focus' as the VR world. So like wearing flippers while
swimming, the real world is fuzzy and requires you to work harder than you did
while wearing the device.

This is akin to why BBC documentaries always look better than the real thing.
(I watched Planet Earth II last night). Those giant lenses in the fancy
cameras can keep more objects in focus, allowing us to see both the parrot and
the mountain background in ways we couldn't in the real world.

------
api
I've always been a bit concerned about VR being highly addictive, especially
for people who want something to 'escape'. This seems to bolster this concern.

Of course people can and will get addicted to almost anything. VR may be
healthier than heavy drinking, heroin, meth, etc.

~~~
crooked-v
Most of the more interesting VR control interfaces require enough movement to
at least be healthier than, say, sitting at a desk and playing WoW all day.

------
StanislavPetrov
All I could think while reading this is its exactly how you feel after coming
down from LSD.

------
WillPostForFood
If you've ever had a dream where you can fly, VR can come close to that
feeling of wonder and freedom. And like when you wake up in your bed, fully in
the grip of gravity, coming out of VR can be a letdown.

------
amelius
Perhaps this is related to Post-coital tristesse? [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-
coital_tristesse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-coital_tristesse)

~~~
bertiewhykovich
lol yeah dude, playing with an HTC Vive is exactly the same as fucking.
exactly. there's no difference.

------
atemerev
Back in 1993, I used to hang out in an advanced VR lab of the time, with many
options to try. Once I played Descent for 3 hours, with a shitty VFX-1
headgear.

Even then, returning back to reality was painful.

~~~
6d6b73
It was hard to return back to reality after playing that game on a regular
monitor, I can't imagine what it must been to play it with any type of vr
headgear.

------
nilved
Some parts of this article make me think the author should seek therapy. I
don't see why virtual reality couldn't trigger derealization disorder in
susceptible individuals.

------
HiroP55
I have experienced this post VR depression with PSVR. Although I have to say
that it has been happening less and less the more I play. Perhaps it's
possible to become desensitized to VR. I've found myself becoming more aware
of the fact that I'm in a game. I'm not saying the magic has completely wore
off. I still experience moments of aw. Anyone else experiencing this?

------
davesque
Here's a fun thought that is really more of a science-fiction writing prompt:
The author talks about his instinct to interact with the real world in the
same way he interacted with the VR world. What if, as humans develop more and
more realistic and immersive VR systems, it gives their bodies a real
evolutionary incentive to develop telekinetic abilities?

~~~
GuiA
Organisms don't have evolutionary incentives to develop abilities.

Environments exert evolutionary pressures, which select for/against existing
traits (inherited or mutated) in organisms.

~~~
davesque
I wasn't really being serious.

------
ajmurmann
I'm concerned that AR will make this worse rather than better. The amount of
dopamine that we will get from constant AR we glasses or contact lenses is
going to be devastating. Just look at this artist rendition:
[https://vimeo.com/166807261](https://vimeo.com/166807261)

------
technological
Question if anyone could answer (thank you)

Is VR experience is expected to be something very new , I mean for example
when u do something new like play a video game or sport you experience
something new , is VR experience is something similar ? OR is it trying to
mimic the natural behavior (like feeling of hitting the ball when playing a
sport )

------
kin
This isn't VR specific. I can get lost and immersed in any story regardless of
the medium and be saddened afterwards. But, I will say that VR is one of the
most immersive experiences out there. With the right game/universe, I can
totally see people having withdrawal issues.

------
Animats
There's an answer to this in China. VR is becoming big in China, but not for
games. For sales pitches. Right now, foreign real estate selling in VR is a
real thing. Coming soon, "Alibaba is committed to making VR the premium
shopping experience of the future".

~~~
ngokevin
I work at Mozilla VR on A-Frame ([https://aframe.io](https://aframe.io)). I
talked to the Alibaba VR team in Hangzhou, and the top VR real estate project
(iStaging).

They are obviously interested in eCommerce given TaoBao. I don't think Buy
Plus went super well given it was targeting Cardboard. But they have stuff
cooking with Vive and Magic Leap. Unfortunately, VR eCommerce is a _hard_
problem. It's shiny-sounding, but it's difficult to provide actual value to
consumers that isn't just hype.

And also VR hasn't entered mainstream China at all, not even for developers,
so adoption is an issue. No one has space, and the VR cafes only attract super
gamers.

iStaging created their WebVR viewer with A-Frame:
[https://aframe.io/blog/istaging/...this](https://aframe.io/blog/istaging/...this)
seems to be doing well given Cardboard is enough for this use case. 360 photos
aren't really a compelling experience, but sufficient allowing clients to at
least get a tiny feel for the place.

But the articles about VR becoming "big" in China, I am not sure about given
visits there over the last couple years.

------
farright
After playing Holopoint for 30 minutes, I felt a sense of elation and
heightened perception. I felt like I could type faster, and my reaction times
were faster. It reminded me of Lawnmower Man.

I didn't get this effect with less intense games like Space Pirate Trainer.

------
Kiro
I know this is supposed to describe a problem but for me it has the opposite
effect. I _want_ VR to be so immersive that the real world feels dull so I'm
very stoked to give VR a go after reading this.

------
3chelon
The Phase 1 effects remind me of the first time I got behind the wheel of a
car immediately after playing GTA. I was barely able to drive because I was
afraid of doing something stupid.

------
davidgerard
_Jaron Lanier:_ Why people should pay more attention to me and not Web 2.0

When I noticed myself getting mean online I thought, “Something has gone
terribly wrong.” It was obvious the rest of the ARPAnet had a social problem,
not just me being some sort of asshole.

My book _You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto_ is ruffling virtual feathers
across the ARPAnet. And so it should, because I invented virtual reality.
Wikipedia, which is a tissue of lies, says so. Prospect magazine’s Top 100
Public Intellectuals Poll lists me. Also, my hair is much better than yours.
And I’m fifty. According to Wikipedia, so I’d better change my birthday.

Today, the web is a bland place. It’s all user-generated content — silly clips
on YouTube, spiteful anonymous comments on blogs about my books, endless
photographs of people at a bar with their friends or up a mountain with an
ironing board. It was much better back in the early days of the ARPAnet,
before we let the commercial users on. These words will mostly be read by numb
mobs composed of people who are no longer acting as individuals. You know, the
_peasants._ Virtual reality is far more ennobling, but you never hear people
talking about that any more.

The ARPAnet only creates banal mashups of old culture. Salvagers picking over
a garbage dump. Only the old-world economy of books, films and newspapers
creates original content like _Lawnmower Man_ or _Battlefield Earth_. Everyone
knows that real artists have no influences. This stuff the kids are into these
days is just _noise!_

The ARPAnet is also killing music, according to my good friends at the RIAA.
Did you know there’s no music in Spain any more? It’s true!

Will we — meaning I — be able to live off our brains in the future, or will we
just have to give our creative works away for free? If we can’t live off our
brains then we’ll need a form of SOCIALISM just to survive. WIKIPEDIA IS
COMMUNISM! Until the Wikipedia Corporation finally builds a good interface,
for goggles and power-gloves.

Open source and open content are a cancer. The dogma I object to is composed
of a set of interlocking beliefs and doesn’t have a generally accepted
overarching name as yet, so I’m going to call it Digital MAOISM, which is
COMMUNISM. _Update, five years later:_ Here is a detailed retcon explanation
of why I was not just trolling for headlines by calling Wikipedia COMMUNISM,
but was speaking precisely and you just weren’t thinking hard enough: [ _snip
10,000 words_ ]

Also, you should get into virtual reality more.

 _You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto is published on papyrus scroll and hand-
illustrated by monks. You cannot have a copy until you have fought your way up
the mountain and proven yourself worthy._

------
tzakrajs
People can find ways to be sad about anything. Our brains are most ideally
suited for this.

------
thesimpsons1022
where is this guy getting these immersive experiences? I have an oculus and
haven't experienced anything that great yet.

------
6d6b73
VR will probably be THE solution to overpopulation. Slow, but painless.

~~~
mtgx
Probably coupled with some pills to "make you feel more immersed", like those
drugs in the Inception movie.

Netflix' CEO seems to already be thinking about this:

[http://www.ibtimes.com/simulation-hypothesis-matrix-
possible...](http://www.ibtimes.com/simulation-hypothesis-matrix-possible-
hallucinogenic-pills-entertainment-could-define-2438750)

