VR Users Report Experiencing Matrix/Cartesian-esque Confusion Between the Virtual & the Real

"The VR industry," I recently mused to some friends, "has turned millennia-old philosophical thought experiments into practical business challenges." As a perect example of that, read this Rock Paper Shotgun thread where VR users report feelings of temporary confusion between what's virtual and the real:

I took off the headset and went through to the bedroom to get ready for bed. It was fine for a few minutes but then I had to go to the side of the room to get something and suddenly I felt convinced I was still in VR. Like, I was inching across the room because I was expecting the virtual grid to appear at any moment and tell me that the *real* edge of the room was imminent. If I went too fast I would walk into an unseen wall or wardrobe...

The 5 or 10 minutes after taking off the headset is a weird, sort of uncomfortable thing. I’ve noticed that it leaves me feeling drained, mentally exhausted. I fully expect to be able to phase through walls and furniture. It definitely leaves a lingering sense of altered perception but I can’t tell if it’s something that will lessen or become exacerbated after becoming well acclimated to spending more and more time in VR.

In other words, "Am I still in The Matrix, or have I woken up?" Or as René Descartes put it some four hundred years ago, "Am I in the clutches of an Evil Deceiver?" To wit:

The evil demon presents a complete illusion of an external world, including other minds, to Descartes' senses, where there is no such external world in existence. The evil genius also presents to Descartes' senses a complete illusion of his own body, including all bodily sensations.

So now Facebook, Sony, Google, and all the other major companies financing and developing VR need to discuss how to deal with their products' Evil Deceiver problem: How widespread is the phenomenon? Will it become more widespread when our products become more popular? Does it become more pronounced with extended VR use? And above all: Can we be sued blind by customers who hurt themselves because our products create temporary perceptual and proprioceptive confusion between what's virtual and what's real? Because like Husserl said (or maybe it was your mom), epistemological thought experiments are all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

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Comments

[melponeme_k]

BINGO

The psychosis effect that I've harped on since the beginning and everyone laughed over it.

The human brain cannot distinguish between VR (any VR from books, film, TV and now computer worlds) and reality. It is all the same to it.

If you think people were having conniptions over people using too much computer or phone devices, just wait until some poor soul goes full into a psychotic hallucination that NEVER ends after playing a few hours of a FPS.

[LuAnn Phillips]

At the Oculus Connect conference in LA last fall I tried their Toy Box demo using the Touch controllers and had a fun time shattering various virtual objects in the gallery (vases, garden gnomes...you get the picture...) Five minutes after leaving the demo I stopped at a beverage table, scooped the ice too hard, the ice bucket flipped into the air and smashed the stack of drinking glasses into smithereens! It seemed that the Toy Box experience had spilled over into reality!! I still had my Touch superpowers.

[metacam oh]

Hamlet are you being paid by someone to take a piss on VR or have you really become this complete cynic?

[Wagner J Au]

I confess, I'm in the pocket of Big Reality.

[adec]

its no different to SL at the v beginning... after my first couple of weeks in SL, I was 'dreaming' in an SL environment.. and after hours of playing at a time my sense or depth perception would be lost ...

I'd go take something from the refrigerator and miss it by going in to far...

I'm sure if I had a VR headset, I'd go through the same again ... but will soon pass..

[Adeon Writer]

Can confirm the same effect happens after using an Oculus for a prolonged time. When you first take the headset off, you're fine, it's about 10 minutes later that you have a minute or two of confusion and think you might still be in VR. It wears off fast.

[Ezra]

Hamlet doesn't own a VR headset, so it makes it impossible for him to write about the hardware or software. So he writes about The Matrix, Snow Crash, Second Life 10 years ago, Descarte 400 years ago, other deflections to the fact this blog isn't equipped to cover topics like found on roadtovr.com and other good VR blogs.

When will your Vive or Rift arrive, Hamlet?

[Carlos Loff]

New experieces that tangle with our senses cause this issue but it can be aplied to anything else, I remeber the first time I tried skymboarding for the whole day at the beach and when I was coming home, during several minutes or even hours I got sudden feelings as if I was still sliding thorough the ground - I believe with time we get more used to separate stuff, unless people get hooked and spend to much time on it

[Iggy]

I salute Hamlet's contrarian point of view. Someone needs to take a piss on this over-hyped Next Big Thing. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I sure was wrong about SL, which I considered The Next Big Thing.

We'll see how it all plays out. No matter how compelling the app, mass adoption will not follow from a scuba-mask rig that makes a lot of people vomit.

[melponeme_k]

"When you first take the headset off, you're fine, it's about 10 minutes later that you have a minute or two of confusion and think you might still be in VR. It wears off fast."

I don't think even 10 minutes of a psychotic break is something to brush off.

Tech has already changed us physically and how we process new information. We don't know need it loosening our hold on reality or making us sociopathic anymore than it it has currently. VR is fascinating but a danger zone.

[zz bottom]

Always there is fear off the progress.
(And mind you, but i don't intend to use any vr tech).

[UCMO]

I tried the latest Oculus at a Best Buy demo station past Sunday. I experienced zero issues, in fact I was more amazed that it took me about ten minutes after the demo to realize that I didn't experience any nausea as I have so many times with the DK1... the VR felt almost natural, a bit surreal but in a good way. Of course I could be of the minority.

[Shark]

This is hogwash. I'm about 11 days into owning an HMD (the Vive to be specific). People are either lying and embellishing their experiences to fit in with the crowd or they have underlying mental issues to begin with. You can certainly make yourself nauseous with the wrong software or by overdoing it in something like a flight simulator. It's never been worse than the feeling you get after spending half a day riding rollercoasters at a theme park.

As for other side effects, most of it pertains to the eyes. That's to be expected from staring at an LCD screen inches in front of your face, regardless of the use of the specialized lenses in these headsets. VR requires moderation (like most things in life). If you strap a screen on to your face for 8 hours straight and then expect reality to feel the same before, you are not only wrong, you are stupid.

This type of hysteria is funny though, no different than any other uninformed, bullshit opinion shot from the hip anywhere else. I have never once come out of VR (even after spending multiple hours "inside") and had any sort of confusion about reality, nor have I had problems with motor functions and spatial orientation/depth perception.

People are stupid as ever...

[joe]

Clearly Shark has yet become another lover of humankind thanks to technology!

Keep wearing that headset Shark! You may obtain sainthood someday or maybe cure the cancer.

[Adeon Writer]

My comments are about DK2, I don't own a CV1 and have never used one yet.

The experience was after marathoning DK2 for about 3.5 hours straight.

And calling it a "psychotic break" is kind of hilarious, it's no different than skating for hours and feeling like you're still wearing skates once you're back on shoes.

[Shava Nerad]

This is a psychological habituation effect, isn't it? And yes, I remember similar things from SL, and you get similar reports from submariners and people who operate in other immersive environments. Not that that will prevent anyone (particularly Americans) from sueing.

[namesgointhisbox]

Big Reality....I knew it! I shake my fist and grit my teeth at the screen.

I find this charge funny, this blog is a bit counter of the mass culture. After mass market non-adoption of SL we see that it is kind of a set of users who either aquire the taste for virtual worlds or whatever other reason. They like them, accept them or feel stuck with them in a funny bad relationship (uh...lag vs lack of details is mostly is the issue though, not the virtual world.)

Why would we expect anything but a bit of devils advocacy at the very least, if not skepticism due to the virtual world experience? Not to mention Google glass, it was kind of forgotten about and is maybe refocused on industry.

But, to be honest Popular Mechanics (or Science if my memory is bad) had a wearable computer with a HUD eyeglass sort of arrangement for industry workers a long time ago. It was the future, and human cyborgs have been around for awhile. Look up the first human cyborg, he has been at it for years.

It is not impossible to have a more connected life, just not perceived by the larger mass market accepted, wanted and/or needed. He is a scientist, or maybe a professor? Either way, he loves this stuff. Most people forget where there car keys are and THAT is more likely a technology that may get used (rfid chips and a slightly smart appliances or cars) But, whole entire smart houses? This is too much to do. Home automation was around back in the 90s, it would be wonderful right? Not many people used it, I can remember seeing home automation devices in a Radioshack catalog. So skepticism may come with age, and maybe is a flaw or a good reason to switch to more conservative investments of time and/or money as you become more skeptically and stuck in ones ways.