Breaking the Standards

Perhaps not the greatest of all titles but imagine this: you experience a scene so realistic that all that is missing is the blood. 

Welcome to the Oculus Rift experience and welcome, on this beautiful Halloween day, to the question that sprung to my mind. All psychology students be alert please.

Oculus Rift and Mental Trauma and Disorders.

Question: Can you be traumatized by an Oculus Rift experience?

The Oculus Rift is an ingenious gadget to see things that aren’t there and experience something so realistic it makes you feel like you are there, in this made-belief world. The experience can be so real that you can even smell and feel your surroundings. Imagine the relief when the gadget comes off and you realize you’re still in one piece. No, you haven’t actually fallen over that ridge, the dinosaur didn’t squash you, the monster didn’t get you, that ride in the amusement park was just fake. 

We instantly downplay the situation. You would have survived the experience anyway because you were in your chair all along. The panic of someone wearing the Oculus Rift is considered very funny to watch because we all know that there's nothing there and your brain is fooling you. Besides, from the outside it looks rather silly.

Now here's a thing. I can’t see 3D. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Trying the Oculus Rift was therefore a challenge and though I still lack the depth, I could still feel that queer feeling inside my tummy when something came close to me, I could feel when I fell down (slow-motion or not) and I could feel scared when things got.. well... scary.

But these experiences got me worried. Being in a wheelchair in a rundown hospital where someone wants to saw your legs off - it is a possibility now and I’m sure it’s much fun to have achieved such a thing in programming, but it’s also getting more and more realistic and though the settings aren’t always what we expect in real life, when you’re in there, experiencing it, it surely does feel real.

Anyone being wheeled into a room with maimed people only to be the next to lose a limb will surely be traumatized afterwards. 

In real life, yes. But when the experience is an Oculus one, is one less traumatized afterwards?

Can we already predict the effects of the scenes we’re developing for this tool and can we guarantee safety for all who want to use it?

Today I learnt that two of the people I know testing Oculus software are suffering from sudden moments of mixing up realism with fantasy - seeing things that aren’t there even while driving their car. Now this is really dangerous! They described the experience as suddenly feeling as if they were wearing the Oculus Rift. Is this an effect of the amount of time they spent with their Oculus on? Is it a similar effect to the old school games we used to play that had you shoot little coloured balls into the air all night long because you played a bit too long on your PlayStation that day?

Has there been research to these effects? What will it do to our minds? We already know that it’s advised not to use the Oculus with children because of the influence it will have on the development of their brain. But I am very curious if there has been any study done to see what kind of mental trauma’s that can occur after a fake but very realistic experience that would normally require long sessions of therapy.

I’m still shipping Clara x Twelve 

(And by the Gods I hope Maisie Williams is going to play their daughter) But I hope I don’t scare anyone away if the accidental Arya x Jaqen H’Ghar post pops up on their dashes. It’s the fault of fanfiction authors. I now ship them too.