Oculus Rift & Vivid Dreams

I guess I am greedy cause I want both :D

Hi Rifters!

I found this interesting discussion here after seeing the posting about dreams on r/oculus. So I am x-posting here what I wrote on reddit:

"I received my Rift a week ago and it affected my dreaming since day one. I tried out blue marble and space walk and had dreams about being a bodyless entity floating above our planet afterwards. This morning when I woke up I had images flashing in a stroboscopic fashion before my mental eye. It was like those brainwashing sessions where you are shown different images in rapid succession. The images where some blue-green-yellowish shapes out of a rorschach test. It lasted for around 30 seconds until I could rub the sleep out of my eyes and reality regained the control of my vision.
Apart from affecting my dreams it also has changed how I perceive my imagination. I have now much more peripheral vision with my "mental eye". Lets say I have a mental image in my mind, I could only maintain a vivid image of an area thats about the size of the foveal area. Now after using the rift I can see the "whole picture", it has literally "broadened" my horizont. Anyone else experiencing this?"


P.S.: I almost never have lucid dreams and dont try to have them either (I would probably never leave my bed again if I achieved it).

@ drach,

It's cool to see that others are being invaded in their dreams by the rift. I think we need to coin a new term for the Rift affecting our dreams. Maybe " Rift Night Sickness" but could be confused with motion sickness so not exactly the best choice to describe it.

Last night I didn't have any lucid dreams but I swear to god that for half the night I was trying on Rifts and experiencing one demo after another that I have never heard of before. They just kept coming - the only one I recognized was when I looked in a Rift and I was watching a giant IMAX screen. It was almost torture. All I wanted to do was wake up and scream stop already so I could get some restful sleep. I guess we have to be careful of what demos we play or think about right before sleep.

Maybe someday I'll get to play on the OR until I fall asleep, and have dreams that I imagine my character would have. And now I suddenly wish I had played Psychonauts.
I'm worried this tech will be too much for some people, and cause psychotic breaks, and the people who blame video games for violent tendencies would finally have a leg to stand on. Maybe these things are too powerful for young minds, and should have a minimum age restriction. Anyway, forum guidelines discourage political debate, but it will come up inevitably. Over time it's going to dig into people and have weeeiiirrrd effects on a lot of them, especially as the technology evolves.

I agree with you on the very young children issue. Whenever I see them using the Rift they appear confused as to what is real or not. It would be terrible if some youngster really thought they could fly because it seemed so real in the Rift and took a leap out of their bedroom window.

I guess it's up to the parents to help them define the boundaries of reality, just like they already do by explaining movies are just make believe. But in this case even more important.

As for crazy people,well if they can't tell the Rift isn't real then maybe they already too far gone already. :) So yes, people with mental illness should avoid any virtual reality.

This thread is without a doubt one of the most interesting threads I've read on the internet, so many insightful responses. I have yet to order the rift, but have obsessively been researching and getting all the knowledge I can on this amazing piece of technology. I've also recently been interested in lucid dreaming, ever since I saw the movie 'Waking Life'(highly recommended), which got me into trying to lucid dream, but haven't successfully done it yet but I've gotten a lot of vivid dreams lately though.

Well anyway that idea of making a game where you could train yourself to lucid dream is a fantastic idea and I found this video on youtube that I think might be a way of doing that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s33Y5nI5Wbc

Rift on everyone! :D

i havent noticed my dreams getting any more vivid having used the Rift however.. i do end up oddly dreaming about the Rift in some way but in a more surreal way or something haha. but yeah ...

Has anyone else (when they were young) had dream-induced eneuresis? Where your dream places you in a situation that makes you feel like peeing? I wonder what will happen when people walk into virtual bathrooms or swimming pools while immersed in the Oculus... ;)

"Lindblum" wrote:
Has anyone else (when they were young) had dream-induced eneuresis? Where your dream places you in a situation that makes you feel like peeing? I wonder what will happen when people walk into virtual bathrooms or swimming pools while immersed in the Oculus... ;)

Be careful about using urinals you find in VR (especially the 1080p consumer version with positional head tracking). That warm feeling travelling down your leg might be anti-immersive (except for your toes).

Or just keep one of these as an essential part of your VR kit:


:lol:

It doesn't surprise me in the least that the Rift would cause vivid or heavy dreaming. The whole point of sleep and dreaming is so your brain can analyze any new experiences you've gone through that day/recently. The OP gave the perfect example of how his mostly unchanging, routine day-to-day life wasn't anything new, and so the dreams weren't anything useful or intriguing enough to keep in memory. But suddenly, you're thrown into whole new worlds in the Rift. So many new, insane experiences to be had, and at night when you go to sleep, your brain is going to sift through all of that crazy, fresh input and that's when you get the vivid dreams.

I haven't even gotten a Rift yet and I've been having dreams regarding its use already. It's something new.

It'd also be an excellent idea to make some sort of game that assists with achieving lucid dreaming, as one of the team members mentioned.