As someone with chronic sleep paralysis (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis</a>), it is astonishing how frequently I read about pseudo-paranormal or "OBE" experiences and go, yeah, that's just sleep paralysis man.<p>Although, the causes of sleep paralysis still aren't well understood, so maybe it's a VR bug after all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is a fascinating and frightening technology. Used altruistically, this can heal a lot of people and prejudices. But how long until people use it to reinforce their own prejudices, simulate dehumanizing scenarios, or force it on others as sci-fi-level brainwashing form of propaganda?
I'm working my way through Being No One at the moment. It's very interesting, and (to me, anyway) sounds like he's on the right track with his 'transparent self-model' understanding of consciousness.<p>Interestingly a lot of robotics seems to work the same way - the robot has a model of itself and the world around it, and when it "looks at the world" it's actually looking at that model.
This reminds me of the time when I lost my sense of self for a moment, that suddenly the world was just kind of happening and I had no precedent over the cars passing, everything being quite equal. I guess it was a bit of ego-death without any drugs or meditation.<p>Also interesting that the author mentioned Emptiness. I couldn't help but be reminded of Zen throughout.
It looks like we can finally simulate the experience of this classic: <a href="http://pbfcomics.com/comics/freaking_vortex/" rel="nofollow">http://pbfcomics.com/comics/freaking_vortex/</a>