Lucid dreaming and virtual environments
p(screenshot). !/pimages/flying_goonthir.jpg! Goonthir, my alter ego, flies away from the orc captiol of Ogrimmar.
In lucid dreams you know you are dreaming. People who are capable of lucid dreaming take advantage of this in a number of ways, but it has some interesting implications for sleep research, virtual environments, and game design as well.
In the book I’m reading about the subject, “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=as2&path=ASIN/034537410X&tag=celticknotwor-20&camp=1789&creative=9325, Stephen LaBerge discusses his exploration into the perception of time in dreams. Everyone “knows” time perception in dreams is screwy. Do we really dream an entire week in ninety-minute REM sleep session?
Since lucid dreamers have concious control over their _actual_ eye movements (and precious little else) during lucid dreams, LaBerge asked his subjects to signal researchers from a dream state by moving their eyes in a pre-determined pattern, then moving them again after a pre-determined period of time had passed. From this experiment, LaBerge’s concluded that we can’t; estimates of time in a dream state closely track the same estimates of time in a waking state — at least, it does when we’re paying attention.
This has interesting applications in science fiction; lots of novels assume that once you hook a computer up to a human brain time can be stretched. Weeks can pass in what might be hours of a virtual environment, giving people significantly more time to train, learn, study, work, etc. Subjectively, someone could live millenia in a virtual environment, but objectively only pass a handful of years (or hours!); the thought is certainly appealing.
But if, once we disassociate ourselves from our sensory apparatus, ten seconds still _seems_ to be ten seconds, perhaps our perception of time is limited more by _interior_ limitations than exterior limitations. Three hours inside a computer will be three hours outside.
On one hand, this is disappointing. On the other, it would make virtual-reality MMORPGs easier to keep up with; if taking a break for lunch was percieved by other players as you being gone for _an entire decade_, it’d be hard to keep up with your guildmates.
