# Virtual Reality (Simulator Sickness).



## Wendy (Aug 7, 2013)

Hey, everyone!

I recently picked up an Oculus Rift and have been playing on and off for the past couple days. As soon as I bought it, I tried it out for around an hour. After taking off the headset, everything felt really disorienting. I looked it up on the internet and many people who use VR say they experience the same conditions. They call it simulator sickness and its fairly benign, but common for people that play around in virtual reality, especially for longer sessions of 2+ hours.

I was never hit with a huge wave of disorientation. I had played for an hour and it went away fairly quick, but last night I had a 4 hour session (got a bit addicted, whoops) and woke up today feeling the weirdest I had been in my life:


Feels like my hands are not real hands, but rather simulated ones like in the VR games.
Balance issues. Unable to differentiate between motion of VR walking with my own.
Spatial reasoning is off. Leaning to pick things up instead of just moving closer.
Pressing buttons on a fake controller in my hand to do most things, especially pick up objects.

Again, this is pretty common for most people who play VR a lot. I'm not all that worried because I know this will all go away after I get more acclimated to the VR environment. But for those that are thinking of giving virtual reality a shot in the future, please be aware of these side effects. I couldn't imagine someone with severe depersonalization or derealization being comfortable with these conditions and the effects of VR on already-established dissociation is not yet known.

I'll keep this thread updated with symptoms, though. I think it's a new stretch of experience that many people with DP/DR haven't had yet.


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