The all-too-common experience of holding my phone, arm outstretched was disturbed in the most peculiar way. My hand felt weightless, adrift from my body and as though it did not belong to me. What was going on? Had I suffered a neurological injury? Had I ingested a psychedelic drug? The answer was no, I had just come out of Virtual Reality (VR).

On reflection, perhaps it should not have been a surprise to encounter such peculiar phenomena. I had spent much of the past few months exploring the realm of VR and simultaneously researching depersonalisation disorder (DPD). DPD is characterised by a sense of separation from, or ‘un-realness’ of, ‘self’ and is often accompanied by similar feelings towards the world (derealisation).

Exploring both realms had been a heady-adventure and revealed striking parallels in the experiences induced by both DPD and VR, most notably otherworldly, dream-like experiences with changes to the sense of self at multiple levels. For an excellent exploration see the article ‘Virtual Reality & Depersonalization / Derealization‘.

In his excellent book, Life on Autopilot, Joe Perkins, who suffers from DPD, compares an experience of VR to his day-to-day life with DPD:

“The feeling of being in a vivid, interactive first-person experience that I knew for a fact was make-believe didn’t feel all that different from then removing the headset and wondering off…” (pg.38)

…and in another passage, quoting someone describing the onset of DPD:

“When I looked at my arms and hands, they somehow looked as though they didn’t belong to me. I could move them, but it was as though I was controlling them through a computer screen” (pg.192)

I read these passages a month or so after my initial foray into VR-bodily-strangeness and was struck by the parallels. It was clear to me that we had much to learn about DPD from VR and vice-versa.

Rewinding somewhat, I had just spent around 30 minutes in a game (Hand Physics Lab) that uses the Oculus Quest’s hand tracking functionality. In the game, you miraculously (albeit somewhat clumsily) manipulate objects and engage with the environment with virtual replicas of your hands, the movement of which are driven by the movement of your ‘real’ hands, tracked by four front facing cameras. This uncanny experience was, for me at least, in equal parts exhilarating and unnerving. I could control the virtual hands, but the hands had no weight. I could not feel them or the objects I touch, but, after some time, I started to associate the hands as my own and even began to feel the contours of objects and their mysterious weight. My brain was slowly mapping this new virtual-bodily-reality.

Sometime later, back in ‘reality’, I was holding my phone around the same distance from my body as the virtual hands had been in the VR game. I could not feel my hand, it felt ‘unreal’, weightless, and as though it did not belong to me. How quickly had my brain re-mapped its model of my body? I witnessed the hand which had been mine since birth depart from the boundaries of my being.

Although by nature I am drawn to search out transient oddities of experience, it nonetheless felt unsettling and deeply uncanny. Compared with notes from DPD sufferers, the valence of my experience was certainly more positive, I did not feel a sense of dread and fear. Perhaps the nature of my experience was experimental and distinct enough for it to not create panic. I knew this would be a transient experience. I also had prior experience of the baffling effects of VR on the body from the first time I tried VR a year or so back.

A brief interlude. During this previous experience (using an Oculus Rift headset), my mind had mapped to the inner (approximately 1.5 x 1.5m) VR space available for my body to move without bumping into furniture and other items in ‘reality’. Stepping outside of this space (with the headset on) flashed a red mesh boundary to indicate that I should be cautious and step back. Without the headset, for some time, I was conscious of not making drastic movements out of this imposed square space. That night I had exhausting dreams of interactions within a small square space, my hands moving as efficiently as they could in my new constrained reality, my self-concept reduced, and the boundaries of my experience curtailed. It was clear to me that these dreams stemmed from my experiences in VR. Although aware of the power of plasticity in the brain, I had not reckoned with such rapid and drastic changes! It also made me think, how do prisoners dream about their bodily space? How about animals confined in cages? Do our manmade instruments of confinement replace and constrain dreamed vistas of evolved habitats?

As we reach a critical mass in the sale of VR headsets and Facebook signal their intent in the virtual and augmented reality space with Meta, we will have to reckon with questions around the nature of our body and selves. It’s not all doom and gloom, a lot of good is coming out of VR use and I believe bountiful positive potentials lay ahead with these powerful technologies, some of which we are looking at through our research. Having said this, I do believe we need to be cautious and to engage in dialogue around the ethics of these technologies. ‘Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct is a great starting point for those interested. Although losing ourselves in new technologies may provide the escapism and excitement many of us crave, tales from DPD suffers and their parallels with VR experiences should serve as caution around the potential for negative alterations to our sense of self.