Weekly Writing

Week 2: How virtual reality affects Memories and Dreams

This week’s listen “How virtual reality affects Memories and Dreams”, was very interesting to listen to. The topic of Memories and Dreams has always been an interest of mine, so, hearing it in relation to the field I am working on at the moment, was very interesting. As the hosts of this podcast said, we have only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding memories and dreams, which means that the more we take an interest in understanding and analyzing them, the closer we are to understanding them.

In this podcast, the hosts start by explaining the concept of memories and dreams, how sleep plays a vital role in forming these two, and how our daily experiences affect them as well. The hosts of this podcast set out to answer a specific question: what are the effects, if any, of VR on our memories and dreams?

To answer this question, the podcasters first highlight that VR possesses many “inputs” and information that the brain tries to process. Moreover, through VR, the body receives a lot of stimuli and all senses are activated and used, giving the brain more information to process and store in its memory. What we learn next is what dreams and sleep have to do with this. When we sleep, our brain recalls and processes all the information learned. On one hand, some functions of VR, such as “first-person perspective”, or “multi-sensory learning”, help improve memory retrieval and creativity, as the user’s brain interprets their experience in VR as real. On the other hand, because of the hyper-realistic aspect of VR, the brain could get “confused” and confuse reality and virtual reality, which could create a false vision of one’s world.

Listening to this podcast reminded me of an exhibition I went to in 2016. It was an exhibition for the Museum of the Future that was set to open in 2018. Many inventions were presented, including many VR innovations. One particular invention that stood out to me was a sort of chip that recalls your dreams for you. This "dream chip" would be used after waking up, and it would read the dreams you've dreamt through the night for you.

Week 3: Telling Stories in Spaces without saying anything Loud

This week’s Watch was very interesting. “Telling Stories in spaces without saying anything out loud” is a puzzle-solving escape room, created by Laura E. Hall. Laura E. Hall argues in her presentation that current escape rooms lack some aspects that would make the experience much better. For instance, she describes how in most escape rooms she’s been to, there is always a long introduction and story that players have to listen to or read before playing, which she argues, takes away and dims the excitement to play and diverts players from the goal of the game. As a solution, she suggests displaying short momentary phrases or instructions that are not too long and are only very essential. She also says that the use of words should be avoided at all costs so as to not divert attention from the experience.

Moreover, a big part of her argument, and something that she wanted to ensure her escape room would have, is giving the players a sense of childlike wonder and excitement. Hall says that most escape rooms don’t have this aspect since they are not elaborate enough or there are other factors that distract from the main goal of the escape room, which in turn, makes it less exciting and discoverable.

Hall also argues that a game should have a constructive and logical story progression. To ensure that, characters/players need to be fully engaged in the game and some part of their brain should always be stimulated in the escape room setting. Additionally, the player’s senses should equally be activated, and there should be different elements that communicate with each sense. This argument could be linked to Michael Naimark’s point in “VR/AR Fundamentals-Audiovisual spatiality and Immersion”. The author of this article says that there are certain elements that ensure the engagement of a user in the VR/AR world, these elements play on the spatiality of VR and how it is designed. This aspect could also be taken into consideration when creating an in-person experience, such as the escape room, where you want the player to be completely engaged in the experience and story you created.

This aspect reminds me of “Choose your own adventure” type stories, where the player or watcher has to make certain choices that will affect the progression and outcome of the story. These types of movies or stories are a perfect example of engaging content that draws and emerge their user into the story fully, and the user is completely aware of the details of the story since they played a vital role in its progression.