With Occulus Rift and VR gaming coming up, will we lose interest in Natural Dreaming?

[voByJunior2013]

So VR using Occulus rift and whatever other devices they make is supposed to make you feel like the made up world is real and you're aware that it's VR, then it's basically the same thing as Lucid dreaming. Except that we wil have it anytime we want, we won't have to do practice or training. The only thing is you have to live in worlds that game makers provide for you. It's not something that comes out of your own brain.

[dolphin]

Dreams offer variety incomparable to these games so, no, we won't lose interest in natural dreaming. At least I won't.

[mimihigurashi]

It's so far from being the same as lucid dreaming.. Although there are many video games I like a lot and would love to be a part of, there are many things I like to experience which I can only create personally, so I would take lucid dreaming over "virtual reality" any day of the week. Also very significant, Occulus Rift offers only sight and hearing, nothing more, whereas in lucid dreaming you can engage all of your sense and they are sometimes even amplified greatly. Technologically-induced virtual reality is nothing compared to lucid dreaming in my book.

[StephL]

Maybe one day it could be combined - imagine an LDing induction machine and its also got a story and a game, which you can load into your dream, together with another person to play with. Like a platform from which to load things into your dream, which are out of your dream-control, but you have it for all other aspects that don't belong to the definition of the world or game. It would shift the classical approach from science fiction with plugging in one's nervous system in a very interesting direction, if such a thing were possible. The best thing about it would be that you can share your LD/VR with somebody.

[Sageous]

With Occulus Rift and VR gaming coming up, will we lose interest in Natural Dreaming? No. Your own dreaming mind is a vastly more powerful VR engine than anything technology has produced, or likely will produce for quite a while, and that dreaming engine is fueled not by structured algorithms based limited information lent by someone else's script, but by your own infinite imagination... and that's just regular non-lucid dreaming; throw in lucidity, and you have completely left even the most complex video game in the dust. What is described in the OP is by no measure basically the same as LD'ing, BTW. I think the only people who will turn from LD'ing to these video games will be those who haven't yet entered the world of lucid dreaming, and don't understand what they will be missing. Their loss, I guess.

[StephL]

I really love this idea of combining it - but we have no sufficient insight by far how exactly we create these virtual worlds and even our concept of self and first person perspective yet, so how could we come up with such refined technology as to communicate with these systems in so coordinated a way as to enable sharing and/or installing features and rules. True science fiction. You would at the same time have something to record these experiences inherent in it, I guess - and that idea is lovely as well. We'll have to wait for neuroscience finding out more and maybe even contribute to that ourselves.

[Sageous]

^^ True sci-fi indeed! I would welcome that sort of enmeshed, "Coming Singularity," technology, though, should it arrive in my lifetime (and I'm still holding out hope for that arrival!).

[Occipitalred]

Interesting read Sageous. StephL, your post reminded me of the movie ExistenZ. I definitely hope that if singularity ever happens, whether it ends up being the creation of a utopia or the start of the apocalypse, I hope it happens when I am still around. I think voByJunior, that such devices will only make gaming more interesting, but not lucid dreaming less interesting (as everyone here agrees). The truth is, we never have to make a choice between playing a video game or lucid dreaming because one is done when awake and the other when asleep. No dilemma. And dreams are no more video games than Life itself. (And you wouldn't stop playing Life for video games, would you... That's addiction.)

[StephL]

Oh yes, I watched ExistenZ quite a long while back, Cronenberg at his finest, very recommended, but not for the faint of heart. This bio-port system was a secondary in game layer in the end, the games were simulated per purely technical devices, or was it..? Reading the Vinge still, Sageous, I like the man a lot as science fiction author and the topic is as important as he sees it, I believe.

[Arnov]

I think in the future we will invent a device where you will be able to recreate the same effects of lucid dreaming. However, I think that it still many years away. The current oculus rift and other VR gaming devices are very limited in what you can do. The environment and all the objects in it must be programmed into device. Lucid dreaming makes it much easier to create new environments and conjure objects. The dreams are also more personalized.

[insideout]

Yeah no, I don't think we have to worry about that for a long while. Lucid dreams still provide a lot of personal, subconsciously generated content that you won't find in games. Not yet, anyway.

[Mzzkc]

Having tried the rift, I can confidently say it's not gonna usurp lucid dreaming any time soon. It's still bloody awesome, though. =D