I’ve just had an interesting experience that changed my felt-sense of consciousness and being embodied.
I’ve played over 80 hours of the newly released Zelda game, which is a lot given that it’s only been out for 14 days. I do not normally play video games very much, this has been a fairly drastic change in how I’ve spent my personal time.
I’m really focused while playing it, and feel very immersed in the world of the game. So much so that I had a quite odd experience coming back to the rest of my life.
Yesterday, after playing the game for an hour, I wandered around the place my team works, and found a newly remodeled bathroom I had not seen before. I looked in, remembering how the room used to be.
I’m not quite sure how to describe the experience, but as I looked into the room, my brain ran the check “Is this one of the rooms that my body is physically located in or not?” and I instinctively stuck my head in fully to confirm that I was visible in the mirror. (I was.)
It was as though my brain had fully separated “Viewing a location” and “My human body being physically present in the location”.
Noticing this has further reduced my felt sense of “being in my body”. I suspect one day if I am uploaded, remembering this experience will reduce any experience of “but is this really me” to zero.
I’ve just had an interesting experience that changed my felt-sense of consciousness and being embodied.
I’ve played over 80 hours of the newly released Zelda game, which is a lot given that it’s only been out for 14 days. I do not normally play video games very much, this has been a fairly drastic change in how I’ve spent my personal time.
I’m really focused while playing it, and feel very immersed in the world of the game. So much so that I had a quite odd experience coming back to the rest of my life.
Yesterday, after playing the game for an hour, I wandered around the place my team works, and found a newly remodeled bathroom I had not seen before. I looked in, remembering how the room used to be.
I’m not quite sure how to describe the experience, but as I looked into the room, my brain ran the check “Is this one of the rooms that my body is physically located in or not?” and I instinctively stuck my head in fully to confirm that I was visible in the mirror. (I was.)
It was as though my brain had fully separated “Viewing a location” and “My human body being physically present in the location”.
Noticing this has further reduced my felt sense of “being in my body”. I suspect one day if I am uploaded, remembering this experience will reduce any experience of “but is this really me” to zero.