SL Explorer: Voices

Well, that was definitely a disturbing experience. It is easy to say that one could ignore the voices in their head, but what if you can't turn them off? I don't know how long it would take for the constant chatter and derisive talking to get to me, but I don't think it would be very long. I remember attending a theatre conference when I was either in high school or just beginning college. There was a discussion group led by a teacher and students who had written an original play in which the main character was in a wheelchair. The them of the play was the challenges faced by this individual with a disability. I recall that the director talked about the choice of disability. He explained that they wanted the actor playing the role to be able to relate to the character. "We can experience what someone in a wheelchair experiences on some level because we can get in the wheelchair. We can get that perspective. We couldn't do that with something like a mental disability. We can't get inside someone's mind to experience what that is like." Having had this experience in Second Life, I feel that it does give some small sense of what particular individuals might go through on a daily basis. We will never truly understand, since we have the ability to turn the voices on and off. However, the immersive nature of VR gives us more of an empathy for that individual. I have no doubt that this would be useful for a psychology class, or for special educators, or just as a training tool to make people aware of the experiences of individuals with mental illness. I could see similar tools for other issues as well.