You don’t need to look far to find reports of people who felt “off” after using and then deleting a VR headset. Motion sickness is certainly the best known post-VR symptom, but a subset of people say they have experienced the feeling of “stuck in VR” after removing their headset. It’s fascinating to dispel reports that someone has seen. Matrix (1999) One more time, I can see that there is a clear scientific basis for the senses.
I have been reporting professionally about the XR industry for nearly 15 years, and in the process I came across many reports from users who described the vague sense of being still in virtual reality after removing the headset. I recently asked about the social media community and was surprised by the response. Through over 100 replies, people shared their experiences with their emotions. This is the sampling:
It happened when I was new to VR and just played Boneworks for hours. Looking down at my body, my hands didn’t feel that they belonged to me. I was trying to grab a knife and fork for dinner, so it required a massive intensive effort I was staring at my hands. – @edward1370
After my first session Gorilla Tag. The movement felt strange, as if my feet weren’t there. It was a surreal experience, I loved it. – @greenlig
In the early days I used DK1 on my Mac, but there was crazy latency. After using it for 2 hours, my brain was completely adapted to latency. It was surreal to take off the headset. It seemed like there was a problem with “tracking” in the real world. 😅 – @robinhuse
It only happened to me once. After wearing the Vision Pro for about 24 hours. It feels very strange, but fascinating. – @roberjala
In a way, but more than that, I went upstairs to eat after a long VR session when I first got Quest 1 in 2019. Then I realized I was an IRL. – @opalstar3
Just before I went to the real mini golf course with my friends, I played a two-hour walk-about mini golf. Standing on the hole, it gave me the strange feeling that I was in the game. It also helped me win comfortably. But it was strange. My eyes continued to pixelate the course. – @theneoism
Yes, my hands felt fake for a few days, but it passed pretty quickly, like a brain adapted to a change of perspective. – @onemorebenjamin
That happens sometimes. It’s where things feel “off” when I’m off VR, and my body feels like it’s not me, it’s just something I need for for a while. – @kathielrayna
Many people struggle to clarify their emotions, but clear themes emerge. Changes in perception – a vague feeling that the real world, or your body, doesn’t look as “real” as usual.
This phenomenon may be rare, but it is certainly true. Luckily, as far as we know, it is also temporary.
The main reason you feel “stuck in VR” is related to proprioception. Proprioception is a model of your brain, where your body is in the universe. This model is essentially an intuition constructed through visual and tactile feedback. And we can think of it as a “real-time” model that constantly updates itself as new feedback is observed.
The proprioceptive model allows you to close your eyes and touch your nose, elbow, or knee with high accuracy. It maintains a very accurate sense of your body for yourself and the world without visual feedback.
While VR headsets may be very good at convincing us that we stand in another reality, the simulation is incomplete.
Consider a VR motion controller. They track quickly and accurately, but always have latency and inaccuracies. Many experiences even make the controller’s position intentionally manipulate to enhance immersion.
These inaccuracies (intrinsic or intentional) tend to fluctuate over the course of using the headset, but are primarily hidden as they can only see virtual hands rather than actually look at them. And as your brain recognizes virtual hands as your own, it starts to incorporate inaccuracy into its proprioception model.
For example, if you’ve played Beat Saber before, you’ll see that it’s a high-motion game where you need to waving your hands accurately to cut blocks. If you play a game on the system with twice the latency of another headset, you’re expected to throw it away. However, practice allows most people to update their brains to compensate for the incomplete world they are looking at.
This is not limited to controllers. The headset itself also has incomplete tracking and some delay. It may be that it takes a little longer to your brain to turn your head than you’re used to.
Or, consider a VR game where you’re a foot taller than you actually live. And how about a game where you make arms twice as long as normal? It may feel very strange at first and it will be difficult to grasp things accurately.
As time passes, your brain will feel like you are really that tall or your arms are that long. Your brain has new information built into it to make you feel “normal.”
Then, if you remove the headset, the exact same thing happens. Your brain receives new feedback (i.e. you are of different heights and your arms are of different lengths than when you were in virtual reality). So now, until you become accustomed to the real world again, the real you (and the augmented, the real world) will feel “strange.”
If you feel your arms a little while ago, your sense of reach feels abruptly shorter than you would expect, and you feel a little away from the real world, forcing you to make a more conscious effort to get a cup of coffee from the surrounding sight.
I tend to call this strange sensation (as it relates to perception and VR) a “proprioceptive biroscope,” which is the root of the feeling of being “confined to VR.” The broader phenomenon of this sensation being brought about is not exclusive to VR, but is called dedermalization disorder.
Ironically, this feeling of “confined in VR” after removing the headset means that modern headsets can deceive our visual systems very effectively, while also having incompleteness such as latency and tracking of inaccuracy. We also have an impressive ability to adapt to new feedback.
Fortunately, the sense of proprioceptive disconnect is temporary and generally disappears in 1-2 hours. Some people are more sensitive to this feeling, and whether or not it happens can equally depend on the features of the VR hardware you are using, and even the specific VR game or app you are using.
Note: It is worth mentioning that there are other factors that can contribute to the feeling of being “confined in VR” after removing the headset. The two main ones are the discrepancies in the headset’s IPD settings (which lead to changes in the meaning of scale) and the conflict between Vergence-Commoncomation (an eye-related artifact caused by modern VR headsets lacking various displays).
Researchers have actually studied and quantified the phenomenon of VR-related proprioceptive disconnects.
A new paper is being called from researchers at the University of Chicago VR side effects: Contradictions between memory and proprioception after leaving virtual reality We investigate the prolonged effects of using a VR headset. This is called “side effects” using VR.
Our brain plasticity rapidly adapts the sense of VR. This is a phenomenon that has been utilized through technologies such as redirect walking and hand redirection. However, most HCIs are interested in how users adapt to VR, but they focus on how users need to adapt their senses when they return to the real person. We report cases where users experience unintended, prolonged side effects even after leaving VR. This is proprioception or memory distortion that can pose safety or usability risks.
To investigate, we conducted two studies examining (1) proprioceptive side effects from altered hand movements (retargeting) and (2) memory distortions resulting from spatial discrepancies between virtual and real-world locations of the same object.
In some of the research, the researchers intentionally exaggerated the location of hand tracking (unknown to the subjects in the experiment), a common technique used in VR designs called hand retarding. After the user deleted the headset, they were asked to perform a pointing task, allowing researchers to quantify how VR use affects the user’s actual behavior after deleting the headset.
The researchers said, “After leaving VR, participants’ hands remained up to 2.75 inches (7 cm) (inaccurate to point to the task), indicating residual proprioceptive distortion.”
In another part of the study, the researchers showed that peripheral perceptions of a virtual environment can change the memory of people in that environment.
For this experiment, researchers placed a handful of objects in the room, including seemingly unrelated fire extinguishers. The researchers skillfully began the experiment by asking subjects to collect balls that were pre-located in the room.
Subjects were then placed in a VR headset showing a virtual replica of the room. However, in the virtual replica, some objects have been modified (unknown to the subjects). For example, the fire extinguisher has been moved to the other side of the room.
Currently, in the virtual replica of the room, subjects were asked to repeat the same ball collection task as before. After leaving the room and removing the headset, subjects were asked to remember where the various objects in the room were. Researchers discovered that a considerable portion of the subjects misremembered the location of the actual fire extinguisher, and instead remembered the location of the virtual fire extinguisher.
Although this study did not directly address the feeling of being “stuck in VR,” it quantified how the use of virtual reality has prolonged side effects that can actually change a person’s proprioception and memory temporarily.
Paper authors Antonin Thiemol and Pedro Lopez emphasize that these seemingly small effects can lead to potentially dangerous edge cases.
Consider using VR to train paramedics using virtual replicas of real spaces. The purpose of training is to familiarize trainees with emergency procedures, but if the virtual replica used is not a careful copy of the actual situation in which it is being trained, it can lead to costly mistakes.
The potential danger from these VR side effects is definitely edge cases, but if enough people use a VR headset, such edge cases definitely occur.
The authors highlight the need for more research in this field, especially given the already millions of headsets around the world.
Our work suggests that VR can induce side effects in relatively unconstrained scenarios, but more research will follow to improve understanding and risks need to be assessed better. First, this study focused only on a limited subset of the wide variety of perceptual manipulations that can be presented to VR users. Therefore, future work should investigate the possibility of VR side effects of other perceptual manipulations, such as gait curvature, speed changes, and changes in virtual body structure. Changing the perception of an object’s physical properties (e.g., its weight, its specificity, etc.) also allows the user to adopt false adaptations, potentially dangerous behaviors (especially when they mistakenly learn to interact with fragile or harmful objects). Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, more factors may be hidden in play. For example, duration of exposure in VR should be investigated as it can affect the magnitude and long-term side effects. Furthermore, the intensity of perceptual Qualia, such as presence or embodiedness, may be an interesting predictor of the emergence of VR side effects.
The feeling of being stuck in VR seems to disappear quite quickly. But what if the real world itself is just another simulation? Surprisingly, scientists believe they have a way to answer that question too.
