Motion sickness and the VR “hangover”: What you need to know.
by Zen @ ThisIsMeInVR.com
If you’ve tried out a Virtual Reality game, experience or a 360 video and experienced some discomfort during or afterward, you felt a type of motion sickness.
The cause: Mixed sensory signals to the brain. The most common one is that your eyes registered horizon movement and the liquids in your inner ear did not. they knew you were on a flat stable surface. Similar to sea or travel sickness, your body reacts to this incongruity by making you feel ill. Your body misinterprets the cause (assuming you ate something poisonous) and triggers the ejection button to try to save you.
“Hangovers” from technological immersion are now a real situation. Let me explain.
You see, your Brain determines your spacial position and movement by using visual signals from your eyes and body(proprioception). Your subconscious is constantly processing motion cues, horizon placement, gravity and a host of other information (only having 5 senses is a myth, there are dozens) including motion signals from liquids within your ear. Some VR experiences have lots of motion and don’t factor this effect into game design. Thus if you are in a virtual game and you move very quickly, (such as a sharp turn in a car), your eyes see the horizon and speed motions correctly but your inner ear liquids don’t move accordingly. Either immediately or some time afterwards you will feel warm, possibly sweating heavily, a slow lag motion to the eyes and a feeling of intense nausea or disorientation.
The effects can be short or very long lasting (upto a week after in some cases)Your brain sensed that your sensory information contradicted and assumed you must have eaten some poison berries. Oh no! In an effort to save you, your brain caused your body to feel nauseated in the hopes that you expel the poison it assumes you ingested. This is commonly known as Motion Sickness.
We’ve known about and been dealing with Motion sickness since we first invented boats. — We’ve learned that in time your body can and will adapt to the constant mixed messages, and in time your body will no longer adversely react to these types of sensory conflicts. So in time your body should adapt around this issue (few weeks of daily use). It wont happen at the same rate for everyone, and for some it may never occur at all.
Why might the effects be different for each?
It is generally believe that people have dominant senses. Auditory, Kinestetic, Visual etc… It’s quite possible that VR motion sickness affects some people in drastically different ways. Some people report discomfort in EVERY VR experience, others report no issues at all. (children seem to feel the least of the effects) What triggers the ab-reaction? Well not all VR games and 360 video experiences are created equal. Some motions and situations are worse than others.
VR Games and experiences with little to no motion should not make you ill. Games where you are essentially static in a VR world. Star Trek BridgeCrew or Werewolves Within on PlayStation VR for example is a game played from a sitting position. The world matches your expectations of a real world.Things are stable. Little to no motion.Things are good. 4+ hrs can be enjoyed with little to no effect. Similarly SportsBarVR allows standing and “teleporting” around in a simulated ROOM. The floor matches your floor. Room scale indoors seems to work very well. as long as you dont try to walk around too much.
Movement in VR is tricky, because of head bobbing, straffing and timing of movement with sensory interpretation. Currently, the simplest navigation technique seems to be the “teleport” (walking in VR has issues related to space anyways ie bumping into things in your house) adding motion controllers with movement controls and slow glides are a solution horizontal slow movement.(like gliding on skates. rather than a head-bobbing walk), but for now you may notice teleportation to be the most common and its good as long as the arrival contains a slight fade, (some harsh transitions can be unpleasant. )
Travel in VR within a Vehicle is much more complex. If the interior of the vehicle is displayed your can brain accept the HUD as a reference point (though also having a stable horizon is much better) and can mitigate the discomfort. If you feel motion sick in these experiences, frequently look at the dashboard (the static portions) to alleviate it.
What appears to cause the worst nausea comes from when perceiving g forces that should be applied sideways. Strafing, sharp fast turns and spinning out. Race tracks with banked corners drastically reduce the unpleasant effects of motion sickness in VR. As they convert horizontal G forces to Vertical ones. If more racing games had banked corners and wipe-outs didn’t “spin u out” it would be better for your brain. (Flight games, all need HUD overlays and extra attention on creating Horizon Cues, Ar least until they hack inner ear liquid caused issues.
new info: It’s believe that low vibrations or voltage applied to just below the ear may inhibit motion sickness caused nausea,(perhaps headphones for VR in the future will deliver light voltage or vibration to inhibit the nausea response)
A secondary after effect of VR, is blurred or distorted vision. Prolonged use of VR teaches the brain that eye focus for distance no longer applies. (in the real world , your eyes constantly refocus for distant objects. (in VR every item is centimeters from your face) In time your brain adjusts, and upon exiting VR you may notice slight changes in your vision. Your reaction time to focus on distant or incoming objects. As technology advances, these types of VR and AR devices will have effects..
What does this mean for the near future? Issues. Lots of issues.
CAUTION: DO NOT PLAY VR WITH EXCESSIVE MOTION THEN TRY TO OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY. (especially motorcycles!) Your balance and spacial distancing system may have been disrupted and accidents may occur.
How long until people call in sick from work ?because they stayed up late the night before playing too many Fast paced VR games and feel too uncomfortable to drive or work the next day. (in some VR motion sickness “Hangover” can last for DAYS especially if you happen to fall asleep in VR!)
I suggest if you suffer from VR induced motion sickness, there are some current Remedy options. take Gravol, Ginger, marijuana or alcohol before gameplay.
If after your VR gameplay or experience you feel like you are suffering SEVERE Sickness a sort of VR hangover, there are a few little tricks I’ve learned that seem to help it go away rapidly.
1-Take off your shoes, and stand on earth or solid rock , outdoors, while looking off at the horizon for a few minutes.
2- hold and stare at a nearly full glass of water, until your nausea goes away, (your brain gets rapid biofeedback of your “motion” from your arm position (proprioception) and the level “horizon” (from rim of water in glass)
These seem to allow your brain to re-calibrate and re-stabilize your balance, helping you transition back into the real world.
Much research still needs to occur before we fully appreciate all the risks and effects that VR may have on people (such as epigenetic influences) and how we can safely integrate this awesome technology into our lives. For some its a great Boon such as those living in Cold climates. Unfortunately, for now it’s simply one big experiment, being conducted on the population with a product that is being field tested by the early adopters.
TIME TRAVEL IS NOW POSSIBLE!
TIME TRAVEL (and access to the 4th Dimension) IS NOW POSSIBLE!
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