Spending a week in VR

Finally, we have an answer to the age old question: what happens if you spend a week in virtual reality? Jak Wilmot set out to discover the implications of living in VR for an extended period of time, while creating a documentary film about the experience. Good for him- you definitely wouldn’t catch me attempting this stunt.

During the week, Jak slept, ate, and showered with a VR headset strapped to his head. He actually bounced between a few different ones, keeping his eyes closed while doing the occasional switch. He had a waterproof Oculus Go rig for showering, as well as an Oculus Rift and an HTC Vive set up at his computer desk.

While in VR, Jak attempted to remain social through Altspace VR- which if you’re unfamiliar is a VR based social media platform with activities like film screenings and meditation groups. He explored the world through Google Earth VR, which he says- short of feeling the wind, felt a lot like actually being there. He worked out using a boxing game, and Beat Saber, and even did some VR Yoga.

Jak believes that in the future, AR and VR will be one in the same. He imagines a future where you have a single pair of glasses that can quickly switch between fully immersing you in VR, and augmenting real like with AR. Microsoft seems to be on the same page here- pushing Windows Mixed Reality as their unified platform for both AR and VR.

At the end of the experience, Jak took his headset off and slowly adjusted back to reality. Remember when your mother said not to sit too close to the TV because you’ll burn your retinas off? Well, turns out she was lying because Jak’s eyes thankfully still work.

So what can we learn from this glimpse into the future? I think the takeaway is this- humans can for the most part, adjust to living in VR, Matrix style, with a few drawbacks. Him being able to feel like he’s still connected to society- while in real life he’s sitting in a dark room with his eyes covered- is indeed impressive. But I think it’ll be a long time before we can recreate the feeling of being outside.