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Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

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Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#61

Post by nradov »

vsareto wrote: post #9
mensetmanusman wrote: post #4

Also known as having an imagination. I remember doing this on bus rides to better understand quake levels.

I’m thinking being able to replay worlds or map geometry like your brain is rendering it live is more rare and maybe this is teaching it a bit. No one’s ever quizzed me on how many details (big and small) I could get right though.

I used to play so much Tetris that after a while I could just close my eyes and play without a computer. From talking to other frequent players this was not uncommon.

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#62

Post by cardamomo »

bee_rider wrote: post #10

Interesting phenomenon. I'm not super well versed on quantum physics, but I'm not sure that a system that includes travel between universes should be described as 'rooted in extrapolations of modern cosmology, quantum theory,[...,],' so much based on fictional systems lightly inspired by quantum physics. Anyway, given the state of the world it isn't that surprising that people would like to indulge in a bit more dayd…

The concept of living simultaneously in multiple universes (other "Narratives") is explored in Neal Stephenson's _Anathem_. Within the novel, a key assumption shared by those that practice this feat is that our brains' predictive power relies on simultaneously traversing the many worlds created at any juncture in the Narrative.

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#63

Post by westoncb »

Whether the phenomenon is of any interest psychologically (imo) hinges on the question of whether Reality Shifters are in a sleeping state during the activity or not (of course it's interesting socially that it's such a big trend in either case).

In the section where they compare to Lucid Dreaming it sounds identical to my mind (aside from certain trends in preferences for how the LD is set up—but a new trend in preferences for LD induction techniques is hardly headline-worthy).

Did I miss it or have they done any measurement of brain activity of reality shifters doing their thing?

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#64

Post by rg111 »

eightails wrote: post #35

In a way it reminds me of being engrossed in reading, in that there's an almost complete suspension of awareness of the outside world in favour of the fictional one. The fact that RS users report writing detailed scripts seems to support this: > Before I plan on shifting, I write myself a script in the notes app on my phone, in which I plan exactly what happens in the desired reality. This makes it easier to visualiz…

Exactly this.

Just after I read the abstract, it reminded me of reading a long, engrossing novel (like War and Peace, LOTR, etc.), or watching a similar TV/Web series (like The Wire, Breaking Bad, etc.)

To a large extent I read long novels for this effect.

It gives you momentary escape from your reality, and when you "come back", you come back better.

I also want to point out that novels can be addictive in a bad way.

Long art forms suspends reality for a time period.

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#65

Post by s5300 »

alan_n wrote: post #45

This just sounds like lucid dreaming awake imo. Kind of scary some of these people believe they're actually jumping dimensions or something. Wonder how much control they can exert compared to a lucid dreaming. I've not managed LD awake/meditating yet , but I can fall asleep awake if my body is tired enough but I'm mentally awake, though it requires a lot of concentration. And doing it does not feel nice (you can feel…

> Kind of scary some of these people believe they're actually jumping dimensions or something

Every time I have thoughts like this about anymore, I find myself coming back to “well, there are actual Nazi wannabes still, so I guess isn’t too bad” - let them live their life.

Once Nazis are out of the picture… then maybe we can justify cracking down on others things we don’t like :P

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#66

Post by Alan_Dillman »

Is it really anything new, or just newly noticed by these select researchers?

I used to meditate/imagine natural environments in the 1980s and while in them, I'd move my perception through, looking for entities to talk to. I didn't know the term tulpa, but the notion of a spirit guide or totem is similar enough. It was better than full on dreaming, but wasn't lucid dreaming either.

Some of my friends had the shared waking fantasy that they could do things like mentally cause the traffic lights to change. I don't remember what they called it, but being public about it seems to be wrapped up in notions of membership and the ingroup.

I wouldn't be surprised if variations of what we did in teen culture then and what the authors are writing about are somewhat universal to adolescent minds. It might be a cognitive development stage, like how young kids go through a nightmare stage.

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#67

Post by bserge »

mahathu wrote: post #44
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always had this idea that meditation was the long way to the shortcut drugs offered. I am saying meditation, because, despite using fancy new terminology (RS)( ..[is] facilitated by specific induction methods involving relaxation, concentration of attention, and autosuggestion ), the paper does not really describe new phenomenon, but rather.. a new generation rediscovering 60s. History. Rhymes. And all that.

>I always had this idea that meditation was the long way to the shortcut drugs offered. Very well put! Every time I'm on LSD or psilocybin (or even THC in higher dosages) I think "I should learn how to properly meditate to get into this state of insight sober"

> Every time I'm on LSD or psilocybin (or even THC in higher dosages) I think "I should learn how to properly meditate to get into this state of insight sober"

Because you're on the drug.

That's the way I feel on a certain antidepressant. "Hey, I could learn to feel like this without it!".

Nope, that's just the chemical working.

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#68

Post by drdeca »

bee_rider wrote: post #60
nine_k wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see any quantum event, such that is only described by a probability, as a fork. It produces two universes, in one if which the event has occurred, in another has not, otherwise identical. Using this model, it is easy to imagine "parallel realities" which are very close to ours and thus amenable to fantasizing, but different enough to contain whatever makes the fantasies attractive.

Right, and it is interesting because 'quantum events' happen very often, which would seem to indicate an infinite number of universes, which means that any particular fantasy you'd like to think about is occurring in some of them. The bit I get fuzzy at: something I believe, but without proof, is that any scheme that involved any communication between universes would fundamentally violate a ton of basic physics princ…

Check out the concept of a "Everett-Wheeler telephone".

If quantum mechanics had a non-linearity and... some other conditions, then you could use it to send, uh, some information between two sides of a branch point, uh, once, I think.

At least, you could send a single bit from one side of the branch to the other.

I think the idea is, if there are non-linearities in time evolution, then either [the thing described above] is possible, or sending messages back in time is possible?

So, that's, I suppose, a reason one might expect time evolution to be completely linear? (beyond just, it being not completely linear being like, super ugly.)

But, also, I don't think the "duplicating the universe requires duplicating all the matter" really follows from QM stuff.

These "splittings", they aren't... It is all just linear combinations of things.

Ok, so, idk how to handle this in like, a relativistic context, but in a non-relativistic context, if you are just talking about unitary time evolution, with no born rule discrete jump stuff imposed on top (which, if you are using MWI , which I assume is what you mean because you are talking about the splittings, is the thing), then it's not like you have some single time at which you go from one universe to two universes? It's all just continuous time evolution of the wavefunction. The worlds are just projections of this wavefunction into parts that can be considered independently because of like, decoherence and such? Something like that.

Maybe you could think of it as less "the world if the measurement outcome is x" and more "the world insofar as the measurement outcome is x" ?

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#69

Post by codezero »

Eelongate wrote: post #57
codezero wrote: post #33

Interesting. I have been doing this for decades but I absolutely started to get more intentional and in depth during the pandemic. I’ve never been good in social situations and I generally avoid them, and I used this kind of day dreaming to play out various scenarios like a decision tree to “workshop” how to interact with specific people, and it has served me well for practical purposes, but I started using it more f…

> day dreaming to play out various scenarios like a decision tree to “workshop” how to interact with specific people Seems like a reinvention of empathy.

Curious how you see it that way. I am a pretty empathetic person (maybe less so to strangers than friends), but I have limited (mostly by choice) filters, so sometimes I just want to make sure I’m not going to accidentally cross any boundaries. I think of it more like rehearsing lines for a play, but making tweaks to fit the intended scene.

Re: Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture

#70

Post by ineedasername »

Tenoke wrote: post #58
eightails wrote: post #35

In a way it reminds me of being engrossed in reading, in that there's an almost complete suspension of awareness of the outside world in favour of the fictional one. The fact that RS users report writing detailed scripts seems to support this: > Before I plan on shifting, I write myself a script in the notes app on my phone, in which I plan exactly what happens in the desired reality. This makes it easier to visualiz…

>is a shame it has to come laden with bogus rationalisations via the occult or pop-quantum physics I'm guessing those help them though. The more you believe in it the better it works so having plausible (to laymen) explanations and talking as if the characters are real people improves the experience.

Good point. Constructing pseudo-scientific justifications and explanations becomes part of a self reinforcing system.

Unfortunately it is a similar mechanism that underlies various pathological delusions like paranoia, so I'm not sure how healthy of an activity it would be. I suppose like anything else it comes down to a matter of degrees?

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