Now You See What I Mean

The real promise of shared virtual realities

We’re getting something about virtual reality profoundly wrong right now. It’s not about the simulation; it never was. It’s about the way a simulation can create an excuse to connect with other people in a more profound way.

As I listen to the many descriptions of Web3 environments in which our virtual selves are supposed to do fake rave dancing or trade NFTs, I’m struck by how far such visions and applications are from Terence McKenna’s first thoughts about virtual reality back in the early 90s. “You will literally be able to see what I mean,” he told me. All that came to mind for me as he said that was some form of dancing that my avatar might do — something like a bee dancing in order to communicate the location of pollenating flowers.

I only came to understand what he meant about a decade later while shooting a PBS Frontline documentary, digital_nation. We were filming a segment at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, where their Director for Medical Virtual Reality, Skip Rizzo, was using VR simulations to treat PTSD among combat veterans, and with surprisingly good results. We decided to put me into the simulation as the patient, so we could film how it worked while I experienced it first-hand and explained the sensations to the TV audience.

The simulation was used mostly for vets who had been exposed to an IED (Improved Explosive Device) or ambush while driving in Iraq. The patient would sit in a chair, put on VR goggles and then describe the scene to the psychologist running the simulation. The vet could say whether they were in a Bradley, Humvee, or tank, which seat they were in, whether it was day or night, and so on. Then the therapist would make the appropriate selections and build a simulation. The rig could even generate the particular smells of different parts of the world in various seasons.

I figured I would go all in, and use a devastating car crash I had survived in the 1980s for my simulation and stored trauma. I was in the passenger seat of a regular car, as my best friend drove us east through the desert toward the Grand Canyon.