Lucid dreaming based game ideal for the Oculus Rift

[jumbli]

Dreams are our minds version of VR, and becoming lucid in a dream (i.e. aware you are dreaming) provides an opportunity to study them to see what techniques can be used in VR games. I have been practising lucid dreaming (on and off) for many years and think it is an ideal premise for a VR game, and even overcomes some of the challenges facing a VR game.

Unfortunately I don't have time to develop a game, but am happy to share my experience and provide input to anyone that is interested. Here are some observations about lucid dreams (LD) and how they could be used in VR

Consistency:
LD) If you look at a poster the image and text will be fixed, you can study intricate details. Look away and then look back and the theme and message of the poster will likely be consistent, but the text and imagery will have changed, maybe subtly, maybe obviously.
VR) Imagine the fun of puzzles where there is less consistency, different versions of the puzzle would drive you to the same outcome.
VR) The scene in front of you should remain consistent like a normal game, but do what you please with areas out of peripheral vision. For example, you are in a bus station focused on a puzzle. When the puzzle is solved you turn to look behind you and find you are in a train station. Turn back to the puzzle and it has now been replaced by a brick wall.

Dreams cut to the chase:
LD) Imagine you are walking from home to a shop. You walk past familiar houses, down roads you know and arrive at the shop in 30 seconds, even though it would have taken 10 minutes in real life.
VR) You can walk slowly and still make fast progress, the trick is to omit irrelevancies. A street may have 100 houses, but while you are focused on reaching the shop at the end, many of the houses in front are omitted so the shop draws nearer at a greater pace. If you look back, all the houses are present so it looks like you have travelled the proper distance. If you change your path and walk to one of the houses, the full street would be shown so the destination would then appear further away and all houses would be available to inspect.
VR) Distractions can also be used. Imagine walking through a wood to a castle in the distance, a bird flies overhead and you momentarily watch it. When you look back at the castle it is now much closer.

Limitless possibilities:
LD) Anything is possible, but the dreamer's expectations limit their abilities. A common activity for lucid dreamers is to fly, but new lucid dreamers often find this difficult because the experience is so real they don't believe they can do it. The way to succeed is to relax and feel confident.
VR) This makes for an interesting character progression. As a new lucid dreamer, you would be constrained by physics. As your experience grows you would gain various abilities common for lucid dreamers such as flying, walking through solid objects, summoning dream guides, changing your location / time of day / weather, destroying objects and much more.
VR) I am hoping the consumer Rift will include a pulse sensor in the headset. Imagine a wolf leaps in front of you, your heart races, so you temporarily loose your abilities. Escape is difficult until you can relax and slowly regain your abilities. If you don't find a way to feel safe and relax after a short time, you will wake up.

Challenge:
LD) The first challenge for lucid dreamers is to prolong their dream state. It's common to wake up due to getting over excited or due to loosing focus. Once in a dream state they live out their fantasies and also use it as a tool for self exploration.
VR) The challenge of the game is to stay within the dream while exploring an open-world and solving mysteries which leads a story to unfold, revealing truths about the main character. Becoming too excited or scared for a prolonged period would bring you out of the game. Loosing focus (not moving or progressing) for a prolonged period may also end the game. You would also wake naturally after around 10 minutes.

Summary:
We have a slow paced game, but progression around the virtual world can be quite rapid.
Game session are short (as dreams are) and therefore reduce motion sickness.
The player is encouraged to relax.

The above are just some basic mechanics, but I have many lucid dreaming adventures to draw on for game play ideas.

Does any of that sound interesting?

[cerulianbaloo]

Great ideas, I definitely think the lucid dream landscape would be ideal for a VR game. As you said, a progression of abilities such as flying etc could be unlocked as you go, further turning you into some sort of godlike Neo character. I just had one this morning that had little discrepancies as you described in the environment, but they were certainly cues that I was in a lucid state. For example, I looked down at my iPhone in the dream and it had turned into some kind of alternate reality version, where the bottom half had been cut off and the top included a 45 degree angle rather than a flat one. As cliche as it sounds there was actually a moment where I opened a white door only to reveal another white door behind it. I assume this is just going to be white doors all the way down, but it led into a dimly lit corridor. There was a real sense of trepidation there, as this was a particularly vivid dream and actually seemed to operate on rules outside the realm of my normal dreams, despite me being quite aware of my situation. There was even a moment where I wondered how long I'd be in there until I woke up. I wonder if you could translate this into a game, that feeling of being isolated or cut off, and in the context of lucid dreams you must complete certain puzzles to "liberate" yourself to progress to the next area, or overcome certain obstacles.

As for the flying, that's always been my favorite kind of dream, and as goofy as it sounds my technique was usually just making flapping motions with my arms, or a swimming motion in the air in order to gain altitude and speed. The best were the ones where I would just pick a point on the horizon and just think "fly there at x speed" and zoom! Off I went at an insane velocity. I think that would be cool to see in a VR game, and the Vita title Gravity Rush actually utilizes this fairly well, you just aim at a point and your character goes sailing towards it. I wonder how hard it would be to integrate a track IR within the Rift so you can literally look at a point and it'll go where you're looking, but for convenience sake you maybe press a button on a controller to finalize the decision. Don't want to be flying off in a thousand different directions at once! Maybe someone else can come up with a better idea for flying. Also, you could get some leap type motion tracking going and maybe do the classic superman arms outstretched. There's a lot of potential here.

I also like some of the concepts in the Unfinished Swan, where you're restoring color to the world, or just adding black to see the definition on objects. Kind of a god game where you're birthing the world through your movements. In VR this could translate with something like the leap or the Razer hydra where you're making these operatic, conductor like hand gestures to bring life into the world. My dream VR game is essentially a world building god sim that's first person, and you have motion tracked hand movements where you're creating and destroying spaces around you with gestures that also correspond to musical octaves. Maybe a rhythm based god game if you will, but with flying too

[cybereality]

Yeah, a lucid dream game would be awesome. I had two ideas just now.

1) The game could be like a training simulation, to help people recognize LDs and help them achieve lucidity easier.

2) The game could switch between the real world and the dream world, and you wouldn't know which is which. So you would have to do "reality checks" all the time to see which world you were in. This could also open the door for "Eternal Darkness"-style mind-games.

Also, lucid dreaming is the closest thing we have to true VR, and its available today. I would recommend any VR fan to look into lucid dreaming, as it really is an amazing experience.

[Pingles]

I have never tried lucid dreaming but due to my weird sleep patterns (a symptom) I remember a great deal of my dreams.

When I played the game Tribes I would dream of "skiing" the hills in that game and I remember waking up so exhilarated.

If we can catch 1% of that feeling with the Rift it will be awesome.

[crespo80]

A lucid dreamer usually makes some reality checks in real life in order to have a chance to remember do them while dreaming, thus inducing a lucid dream: you may look at your hands and see if they have more fingers than usual, or you may look at yourself in a mirror and see if you look different or younger, you may try to look twice at your watch or any written text and see if it changes.
If the game tries to fool you into thinking you are dreaming (maybe with hands tracking) you may lose some ability to make lucid dreams, because the time you'll make a reality check in a dream you may be thinking you're playing the VR game with the rift

[3dRat]

that's right VR like in matrix will not be possible whatever the hardware you put in it.
BUT with lucid dreaming... I mean for it self is already awesome!! I have had not more than a dozen y the past 10 years..... it started when years ago I practiced some meditation exercises...

But when we have some way to "inject" contents or at least guide in some manner the mind so a kind of a story with characters and so can be lived en a LD

But the first step of course must be supply some way people can enter to lucid dreaming in a easy way...

[zalo]

It would be great if we could also have games that would train people to stay stable and to get into lucid dreams.

For instance, we could have a Sleep Paralysis PTSD therapy game where evil visions haunt your paralyzed body until (using an emotiv or neurosky headset) you can get calm enough to will them away.

Games where you have to spin to stay stable, or where you have to do reality checks before activating any powers would be cool too.

-------------------------

Also, the Rift itself is like a supercharged Remee if you think about it. It is comfortable, it can make flashing lights, and it has the added benefit of using ICBM-grade IMUs to detect the fitful motions REM sleep.

[Linkage1992]

I've always thought that lucid dreaming was the key to true, immersive VR inside the brain. In the meantime, a game like that would be amazing for those of us (me included ) who have never been able to experience one.

[Oneironaut]

Imagine if you had full-body tracking, you could do stuff like rubbing your hands to stay lucid. Or when using the spinning technique, your vision would be appropriately blurred. Actually, I don't know if blur is an "inherent function" (seems like it would be since the Rift more or less approximates reality), or if you had to introduce additional blur to make it believable.

[crespo80]

Imagine if you had full-body tracking, you could do stuff like rubbing your hands to stay lucid. Or when using the spinning technique, your vision would be appropriately blurred. Actually, I don't know if blur is an "inherent function" (seems like it would be since the Rift more or less approximates reality), or if you had to introduce additional blur to make it believable.

Mmmmm, consider that doing some of this stuff in VR (expecially spinning on yourself) will easily get you nauseous, while the same is not true in a dream.

[Lookforyourhands]

Interesting thread. Having 20 years of lucid dreaming experience
and many other altered states of consciousness, it's my conviction that VR
will never replace said experiences, however we would be foolish not to utilize
VR as a research tool, for exploring consciousness and the way our brains work.
This is truly at its infancy however in 10-20 years we could be putting on VR
goggles and tapping directly into the areas of our brain associated with dreaming
and display dream imagery on HMD in real time, in this way simulating
a lucid dream.. Playing a video game in VR is similar in feeling to lucid dreaming
but I bet if you looked at the areas of the brain that are in use during VR and during
lucid dreaming, they are in fact completely different.

[3dRat]

After all brain is the ultimate graphics card (and not only graphics but physics, and so...)

as I said before the steps would be:
1.- find a easy way to induct lucid dreaming (electronic or chemical)
2.- find a way to make the brain take some "suggections" from outside so scenery or characters can be consistents from one person to other
.
.
.
.
3.- and find a way to save-game!!

[jumbli]

I agree a lucid dreaming game should use techniques used by real lucid dreamers, and spinning is a good technique for both maintaining your dream state and changing location. As crespo80 says that could be a problem in VR due to nausea, but only if you showed the spin as you would expect it to work in a traditional game, i.e. the world spinning around you at high speed. In my experience a spin in a dream quickly looses detail. In VR I suggest that you detect the user is attempting a spin and replace the scene with a more abstract effect, such as oil paint that has run sideways and blurred the image. The effect would suggest spinning while showing gently undulating colours.

Here are a couple of points that would help immersion and give the feeling that putting on the Rift took you in to a dream state:

1) In the real world you put on the rift, you experience random hypnagogic imagery and sounds and dream fragments until you relax and transition in to the dream state to continue your game. If you take off the Rift, you are pulling out of the dream back to reality. This is more immersive than going from our real world, to the game's version of a real world and then to the game's dream world.

2) I would also avoid mazes or locked rooms where you feel trapped. They can be frustrating rather than convincing scenarios because you can leave any time you like by exiting the game. Instead the goal is to try and stay in the dream and progress rather than escape. If the phone rings and you have to take the Rift off, it's the same as failing in the game and exiting.

If you marketed this game as giving a taste of what lucid dreaming is like, and as a good practise guide for lucid dreamers, I think you would have a lot of eager buyers, including those that have occasional lucid experiences, and anyone else who knew what lucid dreaming was.

[crespo80]

maybe could finally make sense those EEG devices like the OCZ NIA or the EMOTIV EPOC, that have not the requested precision to replace a gamepad but may do a really wonderful job in sensing the emotional state, thus fading the dream if the user loses focus or is stressed

[3dRat]

and dont forget endorphins! when you dream (lucid or not) they are in your brain making you feel good and special...

I remember in the 2nd part of the lawnmower man they used some kind of drug when using VR. (or may be was another movie...)

[cybereality]

Please don't bring up LawnmowerMan 2. I think that was the worst film of all time.

There was a mini-series called Wild Palms and it was all about using drugs with VR.

[3dRat]

yeah is a bad movie, but still interesting that thing about a drug to "make it more real"

now you wont believe this: so much talking about LD and reality checks that.... guess what... I have 2 LD since a lot of time... both of them i become lucid thanks to the counting fingers in the hand method. Never before had a lucid dream using reality checks... but guess this happend mainly for been talking about the topic here...

[crespo80]

me too, I had a LD tonight (though very short, it was in the morning) some weeks after the last one.
My preferred (because it rarely fails) reality check is the "close your nose with two fingers and try to breathe": if you are in a dream, you can "feel" you're breathing anyway

[Mystify]

I've had an interest in Lucid Dreaming, but I've never been able to manage it (I did get a remee, but it always falls off in the middle of the night)
One aspect of it that you mentioned was "Lucid dreaming cuts to the chase". Essentially that boils down to cutting out travel time- something I support in all games. Travel time is one concern I have for VR, as I've seen it said that the normal movement speeds for games seems really fast, and hence a slower pace may be desirable. The downside of that is an increase in travel times, which in turn means we will need more ways to mitigate travel time.

[jumbli]

In my last lucid dream I looked at my hands for a reality test and one of my fingers was just bone, so that was quite a clear sign.

I agree with you Mystify. I hope we don't see Rift games where you have to backtrack with keys or after throwing switches. If we are going to have short game session to prevent motion sickness, we don't want to waste half the time walking between objectives. It's easier to tackle in a dream related game because of the disconnect with reality. In a dream you can walk through a door in a city and appear in the middle of a forest, so the game world can still be large. In general I would like to see physics based puzzles and skill games where manual dexterity is required (requiring Leap Motion) so you stay in 1 location for quite a while, rather than typical first person shooters.

[3dheaven]

I had Lucid Dreams and Out-of-Body experiences most of my life, (Briefly, I authored a book about it and am menber of the Institute of Neuroscience and Consciousness Studies. For a living I work as a professional 3d illustrator (just learning Unreal Engine 3/4 to implement some of my ideas). I can see tremendous potential and possibliities using the Lucid Dream angle as suggested here, especially in conjunction with a device measuring brain activity and using it as an input device. Lucid dreams are a very powerful way of eleminating anxieties, phobias and fears. True, no headset will come close to emersive experience of lucid dreams, but it will only be a matter of time. For example as in Lucid Dreams you could confront your demons in VR (spiders, monsters etc) and by adopting a positive attitude, which is transmitted via a neural input device (already under development) you change the monster into a begnine character, control it and change the settng into a bright new and glorious landscape which you can then explore, prhaps even with your new ally, the "monster".

This would condition the player to confront his/her fears in a positive empowering way, using the techniques used in Lucid Dreams. (as suggested in the book by Robert Waggoner Phd, "Lucid Dreaming - Gateway to the inner Self" if you are interested)

Of course this is only scratching the surface. We could also use the techniques used in Lucid Dreaming to create a completely new gaming experience, which would put anything thought of to date in the shade in terms of positive impact on the player. For example multi level games, which are controlled by emotion and attitude rather than control pad and creating sceneries which are directly inspired by higher states of consciousness , This could create acellerated personal growth particularly in people with social challenges and personality disorders.

Postcard from Heaven.jpg

[jumbli]

3dheaven, are you looking at using some form of neural input device in your current development or are we years away from having devices that are effective and an appropriate price for the consumer market?

I am hoping the consumer version of the Rift will ship with some standard input devices. Developers can then make more immersive experiences because they will know that all users have a minimum hardware set-up. I think something like the following would be practical:

1) Leap Motion positioned on a desk to allow intricate manipulation of objects using both hands. Games would be designed to position players in such a way that complex actions always happened directly in front of their body, e.g. stand in front of a door before operating a keypad, or sit at a desk to write in a journal.
2) Kinect style camera to detect body position and broad gestures (and to detect position of Leap Motion relative to player), e.g. Hands up or I'll shoot / lift a box down from a shelf / some gesture to initiate flight. I also think it would be quite neat if you walked by leaning slightly forward and moving your shoulders as though walking, the player would therefore add their own head-bob motion.
3) Small hand held controller with trigger, thumb-stick, buttons, with a wrist strap so your can drop it while using the Leap. The controller is for anything that can't be handled using method 1 and 2.
4) Pulse sensor to detect level of relaxation / excitement.

Probably just wishful thinking.

[3dheaven]

Yes, I think the ideal input devices will be existing technology especially cameras like Kinect and the new Sony ps4 stereo camera which will read body motion (good idea reading shoulder movement for walking btw). But in addition a neural input device (already used and at research stage, perhaps something like this:
http://edgeoftomorrow.wordpress.com/tag/neuro/
Or this one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10648249
Which responds to feeling, skin resistance, subtle chemical processes etc so there will be instant feedback between thoughts/emotion and the game. Imagine how it could be used to modify behaviour by rewarding positive, constructive attitudes. Not just behaviour modification but also learning and dealing with all kinds of social maladjustment issues. This is virtually endless in its healing potential.

[KBK]

didn't know it was on yootoob. Just found it. The ultimate VR trip/film (other than 'strange days'):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQc5-OgOQ-E[/youtube]

[cerulianbaloo]

I detect 70s style cinema and high weirdness, color me intrigued. Thanks for sharing, never heard of this film before.

[cybereality]

Yep. Brainstorm is a classic. Working at Oculus kind of reminds me of the movie.

[Parallaxis]

Yep. Brainstorm is a classic. Working at Oculus kind of reminds me of the movie.

So are you guys subbed in Spanish too?

[unsilentwill]

Wow, that really... knocked my socks off. Maybe Palmer's too.

I feel like a crazy person taking some of that stuff seriously, and yet the future is being delivered this month. Do you guys have a movie night over at Oculus along with required reading? If nothing else, it could give you some ideas for dystopian architecture.

[Marulu]

Wow, that really... knocked my socks off. Maybe Palmer's too.

Palmer doesn´t need real socks, he has AR socks.
We can´t see his socks, because we don´t have cyborg eyeballs, like he does.

[RABID]

Please don't bring up LawnmowerMan 2. I think that was the worst film of all time.

oh, no! i didn't even know there WAS a sequel and now i feel strangely compelled to see it...

[3dheaven]

Hey this is serous stuff. You guys at Oculus are about to change the world.

[KBK]

I detect 70s style cinema and high weirdness, color me intrigued. Thanks for sharing, never heard of this film before.

Yes it is 'a goodie', Mr 3X17. Mr T-boned by a truck.

Christopher Walk-on does his usual terrific job.

I can't imagine He and Oldman playing off one another (in some yet unimagined film). That would be something. Expectations would be high. Might not work, who knows.

Here's a tune that the viewers of this thread will probably like:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy1x9QCKqNU[/youtube]

Natalie Wood died right at the end of filming it. Huge controversy, never finalized to anyone's satisfaction. That investigation has been re-opened..right now...Interestingly enough. Possibly tied to the statistically implausible point that - if ~15 people gather together in a room, the odds of two of them having the same birthday are well above the simple baseline numerical probability norm. Which takes one down a road that objective science wants nothing to do with. It never seems to want to investigate anything that might cause it to unravel, or step into different paths of expansion. Gee, that's strange.. not logical.

[twofoe]

Thanks for linking that movie, KBK, I enjoyed it.

... Possibly tied to the statistically implausible point that - if ~15 people gather together in a room, the odds of two of them having the same birthday are well above the simple baseline numerical probability norm. Which takes one down a road that objective science wants nothing to do with. It never seems to want to investigate anything that might cause it to unravel, or step into different paths of expansion. Gee, that's strange.. not logical.

Are you referring to the Birthday Problem (AKA birthday paradox)? If so, that's actually a case of science revealing a truth that's a lot more interesting than what would be guessed intuitively. Statistics tells us that there's a 50% chance of two people sharing a birthday in a group of 23, a 99% chance with 57, and that it only nears 100% with 367 people. Most would guess that the curve is a lot more linear, and that there's no way that every other group of 23 has two that share a birthday. Alas, it's a mathematical fact - intuitively implausible yet statistically true.

[KBK]

Yep, that's the idea. I was mistaken, incorrect, and also right. Paradox! Don't be running around and setting on fire any of my imagined and projected strawmen, or I will have to furrow my brow at you.

I am very pro science and objectivity. I live via subjectivity as a source point to be objective about. what I try very hard to not do..is to project perfection and correctness in anything that comes out of science, as there are people in science who project it's tenents and systems into life and others in the form of dogma. I beat on that part of people and science, without mercy, or quarter. That is the point in developed and developing human psychology, physiology, and expression... that holds back human potential the most.

[drifter]

VR) The scene in front of you should remain consistent like a normal game, but do what you please with areas out of peripheral vision. For example, you are in a bus station focused on a puzzle. When the puzzle is solved you turn to look behind you and find you are in a train station. Turn back to the puzzle and it has now been replaced by a brick wall.

That would be a very effective effect, and also may quite challenging to reproduce in game (Antichamber do that in a simple way).
But that would mostly concern non-lucid or semi-lucid states; in deep LDs the scenery is pretty consistent, if you so decide.

Loosing focus (not moving or progressing) for a prolonged period may also end the game.

Though IMHO staying quite and focusing on a point (my hands or a scenery element) while autosuggestioning myself ("deeper... I'm deeper") is the best way to gain, or regain, more lucidity.

But the first step of course must be supply some way people can enter to lucid dreaming in a easy way...

As some people already said, there is the Remee, if the autosuggestioning way doesn't work.
Dunno how much effective it is... Did some people here try and get good results ?
20 years ago I got the 'Dream Light' (from California...again), that was already the same concept (nothing new here), but it was a lot more bulky. Too much bulky in fact too sleep with (and by the time I already had a lot of LDs by natural ways).

1) In the real world you put on the rift, you experience random hypnagogic imagery and sounds and dream fragments until you relax and transition in to the dream state to continue your game.

Good idea, we could experience a succession of hypnagogic images (interleaved with "black-outs"), and suddenly jump into one of them (this one becoming more concrete, coherent) and start to dream.

[KBK]

the danger point here is machine level limited interpretations as a pattern set... being injected into the uniqueness of individualism in humans. A potentially dangerous byproduct that needs to be thoroughly considered, in order to be nullified.

[twofoe]

Yep, that's the idea. I was mistaken, incorrect, and also right. Paradox! Don't be running around and setting on fire any of my imagined and projected strawmen, or I will have to furrow my brow at you.

I am very pro science and objectivity. I live via subjectivity as a source point to be objective about. what I try very hard to not do..is to project perfection and correctness in anything that comes out of science, as there are people in science who project it's tenents and systems into life and others in the form of dogma. I beat on that part of people and science, without mercy, or quarter. That is the point in developed and developing human psychology, physiology, and expression... that holds back human potential the most.

Welp, so long as you diligently test your wacky theories and they turn out to be true, I have no qualms with them. It'd be amazing if something like synchronicity became a proven fact. It would be equally intriguing if a proven theory like General Relativity were proven false. I just agree with Geekmaster's sentiment that such knowledge would be a lot more useful if you shared it openly

[KBK]

Yep, that's the idea. I was mistaken, incorrect, and also right. Paradox! Don't be running around and setting on fire any of my imagined and projected strawmen, or I will have to furrow my brow at you.

I am very pro science and objectivity. I live via subjectivity as a source point to be objective about. what I try very hard to not do..is to project perfection and correctness in anything that comes out of science, as there are people in science who project it's tenents and systems into life and others in the form of dogma. I beat on that part of people and science, without mercy, or quarter. That is the point in developed and developing human psychology, physiology, and expression... that holds back human potential the most.

Welp, so long as you diligently test your wacky theories and they turn out to be true, I have no qualms with them. It'd be amazing if something like synchronicity became a proven fact. It would be equally intriguing if a proven theory like General Relativity were proven false. I just agree with Geekmaster's sentiment that such knowledge would be a lot more useful if you shared it openly

The more one gets into paradigm changing scenarios, the more one finds themselves dancing with control systems and vested interests. It's a tiny David with a highly evolved and integrated Goliath that operates in the backdrop.

One can find hotspots of kindling... and wreak havoc; break the blockade of logjams, purposeful and otherwise. The best laid plans of mice and men....

[Mystify]

Dunno how much effective it is... Did some people here try and get good results ?

I tried it, I have not gotten good results. I am not sure if it is any fault of the reemee though. I can't get it to stay on my face all night, and I haven't fully explored tweaking its settings.

[drifter]

I tried it, I have not gotten good results. I am not sure if it is any fault of the reemee though. I can't get it to stay on my face all night, and I haven't fully explored tweaking its settings.

Even if it's not conclusive yet, just thinking to wear it before sleeping is a good way of autosuggestion to have LDs. This and doing reality checks from time to time during the day.