I am going to relive my teenage years in VR

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I am planning to relive my teenage years in the virtual world.

As soon as the right type of software becomes available, I will be virtually recreating my old 1980s haunts, school, home, friend's house etc, as well as the people that were around during that period of my life, such as the other students and teachers.

I'm going to try to relive '84, '85, & '86, as, at the time, things could've gone much better than they actually did. I'm really excited about the possibility of being able to do this and can hardly wait for it to happen!

I am wondering, if this does come to fruition, whether I will be able to distinguish my real memories of the period from the virtual memories that I will have created. Maybe I will become somewhat confused about what wss real and what was fiction.

That said, I don't care enough for it to stop me doing this. I await the arrival of the technology eagerly.

So, will anybody else be doing something similar, or is it just me?

Also, does anybody think that it is a terrible idea, and if so, why?

I'm so excited. I've been thinking about this for quite a while.

If you do I'd be careful, sounds like you could lose yourself in that sort of thing pretty easily. I think it is likely you could have some trouble distinguishing real memories from the VR memories, especially if you relived it all in one sitting....probably easier to distingish if you did it in a period of sessions with breaks in between to maintain your current real life.

Though I don't think we have that advanced of VR yet, concepts for it certainly exist in sci-fi but real VR is still in its early stages from my understanding.

I agree that the technology is not quite there yet.

Also, I think you're right about it being potentially quite dangerous. Anybody planning something like this would have to be careful. If I were to get so sucked into things that I was completely addicted to being there and couldn't stay away, then that could be very unhealthy indeed.

But, on balance, I think it could be a positive thing and it might let me lay a few ghosts. Hopefully.

It will certainly be an interesting experiment, one way or the other.

Hello MirrorWars. We need to talk on this. I could hardly believe it when I saw your post, for you see, I too have been working with this concept. As for the software you are talking about, I am not familiar with it.

I am here to tell you that I have already (during the past half year) met with a degree of success in realistically entering into my past. Within this past I have been able to do things differently than I actually experienced. Other times, I can just go with the flow and let it play out. But these experiences are not dreams, and they are not during times when I am fully awake. I guess you could call it like what Rod Serling narrated on the opening of Twilight Zone:

"It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone."

In the technique I use, I do enter this middle ground between what is currently real and what is not currently real. I can enter into the past and experience it as if it is real. I am able to control (some times) what I do in this realm. When taking into account Rod Serling's narration of including the dimension of imagination, then I guess I would qualify for entering into the twilight zone.

I am an extremely nostalgic guy. I view the possibility of entering my past as incredibly desirable and magical. I tell myself that within our existence are multiple dimensions (touched upon by multiple scientists) where we may exist. To get into these dimensions, which I will accept as imaginations, does not require some elaborate computer software. All it requires is like that which is seen on the Twilight Zone --- one's mind or imagination.

I have developed a self-hypnosis that works for me (and I believe it can work for others) in getting me to the past, even if it is only in my mind. But if the experience seems real, then that is fine by me. Once I am able to slip into this so-called twilight zone, then after emerging back into reality I often find I can immediately slip back into the so-called past within mere seconds. The practice is most exhausting and takes some time to fully awaken from. It leaves (for a half hour or so) me with a strange surreal feeling that I slowly emerge from.

Whether I am actually slipping into some other dimension taking me to the past or it is only in my self-hypnotized imagination (perhaps recalling actual past events), the importance is that in my mind it seems real at the time and is not warped or twisted like most dreams are. If you want me to explain the technique, which isn't that difficult for me to practice now, then I would be happy to explain it.

As long as it seems real, that is the key.

I'm stuck in the mid-80s (in my mind) and didn't realise that it was part of my problems until about five years ago. So, I have come to the conclusion, that the best way to move forward is to go backwards, at least initially, to the time that I never moved on from.

I enjoyed those days, but things were a little bit muddled and could have gone better for me if I had known things about myself that I eventually came to learn, many years later (that I had Asperger's). So, if I can simulate that place at that time, then I might be able to do it again properly (as I feel I could/should have).

Thus, freeing me to look forward a bit more by ironing out some old issues. Armed with what I now know about myself, I realise that I could sail through those days if I had the chance to do it again.

There was a Christopher Reeve film about him doing something similar to what you mentioned. I'm sure you are already aware of it.

I remember playing 8 bit games and tiger handhelds as a kid and imagining in the future playing video games where you could drive around in an open world like real life.
And then of course that eventually happened. And back then I thought how fun that would be if your home and hangouts could be featured in a virtual world.

That sort of came true as we lived in LA back then and the GTA games recreated LA in a realistic fictional way. The game True Crime: Streets of LA had the street I grew up on but driving through it didn't look anything accurate. I showed my mother LA Noire and she was impressed how accurate they recreated 1940s LA, the setting when she was growing up.

Haven't had much experience with VR yet, other than using a cheap head mount for my older phone.
I get the idea that eventually a lot of people will simply live in their virtual world. To escape their current living conditions, or because of the amazing stimulation it offers. And probably for both reasons.

Yes MirrorWars, I remember that film, Somewhere in Time.

For you to go back to the 1980s and change events you want changed in this Twilight Zone kind of experience just might have its merits. Although you won't be changing the actual past of the so-called dimension for which you currently exist, you can have the satisfaction of theoretically altering your life in another dimension. And then if you can control it, you can keep going back to your Twilight Zone 1980s existence and experience another segment followed by another.

I am not familiar with the VR technology you referred to in the OP. I am wondering if this is something that is due to be released soon and how it is supposed to work.

There are several steps that I take to enter into my Twilight Zone experiences. But one important thing is to try not to force the experience happening. I must let it happen on its own as I fall into the relaxed state. Forcing the experience can cause the mind to not relax.

There is of course a warning that must be taken into account. One cannot allow these experiences to become muddled with your "real" life so that you get mixed up with what is "real" and what is the experience. One should keep these separated.

In my way of experiencing this Twilight Zone effect, I find it might be of help to learn how to alter one's conscious not exactly in the way the definition of it states, but while knowing one is fully awake and aware. This alteration involves becoming super-aware of being alive and alert in the now. To enter this mode of awareness involves highly focusing on the questions, "Why am I here?" and "What am I doing here?" If concentrating on this correctly, one can feel their mind enter an ultra-awareness that truly feels odd and surreal. One dips into this awareness just as fast as one falling into a deep hole. Getting out of this awareness happens gradually over the course of a minute or so. Though I don't use this as a step of getting into my Twilight Zone experiences, I believe somehow it may help my mental conditioning in getting into these experiences just as lifting weights helps a football player.

To Diablo: I assume the VR you are referring to is the one mentioned in the OP by MirrorWars? If so, am I correct in understanding this VR to be something that is supposed to look amazingly real in 3D in some wearable visor although the person will know that it is not a real experience? Or is it supposed to be some king of VR where the person will become lost in the VR and believe it is really happening?

If I may answer the question that you directed to Diablo.

Yes, you wear a headset that allows you to become completely immersed in a virtual world. You can take your pick as to what kind of word that you prefer. Modern, ancient, future, fantasy etc.

And, unlike the Virtual Reality hardware that we used to see being shown in the media during the 80s & 90s, this is available and already in people's living rooms and bedrooms.

There are lots of videos of people using it on YouTube. Some people are walking a virtual plank, high above the city streets, and unable to convince themselves to step off. It's all very exciting, and it's only going to get better & cheaper.

You could be a completely different person in the virtual realm. Or a completely different creature.

I had my mind stuck in 1996 for a very long time. I figured that to be able to move on, I needed to go back to my Mod roots, which I did in the September of 2009. I dressed like The Kinks once again and was being the emotional 21 year old that I was. Last year in the beginning of 2016, I figured that it was time for me to experiment. I decided to give Swinging London and Carnaby Street a rest. I've started to do things the way that makes sense to me. I put Canada above all and found that I actually prefer Germany over Britain just like I did when I was between the ages 7 and 9. I've now gotten myself past 1996, though I did it the old-fashioned way.

I don't want to go back in time. I subscribe to what I call The Denis Istomin Rule, "Don't look back, only forward." I heard him say this during an interview he gave for Uzbekistan television. (I wish I could find that video again. It was so good.) It's a tough thing to do, but far more rewarding than living in the past.

I have no problem living in the "now" and thinking about the "future." I spend a lot of time planning for things and thinking about things to come. But, I find an incredible refreshment to my life when I am able to meditate back into the past. I have gone through a very emotionally draining and frustrating time in my life since 2015, and I was becoming very unstable. But by engrossing into a lot of nostalgic thinking and writing about these things in a book I have been working on, I have found myself at a very relaxed state of being now.

My routine is for practically every night as I drift into sleep to submerge myself into the past. And not just my past. Sometimes I enter the 1920s and ride the roller coasters of the old blueprints I have collected. Oh what fun I have. I relive moments of my childhood and feel myself with my parents and loved ones of my family no longer of this earth. This may not be for everyone, but it is for me. I love to look at old photographs and recall what I was thinking and doing around the time the photo was taken. It brings me comfort, a comfort I need at his time in my life.

But as I said, I am not ignoring the future. I spend plenty of time working and planning out necessary details about the future. But in order for me to deal with the future, I need to refuel myself with passages into the past. I am a very nostalgic person. That is just part of my special intense interests. I have a great appreciation for the past (history). And that is what works best for me.

Having just finished a little online research into VR hardware, I have come to the conclusion that it will be better to wait until the end of 2017, at the earliest, or even until 2018 before I invest in the technology that I require.

As, unsurprisingly, there are a whole host of different firms that are due to be releasing VR hardware for various budgets in the coming year or so. Very exciting news.

I've never been an early adopter of technology for exactly this kind of reason.

So, if you are also interested in maybe purchasing some VR hardware in the near-ish future, and you're not made of money, just wait a little longer.

The last eras of my life I would want to relive are my teen and young adult years. I would rather go back to when I was between 9-12 years. But it probably wasn't as fun as I remember, especially school.

Not many things are as fun as we remember.

However, my plan is to go back and subtly change a couple of things.

I have a feeling that I will need professional help for VR addiction and for not being able to separate the VR realm from reality. I can see it coming!

I can admit, I might be using nostalgia as a sort of drug during stressful times. I would love to immerse myself into every little detail of my childhood during the 90s. People kind of hate it. I would gladly go back to any Era in modern history.