[Thoughts Before Bed]

One of the things become more and more apparent as I dig deeper and deeper into VR is the feeling of "embodiment."

I think I talked about how a few weeks ago, I locked my avatar into a T-Pose in order to work on her hair. I accidentally jumped into that locked body and had a minor panic when my movements weren't moving the avatar.

A few days ago, there was a major change in how Resonite animates it's avatars, and my avatar's movements were literally out of control. Everything was over driven, and my legs were stomping and moving far too jerkily and too powerfully.

It genuinely upset me because "this is not how I move." I spent two days talking with people on how to fix this, installing pieces and fixing movements. And while it's still not 100%, it's far closer to what it was.

But the tought process as I was doing this was "my body is not working." Not "my avatar isn't working" but "my body isn't working." The same feeling I got when my pinched nerve and suddenly my arm just wouldn't work anymore.

And I began thinking "is this how folks with dystonia feel? They try to move their arm a certain way, but the muscles and nerves don't do it correctly?"

Embodiment, proper embodiment, is a wierd sensation in VR. I know it's not real. And yet I react as it if it is. The pic below was literally me sitting in bed, as my avatar was sitting in bed, and realizing "these hands are MY hands."