Real Life Medical Experiences in Second Life

Virtual Hallucinations

The Virtual Hallucinations sim in Second Life is an amazing personal experience of what schizophrenics experience in Real Life. Some may find this experience quite disturbing as the voices build and increase as you go throughout the building.

This experience is inside a building that looks like a mental ward of a hospital. The voices are ever-present and the surroundings change according to real schizophrenic’s hallucinations. The building contains a closely researched recreation of visual and aural hallucinations, based on interviews of real schizophrenics. This sim is the brainchild of Nash Baldwin (James Cook), a physician at UC Davis.

My son got really irritated by just hearing the voices coming through my computer when I was walking through this sim. You may feel this way, and you may feel really sickened by how deluded people can act and feel when they are at their worst during a stay in a mental ward.

But I must tell you the importance of this experience. My own mother is paranoid schizophrenic. I am not sickened at all by this sim. In fact, it just affirms what I have thought my mother experiences on a daily basis. It IS sickening, however, that my mother is so mentally ill.

The info card that you can open at the beginning of the tour warns that those already diagnosed with a delusional mental illness should not go through the building. In fact, Dr. Cook is not sure if the sim will start hallucinations in already diagnosed schizophrenic folks.

When you visit the sim, you need to get and wear the badge so the sim is able to run it’s simulations for you. You then walk down the hall to start a male or female voice; you can also turn off the nerve-wracking voices here. Then you go through the double doors to see computers opening and closing by themselves and a turnstile turning on its own. Next, walk in front of a red poster for “Partnerships for Recovery” and watch it turn to a naughty name.

You then turn right into the patient’s room and walk over to the table under the window. You will see how headlines can trouble schizophrenics because some words leap out and send a different message. I have seen that with my own mother.

Keep walking through the room into the bathroom. Here you will see a mirror that changes from a picture of a bearded man to a picture of this same man looking dead. Apparently, this is a real scenario where a patient stopped shaving because he always saw himself as dead in the mirror. He also heard bagpipe music, so listen for that.

Next, walk out of this room. Watch as the floor falls away to the sky; this is a real hallucination of one patient. At the end of this hall, you have the option to turn off the voices. I would not recommend it unless you are really disturbed at this point.

You will walk into an entertainment room with books and a TV. Alt-zoom at the books on top of the middle bookshelf. All books appear to be about fascism. My mother is also obsessed by fascism. If you click on the TV, it will start a news report and after a few seconds will start talking to you. Then walk over to the table and a gun will appear under a spotlight. Another voice will start that says to kill everyone and yourself. A patient who tried to grab a police officer’s gun reports experiencing these voices.

Then walk out of the room and turn off the voices by clicking on the shape to the right of the table. You should also take the survey on the table to give Dr. Cook information that might help him improve learning about mental illness in Second Life.

Most of us can go through this experience and learn a great deal about schizophrenics’ internal thoughts and voices. We are all touched by someone who at least knows someone with this illness. It is so sad to live with schizophrenia. My mother used to be so brilliant. Now she is 70, completely paranoid, and hating herself. She doesn’t even know her quality of life absolutely sucks because she is so paranoid.

Please visit this sim.

For more information about this sim, visit the New World Notes blog about this sim. It includes interviews from the creator.

Heart Murmur Sim

The Heart Murmur sim is on prime real estate in Second Life. It is a training area so students can virtually experience different heart murmur sounds. It may take years for these students to find sick patients with these problems, so this virtual experience is a great learning environment. I believe that this is also a great experience for many of us interested in learning new and relevant topics in Second Life.

Once you go through hearing 6 patients heart sounds and looking at their charts, you are quizzed on 2 patients to figure out what heart murmur problems they have. There is nothing keeping you from going back to the 6 patients with current diagnoses. In fact, traveling back and forth between patients will help you learn these sounds much better.

For more great information about this sim go to an interview and more information from the NMC blog.