Have you all ever watched a science fiction film or show, where they have very cool and advanced technology and thought “Man I wish that was real”? Well, that was me when I first watched the anime series “Sword Art Online”. In this show, they have successfully achieved Full Immersion. What is Immersion? Immersion is, on surface level, the act of fully submerging something within another. Therefore, when something is described as immersive, it speaks to its ability to pull or draw someone in. Full Immersion in Virtual Reality, is the ability to completely submerge our conscious thought into a Virtual Reality, experience it rather than playing it. As of now, Full Immersion is not yet reality for us, it is a work in progress. The anime focuses on the use of the Full Dive in a game setting: a virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game (VRMMORPG) using the Nerve-Gear. Now, as a gamer, I love this idea. The ability to completely shed your physical body and upload your consciousness into an Avatar to not just play the game, but to fully experience the game.
But how does the Nerve gear in the show work (in theory)? It connects to the user's brain, transmitting signals of what you do in the virtual world. It simulates sight, sound, taste, smell and touch: completely immersing users in a virtual world. Not only does it send virtual sensations to the user, it intercepts and manipulates the signals sent to the user's brain. All the signals sent by the brain are blocked and processed so that they only affect the avatar in the Virtual World. This immobilises the user's physical body, so that there is no risk of running into walls in the real world while playing in the virtual world. It has one method of input that is shaped like a helmet that covers most of the user's face. Inside, millions of signal units generate electromagnetic waves to stimulate our brains. Nothing the user 'sees' or 'hears' in the virtual world actually comes from our eyes and ears. Everything is manipulated directly in the respective parts of our brain used to process each of the five senses. It sounds like a science fiction dream come true.
Is this possible to achieve in real life? Possibly, however we will not be achieving it anytime soon. While scientists are making massive strids towards Full Immersion, we are still a long way off from achieving what was shown in Sword Art Online. With so many high-techs out there already in the world, how close are we to Full Immersion with what we already have available to us? Today’s modern VR world is full of all manner of accessories and augmentations that transports us from our living room to a virtual battlefield in space. We already have Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Headgear, with devices like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive being around since 2016. Many gaming companies such as PlayStation and Microsoft are already implementing Haptic Feedback into their devices, such as the new controllers for the PS5 and Xbox. Most VR systems offer basic haptic feedback in their controllers, but a little vibration under your fingertips doesn’t make you feel like you are a part of the VR World. You need to feel it with your whole body. If you get hit in the arm with a Virtual Sword, you should feel the hit on your real arm. Haptic suits, such as the Teslasuit - a full body haptic VR suit that lets you touch and feel virtual reality, has full body motion capture, climate control and biometry systems. There are many other haptic studies being conducted, on force feedback, on smell and so on.
As I stated before, I want Full Immersion to be like how it is in Sword Art Online: the ability to completely submerge our conscious thought into a Virtual Reality existence, to put your physical body to sleep while you upload your consciousness to your Virtual Avatar. While it still seems very far-fetched, the idea of controlling your online avatar with just your brain waves is fascinating to me, and there have been studies done to achieve this. In 2013, Harvard University broke ground for Full Dive Virtual Reality advances by conducting a human-brain-to-mouse-brain experiment. In this experiment, researchers used an electroencephalogram (EEG) brain-brain-interface (BBI) to detect the thought patterns of a researcher. By focusing his thoughts, the researcher was able to control the movement of a rat’s tail. Not exactly the kind of action most serious gamers are looking for, but it marked an important turning point in BBI technology. For the first time, two brains communicated directly through a hardware interface.
There were two reasons why this experiment was noteworthy. Not only did it demonstrate that human thought could be correctly interpreted by computer and used to control a rat’s brain, but the experiment was non-invasive for both the researcher and the rat. While researchers around the world have been able to control rats’ brains through the use of implanted electrodes, this rat suffered no such indignity. Non-surgical focused ultrasound (FUS) was used to impart the control signals to the rat’s brain, a technology we will elaborate on shortly. Jump to 2015. Researchers at the University of California at Irvine also used an electroencephalogram machine to detect human thought. This time, however, those thoughts did not make it possible to control a rat’s tail, but to help a paraplegic man walk for the first time in five years. The man, who had suffered a spinal cord injury, walked nearly four meters with the assistance of the EEG device and advanced software.
The study involved placing electrodes on the patient’s head and on his legs. By detecting and interpreting signals from the man’s brain and sending those signals to his legs, the system bypassed the damaged spinal cord and allowed him to once again control the movement of his legs. A man who was paralyzed in both legs for five years was able to use a brain-controlled system to walk again, along with a harness to help support his body weight. The experiment required the patient to undergo 19 weeks of training prior to taking his first step, but the encouraging results proved the concept was valid.
"Even after years of paralysis, the brain can still generate robust brain waves that can be harnessed to enable basic walking," study co-author Dr. An Do, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of California, Irvine, said in a statement. "We showed that you can restore intuitive, brain-controlled walking after a complete spinal cord injury." Within two years, we have seen the technology advance from wiggling a rat’s tail to allowing a paralysed person to actually walk across the floor. For the development of Full Dive Virtual Reality, these experiments that test EEG, show real potential, but we still have a long way to go.
The future is full of possibilities. We imagine so many things about the future, and it inspires us to achieve those crazy ideas. I will never stop hoping for the day humanity achieves Full Immersion, where I can shed this physical mortal coil and upload my consciousness to Cyberspace. I talk about it from a gaming angle but it could easily transcend everything humanity has ever created. I just hope I’m alive long enough to see it, but given the rate of which AR/VR are evolving, I feel as though I won’t have to wait as long as I thought.
Tom Warren (November 2020) The PS5’s new controller is amazing — here’s how it works. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/3/21547303/sony-ps5-dualsense-adaptive-triggers-haptics-teardown-features#:~:text=Sony%20has%20added%20haptic%20feedback,or%20pulling%20on%20a%20cord.
Jen Glennon (March 2020) XBOX SERIES X CONTROLLER HAS ONE HUGE ADVANTAGE OVER SONY'S DUALSHOCK 5. Inverse. https://www.inverse.com/gaming/xbox-series-x-controller-vs-dualshock-5-sony-accessibility-smaller-haptic-feedback-touchscreen
Sebastian Anthony (July 2013) Harvard creates brain-to-brain interface, allows humans to control other animals with thoughts alone. ExtremeTech. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/162678-harvard-creates-brain-to-brain-interface-allows-humans-to-control-other-animals-with-thoughts-alone
Tom Vasich (September 2015) Paralyzed man walks with help of brain-computer interface. University of California, Irvine. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/5445/paralyzed-man-walks-help-brain-computer-interface
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