[HN Gopher] Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming cul...
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       Reality shifting: an emergent online daydreaming culture
        
       Author : geox
       Score  : 39 points
       Date   : 2021-11-27 14:44 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (link.springer.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (link.springer.com)
        
       | a94d5dc743 wrote:
       | That's lots of undead bodies to support; a huge market potential
       | for BSaaS (body-support-as-a-service).
       | 
       | But there can arise a conflict of acronyms, because Bull-Shit-as-
       | a-Science is already alive and kicking.
        
       | stathibus wrote:
       | The only novel part of this is the particular way that kids talk
       | about it with each other on the internet. The activity itself is
       | the same old stuff.
        
       | theshadowknows wrote:
       | Wow, and here I am dropping cash on weed and shrooms like a
       | chump. I'll be honest, this strikes me as similar to the whole
       | binaural sounds thing...I tried that way back in high school and
       | got nothing from it but my friend swore it was elevating. I won't
       | knock it, I'm sure some people really do get something out of it
       | and who and I to say otherwise. I might even try it some time.
       | But shrooms haven't ever let me down. So at least I've got a
       | backup
        
         | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
         | I always had this idea that meditation was the long way to the
         | shortcut drugs offered. I am saying meditation, because,
         | despite using fancy new terminology (RS)( ..[is] facilitated by
         | specific induction methods involving relaxation, concentration
         | of attention, and autosuggestion ), the paper does not really
         | describe new phenomenon, but rather.. a new generation
         | rediscovering 60s.
         | 
         | History. Rhymes. And all that.
        
       | booleandilemma wrote:
       | _Many young females report joining Draco Malfoy as his
       | girlfriend. Draco is a fictional character from the Harry Potter
       | series, characterized as a cowardly bully who tricks and hurts
       | people to get what he wants, a cunning user of magic._
       | 
       | Were people paid to write this paper?
       | 
       | It sounds like their research was browsing wattpad and reddit for
       | an afternoon.
        
         | s1artibartfast wrote:
         | Funny, I thought that was one of the more interesting parts of
         | the paper.
         | 
         | >It sounds like their research was browsing wattpad and reddit
         | for an afternoon.
         | 
         | They explicitly say these are locations of the community in the
         | paper. I don't think this invalidates anything. When performing
         | contemporary anthropology, it is pretty common to observe
         | subjects in their normal environment.
        
       | s1artibartfast wrote:
       | What a fascinating paper!
       | 
       | Somewhat sad that one of the top fantasies for young women is to
       | be partnered to a cruel and abusive Draco Malfoy. I'm guessing it
       | is an extension of bad boy syndrome.
        
       | questiondev wrote:
       | i think it can be healthy. visionaries are people who see the
       | future using existing constructs, here is a way to look at it,
       | before you do anything you typically think or envision yourself
       | doing that action before you do it, the way it works best is
       | breaking it down into steps instead of staying at the final
       | image. in all actuality if you write each step down and give
       | possible ways to accomplish each step and add a date you have
       | what many planning books call micro goals that lead to the end
       | goal or overall goal. never let the internet stop you from
       | dreaming, a lot more is possible if we allow our minds to think
       | of possible outcomes.
       | 
       | plus, mostly everyone dreams, even a nightmare is a dream, might
       | as well think of alternatives to get yourself out of mental
       | gridlock.
       | 
       | imagination is where abundance exist because abundance is the
       | mindset of how we think about what we have in front of us.
       | scarcity is the limiting of beliefs about the world around us. if
       | we thought the cave was the only shelter none of us would be here
       | sipping on lattes inside of a coffee shop scrolling yc
        
       | AreYouSirius wrote:
       | Matrix generation.
        
       | bee_rider wrote:
       | Interesting phenomenon.
       | 
       | I'm not super well versed on quantum physics, but I'm not sure
       | that a system that includes travel between universes should be
       | described as 'rooted in extrapolations of modern cosmology,
       | quantum theory,[...,],' so much based on fictional systems
       | lightly inspired by quantum physics.
       | 
       | Anyway, given the state of the world it isn't that surprising
       | that people would like to indulge in a bit more daydreaming
       | nowadays. Especially young adults missing formative early events
       | (a happy and relatively free first couple years of independence
       | in college, for example). Perhaps there's an 'alternate universe'
       | in which we really isolated college campuses and the students
       | there could have had their Hogwarts. We failed them miserably.
        
       | nynx wrote:
       | This paper is worth reading, the whole reality shifting thing
       | (and related concepts like tulpamancy) is a very interesting
       | psychological phenomenon.
        
       | mensetmanusman wrote:
       | Also known as having an imagination. I remember doing this on bus
       | rides to better understand quake levels.
        
         | vsareto wrote:
         | I'm thinking being able to replay worlds or map geometry like
         | your brain is rendering it live is more rare and maybe this is
         | teaching it a bit. No one's ever quizzed me on how many details
         | (big and small) I could get right though.
        
       | Flankk wrote:
       | Gen Z is using TikTok to teleport to Hogwarts? Is this parody?
        
       | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
       | Speaking of daydreaming, 2013 wasn't a great year for movies, so
       | I was out of options when I went to see "The Secret Life of
       | Walter Mitty" [1], and boy it turned out to be a great one.
       | 
       | [1]:
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mi...
        
       | teg4n_ wrote:
       | This reminds me of when I was in high school, depressed, and
       | desperately wanting to lucid dream. I understand the appeal. The
       | blur between "worlds" gets into some wild sci-fi morality
       | situations though.
        
       | smoldesu wrote:
       | Interesting to see them mention tulpas here. It's always been a
       | bit of a meme online, but I knew a pretty tenured hypnotist who
       | was utterly terrified of the things. He'd seen tulpas cause
       | irreversible psychological damage to the people who adopted them,
       | where many people would become completely attached to a character
       | or particular fiction in their head. This could cause them to act
       | out involuntarily, induce constant paranoia or even completely
       | alter their perception of reality. He figures the human brain is
       | simply not meant for multiple inhabitants, and I'm inclined to
       | agree. Hearing the occasional story of a person who's gotten in
       | too far with tulpas just makes me sad, particularly because
       | there's no real easy "fix" for it. Oftentimes, people wall
       | themselves in to an altered reality and refuse to leave, be it by
       | their own volition, or even another's.
        
         | spats1990 wrote:
         | What's interesting about this stuff is that it seems to support
         | interpretation through multiple cognitive frameworks. There
         | could be a mystical/esoteric explanation for why those people
         | became so attached to the characters or fictions. Or it could
         | be that they were already vulnerable to schizophrenic or
         | depersonalization/derealization-type disorders.
         | 
         | It's like how you'll sometimes hear/read people say that
         | tantra/mediation stuff like Kundalini can be dangerous because
         | it results in an energy imbalance that could potentially be
         | irreparable and/or lead to lasting damage.
        
           | bencollier49 wrote:
           | Yeah, the various explanations are a bit like geometry vs.
           | algebra in maths. They're different tools for explaining the
           | same things.
        
         | bencollier49 wrote:
         | From reading around the subject there seems to be a weird
         | intersection between the _My Little Pony_ fandom, Tulpas, and
         | some of the more unusual sexual proclivities.
         | 
         | I actually know an exorcist from a mainline church; I should
         | ask him what he makes of it.
        
       | bencollier49 wrote:
       | Interesting how occult concepts like astral travel (reality
       | shifting) and familiars & daemons (tulpamancy) are getting
       | recycled without the Victorian baggage.
        
         | spats1990 wrote:
         | i think in the last 5-6 years we've seen in western/anglosphere
         | culture a growing surge of interest in both occult stuff, like
         | you say, or occultish New Age stuff (astrology) as well as
         | renewed interest in the old organised religions among younger
         | people. at the very least there is a willingness to hold a
         | "live and let live" attitude toward the spiritual beliefs of
         | others.
         | 
         | of course this is just a hunch and other people's anecdata
         | might say otherwise, but i tend to think it could be a swing of
         | the pendulum or "backlash" from New Atheist influence in the
         | discourse in the 2000s and early 2010s.
        
           | bencollier49 wrote:
           | The mystical stuff cycles around about every 25 years, but
           | comes in from a different direction each time. The last boom
           | was around the millennium.
           | 
           | As for the traditional religion, my guess is it's
           | traditionalism in response to the increase in cultural
           | warfare we've seen recently.
        
         | noah_buddy wrote:
         | It's funny because those things were couching certain phenomena
         | (chiefly, being able to imagine things and, perhaps to an
         | extent, hallucination due to external factors) into terms
         | compatible with the dominant beliefs of the time (magicks of
         | all sorts) while this is somewhat couched in the ideas of
         | rationality and science, at least "reality shifting."
        
           | bencollier49 wrote:
           | The Tulpa stuff has been reinterpreted in materialist terms
           | too (apparently 80% of people treat it this way, from some
           | study or other).
           | 
           | Of course, interpreting these things in just one way is a
           | category mistake.
        
       | wildpeaks wrote:
       | It seems natural for our generations who grew up with 3D worlds
       | (from games or online communities) to be able to navigate the
       | mind's eye version of it, the same way you can mentally walk in a
       | familiar store in order to plan your route ahead of time.
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-27 23:00 UTC)