Can Lucid Dreaming Research Guide Self-Transcendent Experience Design in Virtual Reality?

Abstract

As virtual reality designers, we aim to create technological experiences to better human connection and well-being in hopes of helping humankind and society in a positive way. It is therefore important to ground the frameworks we use in genuine human experience rather than mindlessly apply models that do not account for highly personal and profound experiences. One type of experience that could help create positive connection and decrease self-saliency is self-transcendence. However, currently there does not exist a concrete model for designing self-transcendent experiences for virtual reality. Lucid dreaming, being conscious one is dreaming while in the dream, has the potential to induce self-transcendence; it is essentially the ultimate virtual reality. If lucid dreaming and virtual reality are so similar, then can we research self-transcendent experiences in lucid dreaming and apply that knowledge to virtual reality? In this paper we argue that lucid dreaming could indeed act as a guide for designing transcendent experiences in virtual reality.