Virtual Hallucinations has been one of my all time favorite sims thus far in SL. It was one of the first experiences I had in SL and it really turned me on to the idea of using SL as a learning tool in ways you cannot achieve in RL.
It’s layout is such that you have to put on a badge to hear the voices that a schizophrenic would hear and walk through a building which has other “tricks” to demonstrate what a person with schizophrenia would experience in that environment.
As I put on the voice badge and listened with my headphones to the very negative voices, I found myself feeling very disturbed. As you move into the main section of the building, a poster shifts from normal to some obscene name calling, the floor appears to fall out from under you, and the TV tells you to pick up a gun and kill yourself. After walking through the sim with a friend I started thinking I should turn off the voices – they were REALLY getting to me. I started to panic when I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off and I was so immersed it didn’t occur to me to take of the headphones!!
The pedagogy here was experiential and somewhat authentic. I can imagine using this sim to teach psychology and counseling psychology students about psychosis, schizophrenia, paranoia, hallucinations, etc. I have in fact used this sim for my learners but that is because my learners are SL beginners looking to understand how it can be used in education!
