Virtual Hallucinations - Learn What Schizophrenia is Really Like

Hopefully, you have seen the movie A Beautiful Mind, because I'm about to spoil it so I can illustrate a very valid point. Personally, I think it is one of the coolest films ever made, and so hopefully reading this will make you want to see it. Anyway, the film is the true story of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who was unfortunately plagued with schizophrenia. He goes through the entire film thinking that he is working for the Department of Defense is watching him, but he and the rest of the audience soon learn that this DOD man, as well as his other friends, are completely imaginary.

That is the shocker in A Beautiful Mind, but these hallucinations were not the ones that John Nash had. However, I applaud director Ron Howard for trying to show audiences what it is like to actually have schizophrenia. That is, to not be able to trust what you see, and always be afraid.

Now there is another way for us "normal" people to discover what it is like to have this mental illness with Virtual Hallucinations. The Virtual Hallucinations device is a basic virtual reality device that uses an interface of goggles and earphones to immerse you into a new world.

Unfortunately, the world itself that you are in is not at all pleasant. For example, Virtual Hallucinations puts you on a bus that is being attacked by predatory birds. People appear and reappear in this nightmare scenario, and even whisper sinister things such as "he's taking you the FBI." Another situation has you in a pharmacy where the doctor hands you poison instead of medicine, and people glare at you like the opening of Fellini's 8 1/2. That sounds like on amusement park ride I would rather skip, but it is all designed to simulate a schizophrenic episode.

This is the purpose of Virtual Hallucinations, for the wearer to sympathize with someone with schizophrenia. This is especially good for police officers, paramedics, and social workers because it shows what schizophrenia is like. It does what A Beautiful Mind did, to show that a victim of schizophrenia acts crazy because he or she actually sees something that others do not.

Margret Stout, an executive director of the Alliance of the Mentally Ill of Iowa, says that it is very effective. She has tried the device itself, and has allowed the users to completely empathize with those whose "mind is just not working well". For a cop, nurse, or other public servant, that can make all the difference in the world as far as treatment is concerned.