VR Company Co-Founder Spends an Entire Week in a VR Headset

An anonymous reader quotes PC Gamer:
Not too long into a 168-hour VR marathon session, Jak Wilmot admits the monotony got to him. Wilmot, who is the co-founder of Disrupt VR, also says this experiment is 'quite possibly the dumbest thing' he's ever done. So, why do it? For science, of course. I can't imagine immersing myself in a virtual world for a full week, nonstop night and day. Wilmot did it, though, for the most part -- he allowed himself 30 seconds to switch VR headsets when needed, and 30 seconds without a headset on to eat, if required. Other than those small breaks, he spent every other moment in VR...
There doesn't seem to be some big takeaway from this experiment (aside from, perhaps, don't drink coffee while playing VR), though one thing I also found interesting was his integration back into the real world when the experiment was over. 'I have never appreciated the smell of outside air so much. One thing we cannot replicate is nature. We can do it visually and auditorally, but there is something about the energy of outside that is amazing,' Wilmot observed.
PC Gamer calls it 'probably at least partially a publicity stunt. But it's still interesting to see how donning a VR headset for an extended period of time and essentially living in virtual worlds can mess with the mind.' Wilmot wore VR gear while working -- and even while showering (with the VR gear protected by plastic), blacking out his windows so he couldn't tell day from night, calling it 'a week in the future...'
'I almost feel like I'm in my own 500-suare-foot spaceship,' he says at one point, 'and I'm really missing earth, and I'm missing nature.' Early on he also reported some mild claustrophobia.
You can watch the moment where after seven days he removes the headset and returns to conventional reality, joking 'Oh my gosh, the graphics are so good.' He reports a slight disorientation as his eyes catch up with real ilfe, and says it changed his perspective on people in the real world, seeing them as 'individuals in one collection, one environment -- as avatars.'

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