Who Are You??

[bounda]

One day, i had some kid Instant Message me on AOL Instant Messenger that i didn't even know, but he was from a gaming website that i own so i disregarded it. I had created a topic about astral projection and he read up on it and decided to try it. A month later, he IMs me saying he saw me, and he described my hair and eye color, my age, the house i was in, the sleeping bag i was using, wat the house smelt like, what the person sleeping next to me looked like, and where in the house i was. He told me he had an out-of-body experiance but didnt remember much besides that.

When he IMed me, i was completely amazed, this is a person i had never met and never showed pictures to in real life.

Has this ever happened to you, and how valid do you think his experiance is? Give me your thoughts...

[Psionic]

THis is very much valid, although it never happened to me. This means that this kid has highly developed OBE abilities.

[Nay]

I've done that a couple of times.   What is your site, I'd love to check it out.

[bounda]

its a gaming site

[Nay]

I figured that..  It has something to do with games..right?    What kind of games?

[bounda]

games that kids my age play.. lol warcraft.. LoD.. CS

[Nay]

LOL!  .. geez.. don't cover me up with dirt yet!  warcraft is cool..so my son says.   I played runescape for the longest time...really addictive stuff. 

[bounda]

wats with everybody and runescape.. no offense but i absolutely hate runescape

[Nay]

Well, it was over a year ago and it was a way for me and my son to still interact while he is at his fathers house...plus I think he liked me to do the work and give him all the objects oh, and money.    I didn't mind it until it was taking forever to mine for stuff.  We both got burnt out on it..lol

I can see you're not going to give out the link..... I wasn't going to stalk or even join, I was only curious.      

[bounda]

http://bnews.hostingzero.com

[Ilieawake]

These type of video games delay and inhibit the progress of social and psychological growth.  When you enter a different reality in the midst of developing a sense of the real world's reality serious delusions can occur (this even applies to the astral). 

This is especially important when moderation is not used, as can be seen with a role playing game where an adolescent, or even a young adult escapes to the place as a way to get away from the world rather than embrace their problems and learn to face them.  Any place a person escapes to... especially another reality is detrimental.

A real good test of this is to observe your own behavior.  Do you have closer friends over the game?  Do you project a different personality?  Do you feel different than your peers in the real world?  Has your relationship with your realworld friends and family changed as a result of playing a video game?

Moderation and self actualization.  I am not saying this to tinkle you off I am saying this because I was asked to.

Peace be with you.

[Zante]

Yes, it's important to be able to distinguish between recreation and escapism but people have to feel the difference for themselves, as you say. I have been a great fan of MMORPGs in my time, my experience ranging from Ultima Online to WoW ; ). You can certainly learn a thing or two about people whilst playing these kinds of games. The motivations are different, of course, but the emotional investment some people put into their virtual embodiment(s) is incredible. There are plenty of things people can get away with while playing games and in most cases it really is good fun. There're times however when you find yourself forced to come to terms with what you want out of it and that's why WoW was probably the last MMO I'll ever play. That particular market has grown too quickly and is now beyond any real means of moderation. Not to sound like an old fart, there are just far too many immature children playing them. 

Eve-online, now that's one hell of a game because its learning curve keeps the riff raff away (must resist the temptation to go back).

[bounda]

No, im not an insane video game nerd, and i created this forum months ago (when i was a little ). Lately i have been barely playing video games and i hope it becomes a habit, because i would rather have fun in real life.

[iNNERvOYAGER]

The extraordinary thing is that the only contact was simply exchanging posts on a forum?

That made me wonder about network games where you hunt other players and try to hurt them virtually.

As in the example of Eve on line, when one player blows up another player's stuff, all the time and work involved in obtaining the virtual possessions is lost, and so I think creates some actually intense resentment.

It would be weird to have bad karma from a video game.

[Zante]

It seems plausible : )

There have been rl murders over such things after all. At the end of the day it's just another reality, how immersive it is depends on one's emotional investment.