Thursday, March 19, 2009

A Jacket to Help You Feel the Movies? I'm not so sure about that

I'm a member of IEEE an engineering professional association mostly so I can qualify for their life insurance (which for me is mortgage insurance). I normally don't pay too much attention to their newsletter, but once in a while I take a look as it's often quite fascinating to see what people are working on.

This time one of the articles talks about a jacket you can wear that helps you experience the emotions that a character might be experiencing: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar09/8287

While it sounds intriguing, I thought it through, and started to shudder.
You see I have much too good of an imagination. Visual images (especially violent ones) stick with me for a very long time especially if there is some emotional impact associated with it. I actually had to learn to get more, not less, emotional distance from what I was watching just so I could watch things like CSI, and enjoy the eye-candy of certain NCIS characters (of both genders) without freaking out about the open chest on the table. I watched Blair Witch Project on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I would take the time to stop and look out the window and say to myself "What a nice DAY it is. Such a beautiful, peaceful DAY" (and breathe :) Can you imagine something designed to help you experience the same stress level of the BWP characters? Heebe-jeebe-jeebe.

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