Virtual Reality is the new up and coming technology that is being used for sharing content, entertainment, and allowing a unique visual and physical experience. Consumers can even have their own VR headset right at home and are seeing this epidemic as the new technology to change the way we may live and experience things. VR is becoming more common and professionals have started observing the positive and negative effects that VR has on the brain.

The SXSW panel Virtual Psychedelics: How VR Affects Your Brain consisted of four professionals who have observed these effects. Sook-Lei Liew from the University of Southern California, Tayryn Southern from Happy Cat Media & Tribe of Good, Ian Forester from VR Playhouse, and Khayyam Wakil from Live Planet, spoke on the panel about what the different effects VR may have on the brain.

Some effects mentioned were the fact that VR enables you to embody someone or something else and once that happens, people will act and think like that person for a little while after using VR; therefore, VR manipulates the brain to believing it needs to act a different way. Other effects it may have is disassociation, curing someone from a phobia, visual motor adaption, and a way for people with social disorders to practice interacting with VR characters.

I had the opportunity to speak with panelist and CSO and Head of Creative Partnerships for Live Planet, Khayyam Wakil, about the positive and negative effects VR may have on the brain.