Health and Hallucination

            In my continued exploration of educational locations in Second Life I visited a wiki created by Navid Tomlinson (http://healtheducationsl.pbwiki.com/). He wrote the wiki while working at University of Surrey and while it is a bit dated and not free of grammatical error he does do a competent job of relating some educational spaces in SL. He also does a fairly thorough job of summarizing some important educational benefits when learning in SL. These included the possibilities for collaborations without boundaries, interactivity and exhibit accessibility.

            I chose to visit one of Tomlinson’s suggested locations, Health Info Island (128, 139, 22) and as Tomlinson had related, it was low on interactivity but nonetheless, packed with good information. There was a Heart Healthy Pavilion that had up-to-date information on eating to promote heart function. There were information slides on CPR and a Virtual Ability Gazebo. In the gazebo, I excitedly jotted down the following quote and was stoked by the affirmation that SL truly is an environment friendly to marginalized groups: “People with disabilities inhabit virtual worlds in higher proportions than real worlds”. Additional information was tailored to help the reader make his/her second life regions more accessible to those with disabilities.

            Upon leaving the gazebo, I realized that there was an entire Virtual Ability Island. I made my way onto the island and was surprised when upon glancing at the mini map I realized that there were a large number of avatars very near me. I found this a bit unsettling as most educational spaces on SL are not particularly populated. Thus, after looking around a bit, I decided to teleport somewhere new.

            I am embarrassed to admit that to date I have not yet visited one of the most talked about educational spaces on second life: UC Davis’ Virtual Hallucinations (http://slurl.com/secondlife/sedig/27/45/22/). This simulation allows one to hear the voices and have the visual hallucinations that an individual with schizophrenia would experience. My reticence to visit this region admittedly rooted in some fear. However, I truly wanted to have the experience and finally made the teleport. As expected, it was an intense and disturbing experience. However, it certainly heightened my awareness about schizophrenia as well as widening my view of simulation possibilities in SL.