General Question

VisionaryAdvait's avatar

What is the feeling/psychological state called when your playing a game or virtual world & lose awareness of surroundings?

Asked by VisionaryAdvait (167points) June 5th, 2010

There is a time when you are playing a game or in a virtual world (like Second Life) and you become so immersed that you lose sense of surroundings and time sometimes. I suppose this can happen with novels, and other things or even a movie. What is this psychological state called, and is there a specific state for visual games that might be different from just TV?

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12 Answers

gailcalled's avatar

Living in the present (you’re).

RealEyesRealizeRealLies's avatar

I call it, Being in the Zone. Not dissimilar to an athlete being in the zone, or runners high, or even the thrilling gulp of a roller coaster dip. I’m totally immersed in the current moment.

Nullo's avatar

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I’m pretty sure that media studies people also refer to that as “the zone.”

Response moderated
XOIIO's avatar

Awesome. Just awesome.

Except for when you come back to real life and you get dizzy. That sucks.

Buttonstc's avatar

I suppose it could also be considered as the possible prelude to an addiction.

(Depending upon the person and what’s happening, or not, in the rest of their everyday life.)

chamelopotamus's avatar

I think you could call that hypnosis, or meditation. Those are the effects of Psilocybin, Hypnosis, and Meditation. We go into a state of hypnosis, naturally all the time when we watch a movie and lose track of all the surroundings.

frdelrosario's avatar

“in the zone”

ETpro's avatar

A psychologist would generally refer to it as “suspension of disbelief” I believe.

Axarraekji's avatar

It is called Flow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

I had to put a separate link because there are parentheses

ETpro's avatar

@Axarraekji Ah yes. Game flow.

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