Some Virtual Reality Experiences

Have you ever experienced virtual reality? Not the artificial virtual reality we create using our technical skills but the real one. Of course, yes, if you have taken narcotics or got drunk enough. But without all these, I experienced one on last Sunday, on 26th October. I'll tell you friend, it was awesome! great!

For some reason --- of course, work related to my research, but I defer to tell you the details now --- I did not sleep for two days. Oh-oh, two nights, to be specific. In fact, I was lacking energy and enthusiasm to finish my job in hand in two days. So, I was about to give up, as usual. But thanks to my Kannada gang, they pulled me to a Malayalee restaurant to have dinner on Friday night. And we ate... we ate too much.... To quote the Malayalam novelist V.K.N., we ate to the brink of our palettes (പയ്യന് കഴിച്ചു... മൂക്കററം കഴിച്ചു.). I don't remember what I ate; maybe, I must ask Vidyadharan. It was a wonderful dinner, I had a nice time and my spirit went high. When we were back in IITM, it was twelve in the midnight and it started raining slightly. When my friends went to catch a good sleep of a night, I was tempted to go to work. And I did. Rest is an unforgettable history in my life. I don't remember anything thereafter. I worked like a dog. However, I insisted myself to take food at right time and I took a lot so that an empty stomach would not disturb me in my work. I continued my work, diligently, awake, for two days --- that is, till Sunday early morning. It was then I started seeing the virtual reality. I was doing something in the computer --- at least, I felt so --- but was unaware what it was. Perhaps, my brain had switched itself off automatically. I don't know. I had to stay in my lab till the sun rises, and as soon as I saw light outside, I started to the hostel, to have break fast and sleep like a baby. I was unable to lock the door, I had forgotten how to use the key, where to keep it, etc. After successful completion of doing the room locking ritual (I will write about this usual ritual later), I started to walk. I will never forget in my life that walk. The road was flowing like a river. I saw occasional peaks and troughs on the road. I felt the trees were moving with me. Now and then I got suddenly threatened by a ferocious animal running towards me. When I started seeing human beings in the mess, I felt they were aliens from another world. My stomach was empty, and even in my dizziness, I was aware of it. I knew that if I sleep without food, then I would wake up like a dead dog. So, I don't know how, I ate the break fast. Afterwards, I started walking to my room. There were leaves and small wooden pieces lying around, on the soil. I felt they were all snakes. With so much of fear and troubles, I walked among them. When I reached my hostel, its wall was moving! And when I reached my room, all I could do was to fall on my bed and sink into a sound sleep. That was the nirvriti --- that was the nirvana.

Unconscious Mind of a Room

Does a room have an unconscious mind? For that matter, does a home have an unconscious mind?

It was about two weeks back, a Saturday, I guess, when I thought of tidying up my room. Though I used to clean my room regularly, or irregularly, I have never tried of tidying it up, or to refresh it, or to gave it life again. You, friends of mine, perhaps know that I have been living in my this hostel room at IIT Madras for the past three years. And I have gathered a lot of books --- maths, engineering and fiction --- in my room, which, after reading or skimming through, had never kept in a proper place, but left untouched in my shelf. OK, coming back to the Saturday I was talking about, I set to clean my books and keep them arranged. When I started the job I realized they were so dusty. But that could not weaken my will. To tell the truth, I enjoyed the job --- really! A few minutes into the job, I started unearthing a lot of papers and documents. They came in a pile and ranged from the day I started living in this room. They included one of the drafts of my M.Tech. thesis, which, I remember, had been used for preparing for my thesis defence in August 2007; my admission papers in IIT Madras; my admission order to IISc, Bangalore, which I did not make use of; a lot of technical tutorials and research papers, which I wanted to read but never read (or did I?); the hotel bill I payed for the party I gave to my friends when I passed the comprehensive exam; and so on and on.... Every time I got a new piece of paper from that pile, some memory attached with if lashed in my brain. Those were all my forgotten memories, or rather, memories from the forgotten days. All these documents have been with me during these years without my being aware of them. I like mysteries. Isn't this also an exciting mystery?

I'm sure, if I go home and search my cabinets and old files, I will be unearthing a lot of my forgotten dreams and memories. Thus I started believing that every room, and every home, has got an unconscious mind --- reflective of its inhabitants' !