Cybersickness, computer vision syndrome, sopite syndrome and electrosensitivity

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>
> Cybersickness, simulator sickness, computer vision
> syndrome, sopite syndrome and electrosensitivity.
>
> I am writing to the group concerning some
> information that I feel is particularly pertinent
> to electrosensitivity. This information should be
> much more well known, however it is not at all
> publicised. I will leave out some bits, I only
> found it 2 weeks ago. It appears that 'terminal
> illness' or 'video operator distress', seen in
> electrosensitives, may well be a particularly
> strong form of chronic motion sickness known as
> `sopite syndrome'. A possible treatment, 'Prio
> (tm)' glasses, is suggested, as well as a
> requirement for much higher resolution monitors
> that are radiation free.
>
> There appears to be a clear link between a variety of
> conditions associated with various man made occurences.
> The conditions have a variety of names:
>
> cybersickness (in wearers of virtual reality (VR) goggles
> and gear, lcd right in front of eyeballs), cyberadaptaion
> syndrome, simulator sickness (in military flight
> simulators), illness in wearers of night vision goggles,
> motion disorientation, motion adaptation syndrome.
> seasickness, space sickness (astronauts), travel
> sickness. In several of these the subject is not actually
> moving.
>
> All of the above conditions are forms of motion sickness.
> Motion sickness occurs when there are mismatched signals
> between your different sensors- eyes, gravity, vestibular
> system (inner ear) etc. It is expressed more strongly in
> computer flight sims and VR goggles due to other
> disposing factors including missed frames (computer can't
> keep up), screen flicker, how deeply the user becomes
> immersed in the environment, and most important of all
> screen PIXELATION, as described below.
>
> Patients in VR get nausea (up to 30% of exposures),
> eyestrain (up to 40% of exposures), drowsiness,
> salivation, sweating, headache, and dizziness/vertigo, as
> well as loss of postural stability (staggering around).
> Vomiting is infrequent (< 1%) and when it occurs, it is
> usually more than one hour after exposure. Long-term
> aftereffects, including visual flashbacks and
> disorientation can occur 12 hrs later. The problems are
> the subject of multi million dollars of research and have
> resulted in virtual reality goggles being quietly pulled
> off the market, and much work being done by government
> departments of concern to address it.
>
> However importantly, apart from the acute condition of
> motion sickness, a chronic less recognised, and really
> more debilitating condition sometimes arises, called
> SOPITE SYNDROME, from the latin sopor for sleep. In my
> opinion the symptom list is a good match for a mild
> version of chronic fatigue syndrome, subtracting the
> flulike symptoms. It was found in astronauts, and then
> realised that it occurred a century earlier, where it was
> recognised as a rare, disastrous form of seasickness. The
> original author was the NASA scientist Graybriel.
>
> sopite syndrome, a form of motion sickness that
> can arise with chronic exposure to relatively
> unprovocative physical motion, such as the gentle
> rocking of a boat. With frequent repeated or
> chronic long-term exposure to mildly provocative
> stimulation, a persistent form of motion sickness
> can develop involving drowsiness, apathy, lack of
> initiative, mood swings, headache, eyestrain, and
> postural instability.
>
> From the navy, ( http://www.nbdl.org/research01.html ) we
> have:
>
> Sopite Syndrome
> The sopite syndrome is the manifestation of motion
> sickness which, as the name indicates, is
> characterized by drowsiness and mental depression.
> Other symptoms include fatigue, difficulty in
> concentrating, and DISTURBED SLEEP. Unlike many of
> their predecessors in the field of motion sickness
> research, Graybiel and Knepton in 1976 reported
> that drowsiness is one of the cardinal symptoms of
> motion sickness. They coined the term sopite
> syndrome to indicate that these manifestations are
> only part of an identifiable symptom-complex. As
> long ago as 1912, Byrne stated that the effects of
> seasickness on the nervous system create psychic
> depression so extreme, and a disturbance of
> cerebral function of such magnitude, that self-
> control becomes impossible. Although this is a
> somewhat extreme endpoint to these manifestations,
> they can have profound effects on performance at
> much lower levels.
>
> In 1936, Hill reported that sleep had an important
> bearing on seasickness, pointing out that
> drowsiness, apathy and mental lethargy, without
> actual somnolence, were present. In 1954, Schwab
> noted that motion sickness includes a wide variety
> of minor symptoms that escalate before actual
> nausea and vomiting occur.
> '
>
> In summary, after the nausea and vomiting of acute motion
> sickness go away, you are left with permanent drowsy
> drunken apathy. Your body adapts to the motions only part
> way, part of your nervous system (which part unknown)
> can't fully adapt.
>
> In my opinion, this appears to be a form of jet lag.
> After you get off the plane, where you may have been
> airsick, and before you acclimatise after a few days to
> the local geomagnetic field and other factors, during
> that period, you are jet lagged. Sopite syndrome appears
> to be a form of jet lag that doesn't go away.
>
> What has this got to do with electrosensitivity?
>
> The last condition we must first consider is computer
> vision syndrome (CVS). Anybody with electrosensitivity
> can look a CVS and say 'gee I wish I had that on a good
> day'. It appears to be minor in comparison to es.
>
> There has been a great deal of research into CVS, and it
> appears as if they may have struck gravy. This research
> is backed by the American College of Optometrists.
>
> It appears that the brain and eyes cannot handle computer
> pixels. The brain can see those little spotties and it
> sends you off. Specifically, the brain sees the spotties
> as what is termed 'gaussian blur', and for whatever
> reason, the eyes can't focus on them properly in the
> standard way. Possibly the brain interprets the blur from
> pixels as motion blur, like when something comes racing
> in from the corner of your vision, and thinks the words
> are moving. So the person keeps craning their head in
> this direction and that to properly see the screen. The
> eyes get confused, and switch from their normal focal
> reading length, say 2 feet for example, to what is called
> their DARK FOCUS position, say 4 feet, which is the
> position that your eyes relax to in a dark room. Your
> eyes and brain undergo a fundamental visual shift from
> focal vision, to ambient vision, which is a more
> peripheral vision, and they continually undergo a great
> tug of war between these two values, leading to eyestrain
> and computer vision syndrome.
>
> So the worse the pixellation, and the worse the flicker,
> the worse the focal shifts and the eyestrain.
> Essentially, the human brain was not made to look at a
> low resolution two dimensional low quality digital
> computer monitor. Its visual system is far more sensitive
> and advanced. See www.prio.com . Their description is not
> that good and doesn't cover enough ground. I have no
> financial association with this company at all.
>
> You don't have these problems when reading a well printed
> book, because their is no blur or pixelation on the page.
>
> It was noted above that any inputs to the brain of
> scrambled direction can produce motion sickness. It was
> discussed in previous posts how radiation and magnetic
> fields affect birds' magnetic compasses, and how
> potentially if you were sleeping above an underground
> stream, a suspected strong source of electromagnetic
> anomalies you could develop similarly damaged sense of
> direction. Birds flying around airport towers develop the
> same motion disorientation seen in pilots and fly
> straight into them, and the same scientists who did the
> work above are trying to solve this in human pilots to
> stop aircrashes.
>
> Possibly someone with overly sensitized or damaged
> direction sense (magnetosensitivity) could develop not
> just computer vision syndrome, but a full on case of
> motion sickness or sopite syndrome from their computer
> monitor. I don't find this far fetched. Then add
> radiation of various forms to that as an aggravator and
> maybe you get something very similar to
> electrosensitivity related computer monitor illness.
>
> When I was younger I used to compulsively stand on my
> head and swing on bars at gymnastics, while not being
> particularly good at other bits of gym. This is now known
> as a possible preexisting marker of vestibular damage,
> which dramatically worsens motion sickness. Also I had
> noticeable trouble with close visial work painting fine
> details, another relevant issue.
>
> Anybody with such a presumed case of 'sopite syndrome'
> would certainly be affected by flickering fluorescent
> lights, affecting the eyes.
>
> What about mobile phones? 2 things. Firstly, mobile
> phones produce 'digital audio', comparable to digital
> video, and I have been told that some with related brain
> issues are adversely affected by digital audio.
> Additionally, you have an ELF magnetic field, and a
> microwave E field, right next to your head.
>
> It is only hypothetical that if electrosensitivity was a
> form of motion sickness in people with damage to their
> magnetosensitive systems, they may experience a
> worsening of symptoms when their senses, primarily north/
> south, are scrambled by EMFs.
>
> Of course there would be other modes of action.
>
> Various sources have suggested these visual/ brain
> problems with too low resolution monitors to be a
> possible and probable cause of COMPUTE ADDICTION,
> internet addiction, and possibly even television and
> poker machine addiction.
>
> So how to fix a computer monitor. Prio has optometrists
> provide prescription glasses to intentionally fool your
> eyes/ brain into thinking the computer monitor is already
> sitting out there at your dark focus length, in order to
> stop the eyes flicking in and out. This is one solution,
> but long term side effects could possibly occur. It would
> be most interesting to see whether these glasses had any
> effect on members of this group. There is a list of
> practitioners at their website. I am not trying to sell
> snake oil, only wondering.
>
> I think a better solution is to invent an extremely high
> resolution monitor (say 4000 x 3000 pixels instead of the
> current 1024 x 768) and use excellent font antialiasing
> to get rid of the jaggies on the screen. You can't just
> slightly increase the resolution here, that would be a
> waste of time. You have to go right off the deep end.
> Such a projector system currently costs about $80,000 I
> think. Your local computer salesman can't help. Then for
> electrosensitives, somehow slash the emissions, a la
> MultiQ. The military has now admitted that current
> display technology is no where near good enough for their
> human brain requirements (by a factor of 1000) for say
> remote piloting.
>
> It is possible that monitor symptoms with
> electrosensitivity, and certain other medical conditions,
> represent a failure of the visual system in those
> aggravated by EMR. More evidence: it has been considered
> by some that CFS patients display strong 'sensory
> sensitivities' similar to autism, as a result of an
> internal problem (endogenous carbon monoxide poisoning)
> due to a major stress breakdown. Patients develop
> sensitivities of vision (monitor, fluoros), hearing
> (common hyperacusis), touch (sensory defensiveness),
> smell (perfumes etc) and taste (food sensitivities?).
> Regardless, many electrosensitives are sensitized to a
> lot of things. As discussed in motion sickness, this
> would definetly make you more sensitized to a computer
> monitor, and send your sleep racing out the door.
> Possibly if you had been sleeping for years over a
> naturally occuring EMF source it could predispose you.
>
> This is only one theory among many, however I do believe
> that the very obvious subject of CYBERSICKNESS needs to
> be raised as a subject with electrosensitivity.
>
> Regards to all
>
> Rowan Campbell
>
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