When fiction is better than reality: Cypher's Complex

Tue, 07 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you ever feel empty after finishing a good book? Like (your) reality was dull and boring as compared to the fictional world you were immersed in? Yearning to stay in longer, and at the same time knowing well that it had to come to an end? You might have experienced what we can call Cypher’s Complex.

In the movie The Matrix, Cypher is a “redpill”, i.e., an individual that has been awaken from the matrix (a virtual world). However, he becomes disappointed and unhappy with the true nature of reality, and actively seeks to return to the illusory world of the matrix. Interestingly, he also explicitly desires to forget everything about the true reality, as if keeping the awareness of living in an illusion could prevent him from fully enjoying it.

"You know... I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth; the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy, and delicious. After nine years... you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss."

From a scientific perspective, the latter part can find some echo in the down-regulatory effect of fictional reappraisal. In a few studies, we showed that believing that a stimulus is “fictional” (not real) dampens our emotional state. Tucciarelli et al. (2023) also showed that the simple knowledge that a set of images of faces contains AI-generated images decreased the perceived trustworthiness of all the faces. These results suggest that being aware that the causes of our experience (the events and stimuli) are fictional can be a barrier to enjoyment and engagement. And yet, the desire to supplant reality with a fictional world can be found in real life.

Cypher’s Complex is common in mild forms. Examples can be found in the feelings of emptiness, disconnection and dullness (itself a transient and mild form of depersonalization/derealization) that follows the return from an engaging fictional world (be it in a novel, a movie or a video-game). For instance, many reported feeling blue after watching the Avatar (2009) movie, to the extent where it has been coined the “post-Avatar depression syndrome”. Most of the time, the negative affects passes, and the dissonance gets resolved either through closure (acceptance of the fictional or impermanent nature of the alternative reality), or a compromise that allows the fictional world to take a delimited space in one’s reality. For example, people might engage in activities (e.g., role playing games) or create content (writing a book or doing fan art) to integrate the fictional world into their reality.

However, Cypher’s Complex can also give rise to more severe issues with conscious or unconscious attempts at forgetting or ignoring reality (delusions, denial, …), which can lead to dire outcomes.

Interested in doing research related to effects of reality and fiction? We are looking for research assistants and PhD students at the Reality Bending Lab (check-out the join us tab)!

New location and new logo!

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

New year, new start. And as I am officially starting a new faculty position at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, the lab is moving too.

To give a bit of perspective, we started as the “Reality Bending League”, which was the unofficial name of the team working with me (“League” was chosen to keep the lab’s acronym, ReBeL). It then became a semi-official group in 2021, when I became a semi-independent PI after being awarded a transition grant from NTU. And with 2023 comes our fully official start.

ReBeL logo (2020-2022).

To mark this (re)birth anniversary, we are changing our logo. As much as I loved the old one - which was packed with symbols, it was arguably a bit too… extravagant. Something more sleek and minimal felt good with respect to the lab’s newly acquired legitimacy. I know that many will prefer the old-… sorry, the vintage- logo, and I must say it wasn’t easy for me to move forward with the change. Perhaps it will make a come-back in the future in another form, who knows!

The new logo contains 3 symbols. The curved spoon is a reference to the Matrix scene where a kid shows Neo how to bend a spoon, which is a metaphor for reality (hence of the name of the lab, reality bending).

In the movie, Neo becomes able to control reality by becoming aware of its illusory nature, and of the predominant role of one’s Self in its generation.

"Try to realize the truth... There is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."

The second meaning of the logo is the Psi Greek letter, symbol of psychology, formed by the spoon and the white vertical line.

The logo of the APA features the Psi letter.

Thirdly, the black rectangles represent open doors, which is a good illustration of progress, research, discovery and… consciousness expansion? Interestingly, Jim Morrison named its band “The Doors” in reference to a quote by William Blake, who said that when “the doors of perception were cleansed then everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite”.

To share a blooper, here is an alternative direction for the logo that wasn’t selected, that incorporated the spoon and the open door in another way. Unfortunately, some said it looked too much like the Pixar lamp, or like a spermatozoid…

A tentative version of the logo.

Matrix | Reality Bending Lab

When fiction is better than reality: Cypher's Complex

New location and new logo!