Fear of heights glasses [more ideas]
I have fear of heights, which means that I have a difficult time climbing mountains, an activity which I otherwise greatly enjoy. Earlier I have explored the idea that fear of heights might be caused by some problems in the balancing system: relying too much on visual feedback and not sufficiently on other methods for balancing (inner ear, leg muscles, etc.). In unusual circumstances (e.g. on steep slopes, above the tree-line, etc.) the visual scene is not familiar and the feeling of uncertain balance causes distress. So goes the hypothesis, you can find the detailed description here.
I was suggesting earlier that one solution might be to train the balancing system, for example by standing on one foot with closed eyes while showering and similar. If this turns out to be ineffective, here's a more radical idea: instead of trying to improve our balancing system other than the visual perception, let's try to tweak the visual feedback so that it is actually useful for balancing even in unusual places. Note that this is a speculative idea, it might or might not be feasible to implement, and it might or might not actually help. Please take all this as pure speculation and fun and by no means as personal or medical advice. I am a random person from the internet and have no qualification to give such advice to anyone, let alone to random people I don't know.
What exactly is the visual information that helps us in the balancing so that we don't feel fear of heights when walking on the street or in our home? I suspect it to consist mostly of vertical and horizontal lines and planes. If the walls of houses will appear to be not vertical, we realize that we are tilting and initiate corrective movement.
An augmented reality see-through glass coupled with simple sensors could project an image of a horizontal plane and vertical line, and adjust to the viewer's position in real time. Such sensors are cheap and the technology to overlay images on a see-through display is readily available (although not necessarily cheap). In order for this to possibly work, it would need to be very responsive without any noticeable delay. This might fool the brain into thinking that it sees a real horizontal/vertical system and balance accordingly. It would also need to be unobtrusive, such as to allow the person to see the real scenery. A blurred, transparent rendering should be perfect. If people put up with wearing glasses and contact lenses, this should not be much more annoying. These special goggles for people with fear of heights should stay well fixed on the head and well calibrated for the horizontal direction.
With current technology such a thing would require the person to carry a laptop and possibly lots of cables, but a dedicated gadget would be probably possible to manufacture with a complexity and cost not much exceeding that of a wristwatch or mobile phone. Here's a mockup of such a device:
Could something more low-tech work? Perhaps one could design some mechanical set-up that would quickly align in the horizontal/vertical direction without being obtrusive. How could such a thing be built from simple elements such as springs and joints ? Besides quick adjustment, it should also be sufficiently rigid, with no pendulum-like movement, such as the pointer of a compass. Here's a mock-up illustration:
Could something like this be made to work? How? Why not?
This idea was inspired by talks with Cathy and Pavan which doesn't mean of course that they would endorse it :)