We live not only by experiencing events, but by telling them and giving them meaning. As we recall and retell the past and imagine who we will become, we develop a sense of who we are. This self, shaped over time as a story connecting past, present, and future, is called the narrative self.
The narrative self is built not only from words and memories. The accumulation of bodily experience—what body we lived in, where, with whom, and doing what—also underpins the story we tell about ourselves. How, then, does our story change when we repeatedly live through other bodies by means of avatars? And how do everyday experiences recorded as lifelogs reshape the way we reencounter our past selves and envision our future ones?
Through VR reminiscence using self-avatars, experiments that manipulate the narrative self through avatars of different ages and appearances, studies on how long-term avatar use in the metaverse affects people’s life stories, and lifelog-based future prediction and behavior support, we aim to uncover how accumulated bodily experiences and records reweave the stories we tell about ourselves. Building on this, we explore how VR and information technologies can be designed with the narrative self in mind. This work also includes research on methodology: using qualitative methods to capture, as narratives, the lived experience of people living with technology.
