Do you ever experience a physical reaction to falling in the game? Forgetting I don't have ejection in the Reaver is just aggravation. But falling off a bridge I get tense like I'm really falling. Anyone else?
Beyond an "aw crap" idea, no not really. Although on hindsight my dead-pan expression when my "R" button was stuck to the "E" button while flying was probably pretty funny...
TL;DR: It's a fairly common physiological/psychological reaction. Created from an actual experience, but triggered subconsciously by specific things, such as in your example: physically falling or even just witnessing it visually. If you were to google the physical reactions, or specifically the ones related to a fear of heights or falling, you might find various therapies you can try to remedy it. It's nothing too complicated and is all in your brain. -- I used to get this "feeling" in my legs when seeing my character fall. I think it was more about how the speed the screen shows me accelerate towards the ground that gave me that physical reaction. It's similar to how if someone IRL describes a wound, or even shows it to me, (i.e.; a relative) then I often get that same feeling in my legs. Pretty much just a trigger reaction due to thinking about pain, or imminent pain associated with some kind of internal fear. Just as with any other fears or phobias, it can be mitigated or avoided entirely by either getting used to seeing things that trigger it, or creating a subconscious "safety net". What that means is to find something that makes you feel more in your comfort zone around your fears or phobias. If you've ever met someone who is afraid of spiders or dogs, it can be a similar thing. To fix either of those fears is not easy, but it typically involves the person in question getting used to being around their fear, or simply learning that coexisting with them will not hurt them, as they don't actually intend to hurt you unless provoked into doing so. (any other case is likely a mental issue in the case of the animal, or an abuse scenario. Spiders are territorial & curious hunters. Will bite if hungry or scared, but usually avoid us enormous humans.) As for falling, practicing climbing ladders, or rock climbing with a safety harness (as is standard in most places that offer rock climbing) can help you get used to falling, provided you let yourself down that way on purpose.
It is pretty normal. Our brain does not like to see "things" moving below us. That the reason why we are usually scared/uneasy when looking from terraces/roofs but not when looking from high altitude. I am a paraglider pilot so I fly with my legs hanging in the void below. It seems pretty scaring on paper but in flight I couldn't care less due to the height and during take-offs & landing you are focused on something else so you do not look below.
i occasionaly get slight goosebumbs from falling high hights ... especialy in FPS games with bottomless pits .... god i HATE those .. ... now try that in VR ... uuuurrgghhh ....
No, but I do get an unrelated physical reaction. I can swing my mouse left, right, up down, move around and I'm just fine. I can snap my aim to a target just fine. BUT... When vertical recoil kicks in and my crosshairs start climbing on their own I get this odd reaction. To me I subconsciously perceive this that my mouse is moving on it's own. Consciously I pull down on the mouse to compensate. Subconsciously though I tend to crush the mouse into the mousepad trying to get it to "hold still". Net result, when I'm doing vertical recoil compensation my aim is getting "damaged" by being all tense and crushing the mouse. It's a think I've only recently become aware of some I'm working on it. If I keep things light and don't crush the mouse my aim and vertical recoil comp are much improved. (story for another time: How a virtual body in VR can cause your real limbs to become "numb" if they do not match the visual position)
