Virtual Reality, Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

Doesn't it always happen this way. Someone tells you about something you've never heard of or know much about then all of a sudden, which seems out of nowhere, you are immersed in that thing and it starts coming at you from all directions.

Well it happened to me once again.

Virtual Reality, beyond my wildest imagination.

RePosted from my Instagram

Experiencing for the first time Virtual Reality at Robert Dinero's TriBeCa Film Festival I definitely couldn't stop spinning in my chair and got a little off balance. Well I did happen to be watching the making and flying of a hover board. It's no wonder.

Thanks to Virtual Reality you can now endure and enjoy experiences and places you've never imagined .... never imagined you would do, try, or explore.
Upon my recent visit to the TriBeCa Film Festival's Virtual Reality Arcade I enjoyed and endured 3 places I can say, with certainty, I'll never go.
Scuba Diving anywhere and especially.....
I've attempted scuba diving in one of the most sought after places on the planet .... the Great Barrier Reef. With that said ... Note To Self: I prefer to breathe on my own without the assistance of any manufactured apparatus. My VR experience was beyond !! Not only did I embark on a scuba diving experience, virtually, but I took a dive beneath the ice, through a carved out hole below a solid ice surface... in Antarctica. Now, Bianca, my daughter might do something like that in real life, but not I. It was pretty interesting.
What I experienced today is... that I don't have to.... take a rocket 🚀 to the moon. I can enjoy the experience virtually.
I don't have to... scuba dive, ever ... I can scuba everywhere, virtually.
I don't have to... launch myself out of an airplane. I can, enjoy or be afraid, virtually.
I don't have to... go to impoverished places, I can experience virtually, and through that vivid VR experience, give to those in need, as I didn't have to spend $10,000 on a trip to witness it first hand. I can, however, embrace, feel and experience the journey first hand.
Which leads me to the next VR experience I witnessed. I can't say I enjoyed it nor was it happy, but it was real. And definitely an experience, and a curiosity of mine.
I put the headset and earphones on, I put my handbag under my chair and I sat back comfortably, and was unencumbered by my surroundings... free to swirl around in my chair to capture all that was created for me to experience.
I was in prison.
Staring me right in the face, a black man, looking deep into my eyes. It was real. Surreal....

What would it be like to be behind bars?
.
.
My VR experience. .
.
It was and up close and personal tour behind the prison bars. I learned quite a bit. It was fascinating. I was literally in a cell. A tiny cell. Barely room to turn around of to pivot. A toilet, with what appeared to be bins to house one's pee. A stainless sink, no larger then a small salad bowl. Underclothes hanging off the top bunk. His life's possessions. All there. He stared me in the face, kindly and virtually, yet so real. During this VR experience the prisoners were going through a program, and at the end they celebrated with a diploma and graduation. During one of the sessions prisoners were lined up on one side, and volunteers from the outside, on the other. Questions were asked by the moderator and one could easily guess the response to the question would be from prisoner to volunteer. .
1. Have you ever heard gun shots in your neighborhood?
2. Have you ever been shot or stabbed?
3. Have you ever been arrested?
4. Who has graduated from a four year college. .
I'm sure you can guess who stood forward to represent a yes. And who stood back representing a no. It was really moving. The one that brought tears to my eyes was when this black prisoner was sharing his story to a young white woman volunteer. Molested at 5. Later in life lost his 15 year old son. Either one is horrific and more anyone could bare or coup with. But both. And I'm sure there was even more to the story. The gentle giant went on to comfort the white girl as she cried for him. And he, apologized for making her sad and cry. It was a beautiful and moving experience. .

On a more upbeat note, I enjoyed a VR of a group of techies build and fly a hover board. A drone that humans can ride. Or fly. It was pretty cool. From the office / warehouse where they built the craft to a beautiful destination near a lake where they flew the hover craft. A surreal a beautiful experience ... surrounded by nature, boys playing with their toys over a serene lake. I felt as if I were flying with the man hovering above the lake and then plunged right down into the lake with him.
VR ... a new experience
 

VR ... a new experience. How will this affect the way we live today? Will it be costly? Will it be available to the masses? The poor, the underprivileged? Will it be a rich mans sport? Or will it cut down on the real life experiences that we pay for and experience .. in Reality?
.
I can say for sure, I'll gladly experience travel VR anytime, but I don't think I'll lessen my real travel. I enjoy making connections... meeting new people and staring down the architecture right between the eyes. .

Happy Swiveling :)

Still In the Editing Room, but Must Fly ! Off to LA!

When I returned from New York..