13 Weird Virtual Reality Uses

Designer Frank Kolkman made a virtual reality device. This device aims to simulate the experience of death for patients with death anxiety.The device roughly simulates dying.Kolkman's device uses actual video footage of real surroundings. This helps people facing fatal illnesses feel peace with death. This incorporates both near-death experience accounts and the clinical process of dying.

Users stand before a robotic head. Cameras stream live video, letting users see their surroundings. An automatic hammer mimics a heartbeat sound, making the experience physical. A user's face and body appear reflected. This mimics out-of-body feelings common in near-death experiences.

Kolkman wants his invention to lower anxiety for dying patients. He also hopes to start open talks about death in hospitals.

Virtual reality handles old, boring rollercoasters. Six Flags Over Texas used it with the Shockwave. Riders get a VR headset for a new ride. For the Shockwave (now called The New Revolution), VR playback makes riders feel like they pilot jet fighters in a battle against alien invaders.

Imagine having your head cut off by a guillotine. I do. Keep reading anyway.

A small team built a...This is a VR app.This app puts the user under the French Revolution's popular crowd. While waiting for execution, users can look around at the crowd's reaction. Someone is assigned to strike the neck when the blade falls, using a non-edged tool. If that isn't real enough, you likely have bigger issues than VR and should focus there.

Virtual reality healthcare company.DeepStream VR.DeepStream VR claims to use VR immersion to fight pain, both short-term and long-term. The apps move users to a calm, peaceful world where they interact with friendly creatures. This experience uses the brain's natural abilities to reduce pain.

Want to feel the intense pain of a migraine headache on demand? I do. Keep reading anyway.

The smart minds atExcedrin.Excedrin created a VR experience. It shows the bright lights, jarring sounds, and general unpleasantness of a migraine. The goal is to show non-sufferers what it is like to suffer. The goal does not involve making migraines in more people to sell more Excedrin. Where do you get these ideas?

If you likedThe Passion of the Christ.You need to stand under the cross, feeling the blood pool at your feet, to get that real religious experience. This VR experience is for you!Autumn Productions and VRWERX.They made a 90-minute virtual retelling of the New Testament. 360-degree video lets you see every scene: Christ's birth, death, resurrection, and turning water into wine. The technology cannot yet let you drink that wine.

Imagine jurors walking the crime scene on their own feet, preserved exactly as police found it, while lawyers show the evidence. This is the future of the justice system as some minds at Staffordshire University envision.Staffordshire University.

First responders record the crime scene in VR. A virtual replica remains forever, untouched by time or human error. Jurors or police can use this VR simulation years later.

You know that immature male friend who thinks if he were a woman, he would just stay home and play with his breasts all day? He might soon be able to do that!

On a serious note, theThe Gender Swap experiment.BeAnotherLab uses VR to let men and women experience each other's bodies. Male and female users both wear a VR helmet that feeds the other person's senses. Synchronizing movements makes both feel like they have swapped bodies.

A simple but brilliant virtual reality app is already available. It helps those afraid to speak in public overcome that fear. Created byVirtualSpeech.The Public Speaking app puts the user front and center. A virtual audience of real beings listens to every word. With practice, the user feels comfortable with both virtual and real spectators.

Your dreams of a 5-star ocean dining experience will soon happen! Samsung, makers of the Gear VR, are working onAn application.The application lets restaurant patrons use it while eating. Now planned, the VR program moves the whole table to a Tuscan garden. After the main course, it becomes "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Playful dolphins swim around the diners; bubbles rise from their drinks. For dessert, a shark joins the table and helps patrons feel like food.

That last part is a joke.

Virtual reality conceptualist Jonah Hirsch is designing a VR program letting you be afly on the wallWalk through Anne Frank's annex during her family's time evading Nazi capture. Users explore rooms freely. Key family history moments get reenacted too.

News stations globally start broadcasting.News pieces appear in virtual reality.Decades of nightly news horrors make viewers emotionless and lack empathy and attention. The idea puts the viewer in the news story, next to the victim, hero, or President. Viewers experience what happens live. Maybe they feel something!

Want to save that cat in the tree? Too scared of heights? Now you conquer that fear and practice saving cats at the same time. Namco Bandai made a...Virtual reality programThis program lets people step onto a plank hanging off a rooftop to scoop up a digital kitten stranded on its end. Don't be scared. Save that kitten!