My first experience with immersion was when I got baptized as a teenager. Our religious persuasion believed in full-body dunking, every molecule and corpuscle soaked beneath the waters of redemption. For several years afterwards, many folks believed the plunge “didn’t take” and I’m sure for my parents, they too wondered what went wrong. I eventually came around, but that’s another story.
Today’s world offers a variety of immersive experiences, not much different than that soggy one of my youth. Whether it is the waters of baptism or spheres of light and sound that you can either attach to your head or walk into a dome at Las Vegas’ latest attraction, it requires just one thing…the complete surrender of the participant.
Such multimedia bombardments are an all-out assault on the senses. The complete attention of the participant is focused on the object. There is no escape. There is no distraction. There is only the object to behold. Such control over one’s attention reminds me of the stories of ancient mystics or prophets enraptured by visions. Was not Moses immersed by the vision of the burning bush?
For those of us who are not in the category of mystic or prophet, the imagination is a great equalizer. An active imagination is the original immersive experience; a do-it-yourself solution that takes you out of the mundane world and rivets your attention onto whatever peaks your curiosity.
The attraction for out-of-the body immersive experiences is powerful. It is a chance to trade in your current environment for a more appealing one, however temporary. A chance to slow time down or bring it to a stop. To allow some great force to take over and sustain your concentration.
No man-made attraction can replace one’s imagination. These high-tech milieus produce all these immersive attractions: high visual, high sound and light, and high dollar experiences. Last time I checked, we humans came equipped with the most powerful immersive capability known, an imagination, part of the standard packaging. Enjoy your imagination. It’s unpredictable, spontaneous, infinite, and free.
