Meditating in Virtual Reality?

Imagine you are on a beach in Bali practicing yoga at dawn, watching the sun rise beyond the lagoon. The image is so vivid that you almost forget you are actually sitting in an office in San Francisco, wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset.

Mood Me, a new VR application, gives users a similar experience, aiming to enhance their  mood through yoga and meditation. Co-founders Oksana Zavoyko, a psychologist and author of “Dreambook,” and Nisa Ahmadova, a software engineer, developed the app, through which a user can step onto the beach to see, hear and join the practice of a yoga expert.

The Mood Me team believes that putting users who are put in a relaxing location  and who complete the exercises can shift their mood and become more mindful.

In virtual reality, you can enter the space with yoga or meditation masters from around the world, learning from a wide range of teachers from different backgrounds.

But while VR can help people be mindful by virtual means, some may argue that if you need your virtual reality headset to be mindful, you are relying too much on the technology. Mood Me’s Zavoyko and Ahmadova hope their users will be able to take what they practice inside of virtual reality back to the real world.