IYou were asking me a month or two ago if I had ever had a spatially immersive experience, or if I was 60 years old and could have been hired early. Virtual Reality Goggles, I’d say it was as likely as the Silicon Valley tech giant appointed to “disrupt” the US federal government.

Let me explain a series of events that are likely to have led me to the latest technology.

Over the years I had to be in the perfect acrobatic position that would qualify me Cirque du Soleil To avoid discomfort while working on my computer. Despite moving to multiple rounds of standing desk and boring physics, I can no longer use my right arm.

Last year in particular felt like a tortured battle between cognitive decline and brain fog. This is the result of the steady use of ineffective anti-inflammatory agents. I have never done much work in my life and never had much time in my hands. I am currently armed with an MRI scan indicating that my shoulder tendon has ruptured. This records the date to combat the three herniated neck discs compressing the nerves running through my arm, and my malicious guilt.

To cope, I have learned to develop curiosity, a great source of distraction. I leave the house and open to places where adventures may take me… because you never know. Last week I did a shuffle dance with a great DJ Camden assembly Pub in the afternoon.

Two months ago I left for something I thought I would stop by at the museum, but instead found myself in a store looking for a charger for my iPhone. While standing there, I explained to my empathetic young sales assistant that I was a benched writer and that my right arm was temporarily disabled, and jokingly asked if he had a gadget that could put food in my mouth with my left hand without stabbing my eyes with a fork.

I looked ignorant when he asked if he wanted to try out the “mixed reality headset.” He explained that it is used in multimedia experiences such as watching movies and games on virtual screens. He suggested that eye tracking, coupled with voice control in the accessibility feature, could make me work.

The next moment I was sitting in the demonstration area wearing thick, heavy glass goggles. After a quick setup, a little green dot floats in the air. Tap your thumb and finger together to see a group of familiar app icons in a transparent visual overlay. Pixelization of the graphics makes the icon more clear than the chair in front of me. Eye tracking is the most surprising thing. All you need to do is look at the app you want to launch, gently tap your finger and thumb together to open the program. You can move multiple screens close or far apart, like furniture in a room.

I try other programs, open the photos and extend them to isologies. I’m watching immersive videos that look just as realistic as nightmares with dinosaurs blown away, but they’re kind of adorable and check me out the same way I keep the gaps in them. It reminds me of a parenting moment when my son was a toddler and struggled to resolve whether the stuffed animal was real or not. He was relieved to be told there was no gruffalo-like thing, despite being a replica of a stuffed animal. Once he realized it was an optical trick, he didn’t need to ask again the difference between the real thing and the pretend.

Navigating my path around various programs is a bit like learning to balance on a bike. I grow up confused. Speed ​​of movement requires constant adaptation to spatial and visual cues. I start to relax. I reach out and interact with digital objects – butterflies land on my finger. I have found myself reacting to the same wonders I experience in the real world.

And de Noument. A small dial appears on the side of the goggles, allowing you to control the reality you want to immerse yourself in. The actual room is gone and surrounded by mountain scenes. I breathe in surprise. Its spatial depth, light and shadow make the scene very clear and I feel the space around me. I know it’s not real, but the distinction is clear – I experience a mood shift as if it were. It’s similar to getting into a Piccadilly Circus tube and surface at the next stop and being on the beach in the Bahamas.

If the possibilities of these immersive spaces are slightly frightening, consider the historical adaptation of neurocognition and spatial awareness as a species, as well as the consequences of cultural and scientific advances. It takes how physics evolved because we were able to imagine visual art, the fundamental shift in spatial perspectives from two dimensions to three dimensions of painting, or the invisible behavior of the universe that is not available to the human eye.

In a few minutes, I was easily in and out of the program. Using my eyes and hands, my arms relaxed without firing nerve pain. It shows software that demonstrates breakthroughs in medical training, an immersive experience that can be used in educational environments, art, architecture and design. Seeing this, I realized I was overwhelmed by tears thinking that I might be able to work for the months leading up to my surgery and during rehabilitation.

Until my thoughts move to my next dilemma. How did you intend to break the news to your husband? 30 years of marriage and rules have always been the case. We are consulting each other about purchasing over £100. How was it when you explained it to him over the phone? What is the difference in my mood, the vision I had the following year in my life? It felt like someone had given me a smart medicine, a magical cure for brain fog. In fact, I always change goggles and painkillers.

There was only one answer. I have to bring them home so he can try it out for himself. I took a picture of the boxless purchase and texted him with the message “No heart attacks, I can return them.” He immediately texts, “I’m having a heart attack.” I leave the store with deep creative thinking and new virtual reality goggles, carrying the bag with my left arm. I take the bus that goes in the wrong direction and go without picking up a visual clue that will stop another 10.

Once I send it home, negotiations will continue all night. I’ll refrain from reviewing. He admits there is a consensus that it is relatively best on a VR headset, but that’s it. virtual reality. I think it’s like claiming that smartphones are nothing more than mobile phones. He points out that even influencers and early adopters are predicting market failures because prices are so prohibitively prohibitive (from £3,499). Why don’t you wait for prices to drop? Point out that waiting will defeat your purpose. It’s about doing my job and helping me survive mentally next year. He’s certain. He gets it and is actually at ease for me. Even it moved. The goggles stay.

A few days later During coaching on accessibility features, you can block gestures from your right arm and force a break in the part of your brain you want to steer on the right side. Accelerate your learning to become hands-free on other devices. And that’s good because I can only use my goggles for a few hours a day before I have a neck cramp with weight. But I learned to hack for that. By lying down to serve as a table of some kind.

I’m not dying with bug eyes in public, but after experiencing the panic attacks I experienced after taking them off, I am beginning to feel relieved with my new hip identity – the consequences of physical disorientation and fear towards their seductive charm.

This turned my way from friends and family despite the enormous amount of ridiculous laughter and skeptical concerns. I have not been a target of this much stack since being arrested after trying joints as a teenager. Am I at risk of letting go of my struggle to become a human in the real world? Look at this space. This article was described as hands-free.

Debora Harding’s dance with Toctopus has been published by Profile Books and Bloomsbury USA. Buy for £9.99 Guardianbookshop.com