I purchased a VR headset in late 2019 (PlayStation VR) on Black Friday. My stomach was in knots for a solid week as I tossed and turned in bed about the big-ticket purchase that I had made.

It was a lot of fun – but do I really have time for fun? 

After the initial novelty wore off, my VR system found itself sitting dormant collecting dust on a shelf for several months. It was exciting to experience, but I didn’t know anyone at the time who owned or even operated a VR device. I also struggled to find time to spend playing it. The Coronavirus outbreak quickly changed that.

Over the course of the shutdown and subsequent cancelation of many public events, VR technology became a welcomed escape from reality for me. I dove into several genres of gaming. I played horror games with jump-scares (a very humbling experience), hilarious simulation games, and musical performance games that left me thinking, “Maybe I COULD be a DJ?”.  

The world of VR has a lot to offer a curious player like me. My love for VR gaming led me to wonder if there was anything that could provide a mental escape. A quick entry into the world’s most popular search engine led me to a life-changing application. A continued journey in ‘mindfulness’ that I never thought possible. I mean – just what IS ‘mindfulness’, anyway? 

The Oxford Languages definition:
“Mind-ful-ness (noun)” 

1. The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.  

1. A mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.  

Last month, we published a story about the history and future of VR technology. One of the featured games,‘TRIPP: Fitness For Your Inner Self’, is not so much a game as it is an experience in mindfulness. The experience is what the Washington Post describes as “A video game meets a happy pill”. In 2020, Men’s Health magazine named TRIPP the Best VR Meditation and Wellness software. The application has been instrumental in an observed change in thought-pattern, and a better sense of awareness for many in the VR community. At $29.99, I consider this to be one of my very best purchases – and I’ll have you know that I bought DogeCoin at .02 cents, my friend.

I had to spread the word to anyone that would listen. I have, at the time of this writing, inspired two friends to purchase a VR device. One of them even purchased TRIPP! I posted an edited clip from a morning meditation session from an earlier broadcast and posted it to Twitter to share with a friend. A short time later, I noticed that the tweet was liked and retweeted by the official TRIPP account. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I wasn’t the only one that was enjoying these incredible experiences.  

 After several months of having the application, I have no shortage of great things to say about it. In fact, I had nothing but questions! I had the great opportunity to speak with Nanea Reeves, the CEO, and co-founder of TRIPP. Reeves finds one of the best things about video games is the feeling of having control during times where we may not have the same amount of control in our real lives. Especially during times in life when things in the real world aren’t so perfect. Nanea also found that being able to meet people in multiplayer communities who may share common interests to be another great part of gaming. 

“It’s not all just about the shooting and blowing things up,” Reeves had to say about video games. 

Reeves has a very extensive background in the video game industry and was even an early investor in Oculus, the quickly crowdfunded VR system for commercial use. With a love for gaming and deep meditation practice, Reeves says that the idea for a VR-based guided meditation program was conceived in 2016. It would be another 9 months before she would “gain clarity of intentions” when it came to the program’s direction and presentation.

TRIPP was funded in Q3 of 2017 – only one year after it went from being just an idea until it happened. That, Reeves said, has a lot to do with her entrepreneurial background and knowing that it would take a lot of work in order to make it a reality. The small team at TRIPP spent over six months working on the initial prototype for the game. It took another six months to add the daily updates to track each user’s progress. 

The program features a morning session called ‘focus’, which helps the user escape into a calm surroundings with beautiful imagery, soft sounds, and a guided meditation complete with a breathing exercise. The program encourages the user to breathe along and progress when they feel ready to do so. The messages are varied as each session is tailor-made for that particular session. The evening session, called ‘calm’, helps the user clear their mind after a busy day, relax, or think about reasons to express gratitude. 

Another thing that TRIPP does is occasionally help to remind the user that others in their lives with who they may be experiencing conflict are also on their own journey in life. In many ways, their own personal conflict may manifest and have unintended consequences –both positive and negative – to people around them. The concept of stepping outside of one’s self to stop and care about others provided me with a new perspective and lesson to take with me. The software also comes with a mode that takes the user to relax in 3-D scanned environments including waterfalls, a campfire in the desert, a Bulgarian cow farm, and several other nature scenes.

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The randomly generated environments in TRIPP allow the user to feel miles away without leaving home.

The team at TRIPP has recently added a creative mode that allows each user the opportunity to create their own meditation sessions. Users of this amazing application can also download an app to pair with their meditation sessions to track their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly progress. Users can also use the app to upload photos that appear during the meditation session and help bring a greater sense of calm and relaxation. In TRIPP’s future, the company plans to improve visual quality and expand into artificial intelligence.  

 The software has been included in clinical studies, but Reeves stressed that it is not a replacement for professional help or intensive therapy. TRIPP VR software for anyone who would like to see a positive change in thought and overall mood. It’s also just a great way to disconnect from what can also be a busy world filled with various stimuli – phones, tablets, television playing in the background – there are many ways that we pile on distractions. TRIPP VR can only be played while the user’s head is literally inside of a device which provides a more focused experience. It is definitely an experience to behold and I personally look forward to all that the team at TRIPP releases in the future.

To find more information, visit http://www.Tripp.com