13 Weird Things You Didn't Know Virtual Reality Was Being Used For

1
To Simulate The Experience Of Death

As death anxiety is common in terminally ill patients, designer Frank Kolkman created a virtual reality device meant to roughly simulate the experience of dying. Based on both testimony regarding near death experiences and the clinical process of dying, Kolkman device incorporates actual video footage of real life surroundings to help those suffering fatal illnesses feel at peace with death.
To use the device, users stand in front of a robotic head while cameras play a live video stream that allows user to look around their own surroundings. An automatic hammer helps mimic the sound of a heartbeat, making the experience more physical. A user's face and body is reflected back at them. This is meant to mimic out of body sensations that are a common aspect of near death experiences.
Kolkman hopes his invention will ease anxiety for patients near death. He also hopes to start a more direct, open conversation about the topic of death in hospitals.
2
To Make an Old Rollercoaster Feel Like a New One

Got an old rollercoaster that you're bored with, but just can't bring yourself to demolish? Virtual reality has got you covered! As Six Flags Over Texas has done with the Shockwave, riders are given a VR headset that provides an entirely new experience during the ride. In the case of the Shockwave (re-dubbed The New Revolution), the VR playback makes riders feel as though they're piloting jet fighters in an aerial battle with invading space aliens.
3
To Get Your Head Chopped Off

Ever fantasize about what it would be like to have your head separated from your body by a guillotine? Yeah, me either. Just keep reading anyway.
A small team has created a VR app that will place the user directly under the imposing edge of the French Revolution's favorite crowd pleaser. While waiting for execution, you can look around and see the crowd's reaction. To complete the experience, someone is tasked with impacting your neck at the time the blade comes down. But they use a non-edged implement. If that's not authentic enough for you, you probably have more important concerns than VR innovations, and should focus on those.
4
To Ease the Pain

Virtual reality healthcare company DeepStream VR claims to be developing a way to use VR immersion to combat short-term and chronic pain. The applications they've created transport the user to a relaxing, peaceful world where they can interact with friendly creatures. The experience is meant to tap into and maximize the brain's natural abilities to reduce pain.
5
To Give Yourself a Migraine

Ever wish you could experience the intense pain of a migraine headache at will? Yeah, me either. Keep reading anyway.
The brilliant minds at Excedrin have created a VR experience that simulates the bright lights, disorienting sound, and general unpleasantness of having a migraine. The purpose is to show non-sufferers what it's like for those who do suffer the affliction. The purpose is NOT, of course, to develop a way to create migraines in more of the population in order to sell more Excedrin. Where do you come up with these ideas??
6
To Experience the Story of Jesus Christ

If you loved The Passion of the Christ, but feel like you just can't get that real religious experience unless you're standing underneath the cross, blood pooling around your feet, then this VR experience is for you! Autumn Productions and VRWERX have created a 90-minute virtual retelling of the New Testament. With 360-degree video, you'll be able to look all around every scene, including Christ's birth, death, resurrection, and turning water into wine. Sorry, the technology hasn't evolved enough to allow you to imbibe said wine.
7
To Preserve the Integrity of a Crime Scene Forever
Imagine if jurors on a criminal case could take a walk around the crime scene on their own two feet, preserved exactly as it was when the police found it, while counsel points out the evidence of note. This is the future of the justice system as envisioned by some of the minds at Staffordshire University.
By having first responders record the crime scene in VR, there will forever remain a virtual replica of the area, unmarred by time and human error. This VR simulation can be used by jurors or police investigating the crime years later.
8
To Swap Bodies with the Opposite Sex

You know that one immature male friend you have that insists that if he were a woman, he would just stay home and play with his breasts all day? Well, he soon may be able to do just that!
On a more serious note, the Gender Swap experiment by the good people at BeAnotherLab uses virtual reality to allow men and women to experience one another's bodies. The process entails both male and female users equipping a VR helmet that inputs the sensory perception of the other person. By synchronizing movements, it would appear to each of them that they've swapped bodies.
9
To Learn Not to Piss Yourself on Stage

A relatively simple, but brilliant virtual reality application already on the market allows those afraid of public speaking to overcome that fear. Created by VirtualSpeech, the Public Speaking app places the user in an environment where they are front and center, with an audience of realistic virtual beings listening to their every word. With practice, the user can become comfortable in front of both virtual and flesh-and-blood spectators.
10
To Have Lunch Underwater

Well, your dreams of having a 5-star dining experience at the bottom of the ocean will soon be a reality! Samsung, makers of the Gear VR, is working on an application to be used by restaurant patrons while they're eating. As conceptualized now, the VR program will whisk the whole table away to a garden in Tuscany. Once the main course comes out, it's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" time, in which playful dolphins will swim around the merry gourmands, and bubbles will rise from their drinks. After dessert, a shark joins the table and helps the patrons to experience what it's like to be the food.
Just kidding about that last part.
11
To Hide from the Nazis with Anne Frank

Virtual reality conceptualist Jonah Hirsch is designing a VR program that will allow you to be "a fly on the wall" in Anne Frank's annex during her family's time evading capture by the Nazis. Users will be able to walk around the space, from room to room, exploring as they like. But it won't just be a static environment - key moments in the family's history will be reenacted as well.
12
To Make Your Dead Heart Feel Empathy for Once

News stations around the world are beginning to broadcast news pieces in virtual reality. Why? Because decades of nightly horrors on the news have turned viewers into emotionless husks with little empathy and even less attention span. The idea is to put the viewer into the news story, right alongside the victim, or the hero, or even the President, so that they can experience what's happening firsthand. And maybe even feel something!
13
To Practice Saving Kittens

Want to save that poor cat in the tree branch, but you're too afraid of heights to do it? Well, now you can conquer that fear and practice your cat-saving technique all at the same time! Namco Bandai has created a virtual reality program that has people easing their way out onto a plank hanging off the edge of a rooftop to scoop up a digital kitten that's stranded on its end. Now, don't be a pussycat. Save that kitten!