What happens when YOU die? This new virtual reality ‘death simulator’ lets you find out

What happens when you die is the world’s greatest mystery, but virtual reality can help allay people’s fear of the afterlife.

Artist Shaun Gladwell developed an immersive near-death experience that guides participants through life’s de-escalation, from cardiac arrest to brain death, and gives them a glimpse of what can happen in their final moments.

The simulation also includes an outer body section, allowing users to look down at their dead bodies as they hover above.

A TikToker who went through the experience, known as croom12, explained that he lay down on a bed that vibrated when he lay flat and saw that the doctors were unable to resuscitate him.

He also said that the experience can cause fear in people and that you can stop at any time.

Many people have died and come back to share their experiences, which usually include seeing a light at the end of a dark tunnel, hearing the voices of loved ones, and even the cries of the damned.

However, once the heart stops beating, one never knows for sure what lies ahead.

Gladwell hopes to help people accept the inevitable with an immersive world that shows and simulates the feeling of death.

His ‘Passing Electrical Storms’ is being screened at Australia’s Melbourne Now event, which has been described as ‘a participatory XR experience with a deeply gripping, ‘out-of-body’ nature.’

Participants lie on a mock hospital bed, put on an XR headset and experience cardiac arrest, an attempt to bring them back to life, death and an out-of-body experience that transcends life and planet Earth.

And it is said to be both “meditative and disturbing.”

Another VR headset also focuses on death, but the maker claims that the device kills users if they die in a game.

NerveGear, created by 30-year-old Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, said the innovation immediately “destroys the brain” when the person loses.

The company used an Oculus headset but added three “explosive charge modules” aimed at the user’s skull.

When the user dies virtually during gameplay, the modules fire at their head, killing them instantly.

Luckey admitted that the device isn’t quite finished yet and he’ll likely have trouble getting permission to use it, even if he is.

Luckey, who sold his Oculus firm to Meta in 2014 at the age of 21 for $3 billion, described the “incredible” device in a blog post.

“The idea of ​​linking your real life to your virtual avatar has always fascinated me – you immediately raise the stakes to the maximum level and force people to fundamentally rethink how they interact with the virtual world and the players in it,” he shared.

Pumped-up graphics can make a game look more realistic, but only the threat of dire consequences can make a game feel real to you and everyone else in the game.

“This is an area of ​​video game mechanics that has never been explored, despite the long history of real sports revolving around similar stakes.”

The device is inspired by Sword Art Online, an anime series with a VR game of the same name, accessible with a helmet called NerveGear, which stimulates the user’s five senses through his brain.

In the series, players can experience and control their in-game characters with their mind while wearing NerveGear.

But when 10,000 players log into the game for the first time online, they discover that they can’t log out – and that removing their helmets would be fatal.

“Gamers were trapped by a mad scientist in a death game that could only be escaped by completion,” explains Luckey.