Dreamscape Immersive Review - Thrilling and Amazing VR Adventure

Recently, Dreamscape Immersive, located at Century City Westfield Mall, introduced members of the local media to the dynamic world of immersive Virtually Reality which allows guests to be transplanted into the middle of a world that doesn't exist.

Immersive VR, by definition, generates a three-dimensional image which appears to surround the user. This is exactly the experience of the Dreamscape VR Adventure. Guests are transported, via virtual reality technology and suddenly a world appears.

Dreamscape Immersive is the brainchild of former head of Dreamworks Motion Pictures, Walter Parkes, serial entrepreneur Kevin Wall, along with his partner Aaron Grosky, and former Chief Creative Officer of Disney Imagineering, Bruce Vaughn.

"The vision: combine the emotional power of Hollywood storytelling, the visceral excitement of great theme-park rides, and this extraordinary new technology to create stories and worlds that push the limits of virtual reality," the Dreamscape website "About Us" section states.

So enough about what defines VR. The real questions became "how it all works" and "did the experience produce feelings?" So lets's start at the beginning.


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At present there are three "world" experiences The Blu, Deep Rescue, Curse of the Lost Pearl, and Alien Zoo. They were described as a swimming with whale's experience, an Indiana Jones/Lara Croft/Goonies experience and a Jurassic Park type experience.

Before the worlds become alive, the guest has to be prepped. Experiences are listed like Train Departures as the guests sit in a "waiting area." Once the experience is called, the host gathers all ticket holders for this experience at this time. No more than six guest can participate during each cycle.

As the guest are waiting outside the six-seat cabin, the host calls each person by name and has them sit in numbered seats. After entering the room and taking the designated seat, the first stand out is that each seat has five unique pieces of tech gear on the boundaries of the chair.

Your guide will explain the process of "gearing up." The trackers, which look like the restaurant reservation squares that vibrate when the table is ready, these trackers are placed on both hands and feet and a jet-pack style backpack is also worn.

All of this is connected to the jet-pack. An Oculus headset is also attached to the jet-pack. When everyone has geared up, the guide explains, the process of interacting with the world, and what is "real" and what is not. You enter a door (always a movie transition moment) and then stepping on the marked footprints, you put your goggles on. 

Before the world becomes the experience, looking forward, you can see yourself as the Avatar chosen in the beginning. Move your arms and watch your VR "self" mirror your movements.


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Suddenly the room becomes the experience and the guide is now a movie style voice playing from the speakers attached to the headset that rest on the ears. 

For the first experience, the gentle world of Alien Zoo, where the "animals" including a Brachiosaurus type come up to the railing and you can reach out and "touch" them. The experience, for Alien zoo, moves from the non-threatening animals to the hidden dangers of any jungle. Guests are told to interact. The florescent leaves a visual trail. Even as we are instructed before entry on what is real and what is not or what exists and what does not, through the eyes of Oculus, it is all very real.

The next experience was the Indiana Jones/Lara Croft/Goonies excavator adventure. The beginnings are the same, scan the ticket and enter one's name and chose the Avatar. Advance to the waiting room. When the time arrives for the experience to depart, guests are called and led to the cabin. The guide explains the gearing up process and after all have placed the trackers and jet pack on the guides will lead everyone through to the next room. (For the record it is an empty room with a railing.) The experience surrounds the guests.

The Indiana Jones/Lara Croft/Goonies type ride, it was reminiscent of The Temple of Doom. As the team is split and in order to be reunited, we needed to walk across "broken" wooden slates, find the clues. Soon we were pulling levers, switching tracks, feeling the wind rush as the train car feels as it is were out of control, with no tacks ahead, suddenly we have an split second rescue and all is well.


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The Blu, a deep-sea rescue begins with a large universe view of the earth and an introduction of the vast distances this tagged whale has traveled. Suddenly you are a deep-sea diver on a rescue mission. Schools of eye-popping neon colored fish swim around. "Seals" coming so close you want to touch them and hope they return. And then we are swimming with the whales.

Dreamscape Immersive is a fun-tastic and fantastic time. Head over to the Westfield Mall in Century city and allow yourself to be transported to a whole new world. The Blu and maybe the other experiences are bound to become a traveling experience with pop-up stops in cities across the US and possible beyond. 

For more information: dreamscapeimmersive.com

Images from the Dreamscape website. The intro image was altered to fit website parameters. 

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