Some of the VR experiences that have stayed with me the longest haven’t been games at all. They’ve been experiences built around atmosphere, immersion, and the feeling of being transported somewhere else for a little while.
Creator Marc Zimmermann has spent years exploring that side of VR.
Zimmermann approaches VR from the perspective of an immersive filmmaker and environmental artist. His work focuses on mood, movement, sound, and emotional immersion rather than traditional gameplay systems.
That philosophy first took shape in his award-winning VR short film Conscious Existence (Meta Quest | Steam) before evolving into Realms of Flow, a highly customizable immersive experience built around meditation, breathing, spatial audio, and surreal environmental design.
After speaking with Zimmermann recently, it became impossible to see Realms of Flow as just another VR meditation app. It reflects nearly a decade of experimentation with immersive cinema, environmental storytelling, and emotional atmosphere in VR.
From VFX To VR
Zimmermann’s path to VR began long before headsets entered the mainstream.
He studied animation and visual effects at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in Germany, where he developed a passion for digital environments, atmospheric filmmaking, and visual storytelling.
“I always loved to create my own personal projects and use environments to tell stories and create emotions,” Zimmermann explained. “I want to create an atmosphere with a place, with a landscape, with a space.”
At the time, he was more interested in traditional filmmaking and visual effects work inspired by large-scale environmental cinema.
“Like Lord of the Rings,” he said. “Replacing green screens and creating epic landscapes.”
VR only entered the picture near the end of his studies after experimenting with an Oculus DK1 headset sitting inside the school’s R&D department.
Initially, Zimmermann attempted to adapt one of his earlier short films into VR before realizing the medium demanded an entirely different approach.
Instead, he created Longing For Wilderness in 2016, an early three-minute 360-degree VR experience designed to move viewers from a noisy city into a calm natural environment.
That project eventually led to Conscious Existence, the stereoscopic VR short film that would shape everything that followed.
2D “crop” of Conscious Existence
Why Conscious Existence Still Connects
Even today, Conscious Existence remains one of the more memorable immersive experiences available in VR. What stays with you isn’t interaction. It’s the atmosphere, narration, movement, and the incredible sense of scale.
Zimmermann sees much of VR’s emotional power in presence itself.
“There were a lot of users complaining about the non-interactiveness of the short film,” he said. “But at the same time I saw there was an opportunity there to create dense atmospheres and emotional spaces.”
When I showed Conscious Existence to my wife recently, despite her general discomfort with VR headsets, the experience immediately connected with her emotionally. The child narration, environmental scale, and sensation of floating through forests and landscapes created a surprisingly powerful reaction.
“I get messages from people saying they are tearing up or that a certain scene reminds them of something in their life,” Zimmermann said. He hears it a lot.
Why Zimmermann Stepped Away From Traditional VR Design
After the success of Conscious Existence, Zimmermann attempted to move further into interactive VR through an Unreal Engine project called DeepStates (available on Steam, though development has ceased).
The idea was ambitious.
He wanted to combine high-end realtime environments with meditation systems, breathing exercises, binaural audio, and evolving environmental effects that transformed as users relaxed.
But eventually, the technical demands started crowding out everything he actually cared about.
“I noticed that working in Unreal Engine and creating these realtime optimized environments was 80% technical stuff and only 20% actual concept and art and sound design,” Zimmermann said.
Users increasingly demanded deeper interactivity, gameplay systems, and exploration mechanics.
For Zimmermann, that was never the goal.
“I just want to create these dense atmospheres,” he explained. “This kind of journey that you go into and get sucked into.”
That realization eventually led him toward Realms of Flow.
Building Realms of Flow
Rather than turning Realms of Flow into a more game-like experience, Zimmermann intentionally moved in the opposite direction.
Realms of Flow builds directly on the atmosphere and emotional immersion of Conscious Existence. The same emphasis on movement, environmental immersion, and emotional pacing runs throughout the app. But this time, Zimmermann built customization systems around those experiences.
Breathing synchronization, humming exercises, spatial sound design, environmental depth adjustments, meditation timers, visual modulation, and interactive focus elements all work together to create highly personalized experiences.
The app can feel overwhelming at first because of the sheer number of available settings.
Zimmermann is aware of that.
“There’s a lot of settings,” he admitted. “But I try to hit the sweet spot between accessibility and allowing people to fine tune things for themselves.”
What surprised me was how technically deliberate many of the visual decisions are.
Zimmermann uses 180-degree stereoscopic presentation instead of 360-degree video to maximize perceived image quality on standalone headsets like Quest 2 and Quest 3.
He also uses dark environments strategically.
Darker scenes allow video compression systems to dedicate more bitrate toward important visual details rather than wasting bandwidth on bright peripheral imagery.
Other visual tricks include slightly pushing environmental spheres farther away from the viewer to increase perceived clarity and dynamically modulating environmental depth based on breathing rhythm.
The result is an unusually sharp and visually convincing immersive experience on standalone VR hardware.
Images from Realms of Flow
VR As Reconnection Rather Than Escape
The most interesting thing Zimmermann told me had nothing to do with any technical decision. Despite creating deeply immersive virtual environments, he does not see VR as a replacement for reality.
“You take the headset off and reality feels even more vivid afterward,” he said. “You appreciate life even more.”
For Zimmermann, the goal isn’t to escape the real world. It’s to help people experience it differently when they return to it.
Beyond Consumer VR
While Realms of Flow exists primarily as a consumer app today, Zimmermann has already started exploring broader wellness and commercial applications.
The app is currently being integrated into sensory pod systems created by Amsterdam-based company Sensiks, which combines immersive visuals with environmental effects like wind, scent, and temperature changes.
Zimmermann also described conversations involving hospital wellness programs and enterprise XR management systems.
“I hope more businesses will use it for hospitals, retreats, elderly homes, and wellness spaces,” he said.
He’s careful not to overclaim. He views it as an atmospheric tool, not a clinical one.
Looking Forward
Zimmermann says Realms of Flow is nearing completion, with only a small number of planned experiences remaining before he moves toward future projects.
He’s not sure yet what comes next.
Marc Zimmermann is not particularly interested in chasing mainstream VR trends.
In a VR industry still largely driven by games and constant interaction, he’s continuing to focus on atmosphere, emotional immersion, and experiences designed to slow people down inside the headset.
Realms of Flow is available on Meta Quest for standalone VR, as well as Steam and the Meta PC VR Store for PC VR.
