The Beauty of Reality: Realms of Flow Connects VR Users to Mind, Breath, and Nature

The meditative VR app Realms of Flow wants to transport you to another world—so that you can love reality more. 

With excellent ratings on Steam (98%) and the Meta Quest Store (5/5), Realms of Flow uses virtual reality to encourage deep engagement with the body, the inner world, and nature. Users can travel through fantastic landscapes of exquisite beauty that defy the usual cliches of mindfulness. More than a relaxation app, Realms of Flow’s environments and experiences guide participants to immerse themselves in a different mindstate via breathing patterns, frequency entrainment, stunning visuals and audio, and playful interactive elements. 

Realms of Flow creator Marc Zimmermann draws on his deep appreciation of the natural world, the mysterious and majestic, to craft functional experiences that evoke awe and release. “My primary source of inspiration and for refilling my own batteries is solitary experiences in nature,” he explains. “I process the insights that these moments provide in my work.” 

A digital artist and trained animator long fascinated by the backgrounds and settings of created worlds, Zimmermann uses environments to tell stories and spark sentiments. He first explored this approach in several award-winning film shorts and standalone VR experiences before creating Realms of Flow. “When I was in film school, a large majority of the animation students were into character animation—often in the style of well-known movies—or they pursued action, explosions and monsters on the visual effects side of things,” he reflects. “I was always more drawn toward using nature, vast epic landscapes and environments to tell stories, essentially using those spaces as characters and bringing them to life to convey the particular concept or emotion that I had in mind.”

These environments shine in vivid color on Realms of Flow, employing a super-saturated, fantastical hyperrealism. Woven around these environments are striking interactive elements designed to help users find calm and flow, whether they prefer a narrator guiding them into a new state, haptic and visual cues to focus breathwork, or whimsical interactive moments that can be layered into an experience. Users can hum into their headset’s microphone, for example, making the environment vibrate and change color. Each environment can be gently modified to suit users’ needs, and each provides delightful hidden nooks and crannies to explore. 

Zimmermann’s background in film and animation led him to make distinctive choices to keep the aesthetic quality of the images and sound cinematic. “The crafting of each experience is a journey of exploration and experimentation with visuals, soundscapes, and narration,” says Zimmermann. “Once I have a rough idea for a new experience and its atmosphere in my head, I will start experimenting with shapes, objects, and motions. This is a very iterative process where I go back and forth between rendering tests and checking the result in the VR headset until I see potential and start refining it. This also goes along with the first tests in sound design and music to shape the soundscape with a similar iterative approach. Thus, the creation of Realms of Flow is also an expression of my own personal artistic and spiritual journey.”

Thousands of users have joined Zimmermann on the journey, and their comments and feedback have helped shape the app over time. Zimmermann has continued to add elements like a playable pandrum, ASMR sounds, and even a life advice-dispensing hookah users can conjure. Yet while the journey may vary, the destination of Realms of Flow remains the same: To bring users into a flow state that then awakens their love of life and the real world.

The real magic starts once the headset comes off: “No matter how high-quality the VR content may be, the moment I put down the headset, I very much appreciate the ‘resolution’, field-of-view and clarity of reality due to the still limited nature of VR display technology,” explains Zimmermann. “This effect is an important aspect of what I want to accomplish - to motivate everyone (including myself) to take in the beauty of life while it lasts and have meaningful experiences in real life with a high degree of awareness and appreciation.”

“We are gifted every moment with life's most precious achievement: A conscious mind, enabling us to sense and hold within us the universe's boundless beauty—a source of infinite inspiration that fuels your inner space. With my virtual-reality experiences, I express my own appreciation for the gift of life and the need to keep our ability to see the world through the wondering eyes of a child,” muses Zimmermann. “They are 'journeys within,’ designed to touch the audience on an emotional level and make them transcend into a relaxed and appreciative state of mind.” And when the headset comes off, they may discover that everywhere is a realm of flow, thanks to Zimmermann’s interactive art.

About Realms of Flow

Realms of Flow is a meditative VR application available on Steam and Meta Quest. Created by digital artist Marc Zimmermann, Realms of Flow invites you to calm your mind and drift away in soothing experiences with unique moods and atmospheres. The application combines cinematic visuals with interactive elements for breathing, mindful listening, humming, frequency entrainment and playfulness.