How Realms of Flow explores different sides of VR

Some of the VR experiences that have stayed with me the longest weren’t games at all. They are experiences built around atmosphere, immersion and the feeling of being transported somewhere else for a while.

Creator Mark Zimmerman has spent years exploring that side of VR.

Zimmerman 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 game settings.

That philosophy first took shape in his award-winning VR short Conscious Existence (MetaQuest | 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, Realms of Flow can’t be viewed as just another VR meditation app. It represents nearly a decade of experimentation with immersive cinema, environmental storytelling, and emotional atmosphere in VR.

From VFX to VR

Zimmerman’s path to VR began before headsets entered the mainstream.

He studied animation and visual effects at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg in Germany, where he developed an interest in digital environments, atmospheric filmmaking and visual storytelling.

“I’ve always loved using contexts to create my own projects, to tell stories and create emotions,” Zimmerman explained. “I want to create an atmosphere with a place, with a landscape, with a place.”

During that time, he became more interested in visual effects work inspired by traditional filmmaking and large-scale environmental cinema.

“Like Lord of the Rings,” he said. “Transforming Green Screens and Creating Epic Landscapes.”

VR entered the picture towards the end of his studies after sitting inside the school’s R&D department and testing the Oculus DK1 headset.

Initially, Zimmerman tried to adapt one of his previous short films in VR, before the medium demanded a completely different approach.

Instead, he created Longing for Wilderness in 2016, a three-minute pioneering 360-degree VR experience designed to move viewers from a noisy city to a peaceful natural environment.

That project eventually led to Conscious Existence, a stereoscopic VR short film that would shape everything that followed.

Why Conscious Existence Still Connects

Even today, Conscious Existence remains one of the most memorable immersive experiences available in VR. Being with you is not communication. It has an incredible sense of atmosphere, story, movement and scale.

Zimmerman sees the emotional power of VR in presence.

“A lot of users complained about the lack of interaction of the short film,” he said. “But at the same time I saw an opportunity to create dense atmospheres and emotional spaces.”

Despite the general discomfort with VR headsets, when I showed Conscious Presence to my wife recently, the experience immediately connected with her emotionally. The child narrative, environmental scale and sense of floating through forests and landscapes created a surprisingly powerful response.

“I get messages from people that they tear up or that a certain scene reminds them of something in their life,” Zimmerman said. He asks a lot.

Why Zimmerman Departed from Traditional VR Design

After the success of Conscious Existence, Zimmerman tried to move further into interactive VR with an Unreal Engine project called DeepStates (still available on Steam, though development was halted).

The idea was ambitious.

He wanted to combine high-end real-time environments with meditation systems, breathing exercises, binaural audio, and environmental effects where users became relaxed.

But eventually, the technical demands began to crowd out everything he really cared about.

“I noticed that working on Unreal Engine and creating these real-time optimized environments was 80% technical stuff and 20% actual concept and art and sound design,” Zimmerman said.

Users increasingly demanded deeper interactivity, game systems and exploration mechanics.

For Zimmerman, that was never the goal.

“I like to create these dense atmospheres,” he explained. “This is the kind of trip you go and absorb.”

That realization eventually led him to the running fields.

Creating parts of the flow

Instead of making Realms of Flow a game-like experience, Zimmerman deliberately went in the opposite direction.

Parts of the flow are created directly in the atmosphere and create a sensory immersion of consciousness. The same emphasis on movement, environmental immersion, and emotional pace runs throughout the app. But this time, Zimmerman built personalization systems around those experiences.

Breath synchronization, humming exercises, spatial sound design, environmental depth adjustment, meditation timers, visual modulation and interactive focus elements all work together to create highly personalized experiences.

Due to the number of settings available, the app may feel overwhelming at first.

Zimmerman knows it.

“There are a lot of systems,” he admitted. “But I’m trying to hit that sweet spot between accessibility and letting people fix things they need.”

I was surprised at how technically deliberate many of the visual decisions were.

Zimmerman uses a 180-degree stereoscopic presentation instead of 360-degree video to increase the perceived image quality on standalone headsets like the Quest 2 and Quest 3.

He also strategically uses the dark environment.

Dark scenes allow video compression systems to allocate more bitrate to important visual details rather than wasting bandwidth on bright peripheral footage.

Other visual tricks include pushing environmental spheres slightly away from the viewer to increase perceived clarity and dynamically altering environmental depth based on breathing rhythm.

The result is an unusually sharp and visually reassuring immersive experience on unique VR hardware.

VR as reconnection rather than escape

The most interesting thing Zimmerman told me had nothing to do with any technical decision. Despite creating deeply immersive virtual environments, he doesn’t see VR as a substitute for reality.

“You take off the headset and then reality feels more vivid,” he said. “You value life more.”

For Zimmerman, escaping the real world isn’t the goal. This will help people experience it differently when they come back.

Consumer VR

While Realms of Flow is primarily a consumer app today, Zimmermann has already begun exploring broader health and business applications.

The app is currently being integrated into sensor pod systems developed by Amsterdam-based company Sensix, which combine immersive visuals with environmental effects such as wind, smell and temperature changes.

Zimmerman also described conversations involving hospital wellness programs and organizational XR management systems.

“I believe more businesses will use it for hospitals, retreats, nursing homes and wellness spaces,” he said.

He is careful not to exaggerate. He considers it an atmospheric tool, not a medical one.

Looking forward

Zimmerman says Realms of Flow is nearing completion, leaving only planned experiences before moving on to future projects.

He still doesn’t know what comes next.

Mark Zimmerman isn’t particularly interested in chasing mainstream VR trends.

In a VR industry increasingly driven by games and continuous interactions, he continues to focus on atmosphere, emotional immersion and experiences that slow people down inside the headset.

Realms of Flow is available on Meta Quest for standalone VR, Steam for PC VR and the Meta PC VR Store.