Virtual Reality and the Dreaming Mind: Technology as a Portal to the Self

For most of human history, dreams have been one of our most intimate technologies — windows into the psyche, metaphors that move, spaces where we explore what cannot be said out loud.

Today, virtual reality (VR) offers something curiously close — an echo, perhaps — of the logic behind dreams: a way to step into symbolic spaces, confront emotional truths, and rehearse change in a world that bends to intention. In therapy, this is not about replacing presence — it’s about expanding it.

VR is already being integrated into a variety of therapeutic approaches. In Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), it’s used to support graded exposure for phobias, social anxiety, OCD, and PTSD. Studies have shown that VR-based CBT can be as effective as traditional methods, offering immersive environments tailored to individual fears (source). In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), VR can deepen values-based action by immersing the client in experiential metaphors, enhancing psychological flexibility (source). In trauma therapy, including EMDR, VR can help safely simulate and reprocess memories, build somatic awareness, or provide grounding and resourcing environments (source).

It’s also shown promise in chronic pain interventions, emotion regulation, body image work, and psychoeducation. For neurodivergent individuals, it can offer scaffolded simulations of social interaction or transitions.

But perhaps more than that, VR echoes the logic of dreams: it brings the inner world into form. Both dreams and virtual experiences offer immersive spaces to explore what is difficult to verbalise — they allow us to externalise the internal, to see and shape what was once abstract.

As a psychologist deeply connected to the power of dreams, I see both dreams and VR as languages of metaphor — immersive, symbolic, and often surprising. They allow us to explore identity, pain, healing and transformation from the inside out.

When used thoughtfully, with clinical intention and care, VR becomes a kind of waking dream — a shared canvas where client and therapist can co-create new meaning.

Because therapy — like dreams and immersive spaces — isn’t just about insight. It’s about sharing an experience. One that can shift perspective, restore a sense of agency, soften emotional distance, and open room for meaning, possibility, and connection — especially in parts of us that have felt distant, unnamed, or waiting. When approached with presence and care, these experiences aren’t magic wands — but they offer something quieter, deeper: they create space. And in that space, the mind slows, the body responds — and meaning begins to take shape.

For further reading:

• Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) for PTSD: Efficacy of immersive PTSD treatments

• VR-based CBT for anxiety disorders: The Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Exposure–Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

• VR in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Virtual reality acceptance and commitment therapy intervention