The Healing Room
The inspiration for this installation comes from sensory integration rooms. The market of interest is multi-faceted: music festivals, conferences, ketamine/psychedelic assisted therapy clinics are a few of the markets we’re exploring.We envision the healing room as a means of reconnecting with your internal state in an embodied way. The vision for the paitent experience is as follows:
User Journey:
Imagine you have just been in a socially overwhelming environment and are feeling anxious and contracted. You seek refuge in “The Healing Room,” a quiet, ambiently lit dome with a comfortable reclined chair and warm-colored carpets, plants, and other vibe-setting details. You’re outfitted with EMG sensors on your jaw, shoulders, and abdomen, a Neurosity EEG headset on your head, and a Polar10 chest strap. Projected on the wall of the dome, a visualization of a sphere changes texture at a regulated rate of respiration conducive to somatic calmness. A colored aura surrounding the sphere indicates how in-sync you are with the desired breathing rate compared to your current respiration (as measured by the EMG sensor). Large and red means that your breathing is too fast and shallow, while smaller than the sphere and red means you’re too slow. Green and in-line with the sphere means that you’ve matched the preferred breathing rate.
Heart data is recorded via a PolarH10 chest strap. A desired resting heart rate that’s similarly conducive to somatic calmness is calculated for you. You’ll receive haptic feedback via a soft haptic patch to aid in syncing your current heart rate with the desired rate until you’re in a regulated state. You’re guided in reclined Qi Gong exercises using only your hands. The rhythmic swing of your hands changes LED lights cast around the dome. They track the energy transfer in your movement, but noise in the form of variance in light color is introduced based on your calmness/focus and the tension in your jaw as measured by the Neurosity EEG headset and EMG sensors. You can interact with the settings of The Healing Room via a voice control system, deciding to focus only on your breath or turning off the lights and heart rate tracking for a body scan meditation. The room accommodates a wide scope of embodiment exercises delivered by a practitioner or self-guided.