Swimming with wild dolphins is something most can only dream of and jumping into pools with captive animals has become increasingly controversial with environmentalists condemning it as cruel.
However, a Dutch non-profit believes it has found a way to bring people, especially disabled people, closer to such a joyful experience through the technological, immersive advances offered by virtual reality (VR).
The Dolphin Swim Club is the realization of a more than two-decade journey by artist Marijke Sjollema, who had her first chance encounter with a dolphin in 1993 while snorkeling off the coast of Mexico.
Photo: AFP
“I saw this gray shadow under the water and my first thought was: ‘This is the end.’ I thought it was a shark,” she said.
She tried to stay calm, “but this shadow was following me and then there was this split second that I realized that it wasn’t a shark. It was a dolphin,” Sjollema said.
“I didn’t know anything about dolphins, but I instinctively knew: ‘Oh a dolphin, I’m fine. This is a good thing,’” she said.
From that moment on, Sjollema’s love of dolphins and all cetaceans was born.
“We know that there is something magical about dolphins. We think of joy, and playfulness and happiness and innocence when we meet dolphins. And this is even a healing quality,” she said.
She and her business consultant husband, Benno Brada, have devoted their spare time, energy and personal resources to their mission of enabling people to discover their own encounter with dolphins.
Their first project using normal VR headsets playing a film of the dolphins launched in late 2015.
However, last month, they went a step further, unveiling waterproof VR glasses, which allow people to drift around a pool watching bottlenose and spinner dolphins playing around them in virtual reality.
This VR dolphin therapy in a pool, still at the trial stage, is thought to be a world first.
“The dream was to find an alternative to dolphin-assisted therapies using dolphins in captivity,” Brada told therapists at a residential community for disabled people run by the ’S Heeren Loo organization who were testing out the waterproof goggles in the pool.
The center has been using the land version of the VR glasses since last year and has seen noticeable benefits.
“Some 82 percent of our clients feel actually relaxed by seeing the films,” the organization’s policy adviser Johan Elbers said. “It takes them away from the world they are in, they enter a new world in another mindset, think differently, feel differently, see differently and relax completely.”
He recalled how one young woman, who had long had trouble sleeping, now watches a VR film of the dolphins swimming at night and falls quietly asleep.
Another man is able to completely forget an agonizing pain in his arm, he said.
Dion, a 21-year-old resident of the community, said watching the film made him feel “peaceful.”
“The dolphin noises and the water calms me down, that calms me from all the noises that there are, then you’re zen,” he said.
The pool-safe VR goggles, developed thanks to a 50,000 euro (US$59,000) grant from the Dutch government, consist of a waterproof Samsung smartphone in a waterproof backing mounted on a special 3D-printed rig made of recycled plastics.
“Stress is very important as a driver of all kinds of psychiatric problems,” said psychiatrist Wim Veling, from the University of Groningen.
“So we are trying in therapy to make people more relaxed,” said Veling, who has been studying the use of VR to help people with mental health disorders.
“The power of virtual reality is in the immersion” into another world, he said on the Dolphin Swim Club site.
For Sjollema, the VR glasses offer huge advantages. Not only can they bring the dolphins to disabled people, who would not be able to travel to see them, but they also avoid the use of captive dolphins.
“Right from the beginning we wanted to make this an alternative for existing therapies with dolphins in captivity,” she said.
The films were made during a 10-day shoot in December 2015 at the Red Sea, by specialist VR team Viemr, using free divers capable of holding their breath for up to five minutes so as not to scare away the dolphins.
The dry version glasses are already being used in more than 150 universities, hospitals and community centers around the world. The hope is that the waterproof ones will prove equally beneficial.
Sjollema and Brada are looking for a partner to launch their commercial production.
However, Dion is ready for something a little more exhilarating.
He would like to watch “a film with sharks” or lions “where the animal is hunting a prey. It would be fun to see a little bit of action.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was