Virtually Fearless

By Anita Hamilton

I'm 33,000 ft. up in the sky, and I feel fine. No sweaty palms, no tingling head; I can finally exhale. Along with some 25 million other Americans, I'm usually deathly afraid of airplanes. A bounce here, a FASTEN SEAT BELT light there, and I'm ready to start penning my will on a crumpled cocktail napkin. But I'm sick of being scared. So before boarding my last flight, I took a crash course in virtual-reality exposure therapy--a high-tech technique that is supposed to help people like me overcome our fear of flying.

First developed by psychologist Barbara Rothbaum and computer scientist Larry Hodges to combat fear of heights, VR exposure therapy works on the principle that if you can train people to relax in a simulation of a scary situation, they will relax when confronted with the real thing. I visited the Virtually Better clinic in Atlanta, which charges $150 for a one-hour session. It provides a headset and plane seat that immerse you in a 3-D virtual airplane, complete with vibrations, engine sounds, flight-attendant call bells, and--at touchdown--tire squeals.

O.K., it sounds a little weird, but it can't hurt, right? After all, no matter how scary the high-flying simulation gets, my feet will always be firmly planted on the ground. Before my virtual flight, psychologist Samantha Smith went over a few relaxation techniques: keep breathing, remember that the chance of dying in a plane crash is 1 in 10 million and use special tricks to distract myself from my mind's own in-flight horror movies. So far, so good. In fact, when I glanced over at the dorky plastic seat and headset I was about to don, I could barely suppress a snicker. No way was this setup going to scare me, I thought.

I was right. My first reaction, once I got moving, was, "Wow! This is fun!" I loved how the picture changed onscreen whenever I moved my head. Swinging to the left, I could peer out a window and see the Atlanta skyline; looking up, I saw overhead bins; straight ahead was my pull-down tray and a row of empty seats. Sure, some essential details were missing--barf bags, crying babies, passengers jabbing me with their elbows--but that was O.K. It would have taken a lot more than that to fool me into thinking I was really flying.

At "takeoff," I heard the familiar runway rumbling and felt the vibrations that normally start me chanting, "Dear God, please don't let me die." But this time I felt fine. In fact, I never felt the wheels leave the ground, even though I could see we were supposed to be in the air. As we passed through puffy white clouds, I was so comfortable, I could have taken a nap. I had a sudden craving for a diet Coke, but there wasn't a flight attendant in sight. When the thunderstorms and turbulence came along--the part I secretly hoped would make me scared--the seat simply didn't move violently enough to create that queasy, out-of-control feeling that usually makes me wish I'd packed a parachute.

As I got used to this new world and began talking to the psychologist about my fears, I realized that the simulation was triggering frightening memories without actually making me scared. When I looked at them objectively, my fears seemed to lose their charge. For the first time, I felt safe in a plane. So what if it wasn't real?

Now, back on Delta's B-757 to Newark, just thinking about my session helps me feel at ease. I'm not cured, but I'm definitely calmer.

For more on Virtually Better and other VR clinics, visit virtuallybetter.com E-mail questions for Anita to hamilton@time.com