The Microsoft interdisciplinary scientist largely credited with popularizing virtual reality reflects on his lifelong relationship with technology, showing VR's ability to illuminate and amplify our understanding of our species and how the brain and body connect to the world. By the author of You Are Not a Gadget. --Publisher

Preface: Virtual reality's moment -- Introduction -- 1960s: terrors of Eden -- Rescue spacecraft -- Batch process -- Why I love VR (about the basics) -- Bug in the system (about the dark side of VR) -- Road -- Coast -- Valley of unearthly delights -- Alien encounters -- The feeling of immersion -- To don the new everything (about haptics with a little about avatars) -- Nautical dawn -- Six degrees (a little about sensors and VR data) -- Found -- Be your own paramidion (about visual displays for VR) - The VPL experience -- Inside-out spheres (a little about VR "video" and sound) -- Scene -- How we settled into a seed for the future -- 1992, out -- Coda: Reality's foil.