The Theater and its Double was a 1938 book by French playwright Antonin Artaud, the first-ever record of the word ‘virtual reality. A reality that was both illusionary and fictitious.

The 1950s saw inventor Morton Helig working on a projection booth with 3D images and sound, a moving seat and smells/sensations of the road to give an impression that the person on the seat was riding a motorcycle, trying to give the first taste of virtual reality. It never went into production.

• Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series (the one with Captain Picard) had the holodeck, a place where anything imaginable was experienced, like a past memory.
• The 2009 movie Avatar used virtual reality as the main storyline.
• The real world now uses virtual realit...