About StoryUP, makers of Healium
StoryUP is a tribe of storytellers, psychologists, developers, filmmakers, game designers and technologists who create and tell stories that positively impact people. We began in 2015, trying to find a solution for terminally-ill WWII Veterans who were not able to physically travel to see their memorials in Washington, DC. Through honoreverywhere.com, we used VR headsets to give veterans the experience of traveling to those memorials, and along the way learned that VR can impact users’ moods and physiology. StoryUP immerses an individual in different stories using video, VR (virtual reality), and AR (augmented reality) that’s powered by the user’s biometrics. Our product is called Healium.
In 2016, curious about Veteran’s reactions to Honor Everywhere, Dr. Jeff Tarrant and interactive storyteller Sarah Hill started to study whether VR could be utilized to alter brainwave patterns and whether an individual’s thoughts could change the surroundings inside a VR environment.
Hill and Dr. Tarrant had always been friends. More than a decade ago, Dr. Tarrant helped Sarah with her own anxiety. As a TV journalist, Hill’s media diet full of negative fiber had made her sick. She suffered a series of panic attacks and reached out to Dr. Tarrant for something that would help her sleep. Dr. Tarrant helped her by writing a digital ‘prescription’ that incorporated neurofeedback using Hill’s own calming thoughts to land a virtual airplane. After a few weeks’ time, Hill began to notice beneficial changes in her ability to sleep. This personal experience, in addition to the response coming from veterans using VR, led StoryUP to create Healium: an immersive storytelling platform to reduce stress and increases feelings associated with calm and positivity. Healium technology harnesses the power of positive emotions, which in turn “heals” virtual worlds. Whether it’s removing graffiti from a tree or hatching butterflies from their cocoons, the virtual story helps the user shift the narrative playing in their head.
Using wearables like Muse headbands that monitor the wearer’s brainwaves, StoryUP developed different visual and augmented reality scenarios that give the user positive feedback when their brain pattern shifts or their heart rate is lowered. Essentially, when the user’s mood changes, the story-driven scenario- a blooming flower or an illuminating light- responds in a positive way. Healium can be used in augmented reality via a smartphone app which places 3D images into the user’s real world, or in virtual reality via a headset that gives the user a 360 degree, completely immersive experience. For more information visit https://www.tryhealium.com/
Healium stories encompass a variety of forms from meditations to features using technologies including EEG, HRV, BCI, neurofeedback, and the AR cloud.
