In this episode of Be On Air we interview an extended reality expert who specializes in augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and cinematic reality. Aja is dedicated to implementing these technologies in creative ways that bring benefit to all beings of our world. She has worked with women in the slums of Kenya, the Lakota of Pine Ridge Reservation, survivors of abuse, the homeless population, youth transitioning out of gangs, those suffering from mental illness, abused animals, and more. She conducts training and demonstrations for clients and trains individuals and groups on AR/VR/MR systems and products. Aja is also the founder of Presentville, an XR personal development immersive experience that gamifies altruistic action.
During this conversation we dive right into learning more about Presentville and the Global Peace Train as well the origins of these movements. Aja elaborates on how she used toys and playing to ignite an inner child in everyone so that people may be able to tell their story better. We breakdown the layers of what an extended reality experience is, what it took Aja to get to this point of development, the importance as well as the controversies of this emergent technology, and so much more. Check out the links below to learn more about Aja and the amazing work she is doing.
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00:00 – Introduction
02:55 – About the Weeping Woman documentary
05:47 – About Presentville and the Global Peace Train
08:08 – First experiences with the Weeping Woman
10:28 – Storytelling for social impact beginning of Presentville
19:09 – Rediscovering playfulness
21:18 – Entering Presentville for the first time
26:13 – The positive effect of playing
29:34 – Controversies of sharing the wisdom of the Lakota people
31:40 – How Aja incorporates extended reality into storytelling
35:56 – Does VR take priority over real-world interactions?
37:41 – Managing mental health in the tech-industry
40:29 – Rapid fire Q&A
Aja : [00:00:00] So each of the avatars has the ability to not only help us make us whole and reclaim the parts of ourselves like the shadow or the dark sides of ourselves that we have repressed. But it also creates an avenue for altruism or activism so that you can take whatever you’ve learned and then go forward and make the world a better place.
K.Lee: [00:00:54] Welcome my friends to another episode of Be On air I’m your host K.Lee marks. And today is a special day. Today is a very, very special day. Several years ago, I got to meet this incredible person who is bringing extended reality, which is like augmented reality, virtual reality, and creating a personal development game.
That will benefit. Not only everyone on the planet, in my opinion, but it specifically is great to serve underserved populations or indigenous communities or communities where the, their voices aren’t being heard, or they don’t have access to resources and a community outside of, of where they are. And she has been bringing people.
Together from all over the world in these incredible immersive experiences that take from wisdom traditions and cutting edge technology to provide unforgettable experiences for all involved. So stick around, we’re going to be speaking with Asia Donovan. Founder of the global peace train and the game Presentville Aja welcome to be on air. It is, it is really a pleasure and a privilege to have you visiting us today. How are you doing today?
Aja : [00:02:07] I’m well, how about you? I’m super stoked to be here.
K.Lee: [00:02:11] I know it’s been a little while since you’ve gotten to catch up, so I’m partly just excited to get to talk to you.
Um, but I’m really excited to share your story and you know, I’m doing well. I’m, I’m blessed to be alive, but woke up this morning. God’s not done with me. And, uh, there’s a lot. There’s a lot to do out here on this planet, spinning through the cosmos really fast. You’ve worked with women in the slums of Kenya.
You’ve worked with, uh, the, the, the Lakota of the pine Ridge reservation. You’ve worked with survivors of abuse, youth who have been in and out of gangs. You’ve been, you know, you’ve been working. To reduce suffering on the, on this planet for a long time. And one of your, uh, upcoming projects is, uh, the weeping woman documentary.
And I was hoping that we could actually just jump off there a little bit because of, of what we’re experiencing. You know, I I’ve been saying that the world is going through, uh, an enormous struggle right now. And the, it sounds like the weeping woman documentary that you’re doing. Is a big, a big piece of this is like bearing witness to what is going on on the planet.
Like bringing consciousness to all these dark parts, all these hard parts. Could you tell us a little bit about how that came about and what it’s all about?
Aja : [00:03:24] Yeah, absolutely. Well, there’s a really. Interesting process. That’s connected to each of the avatars that I create or help create. And most of them are done through a personal development journey.
And the weeping woman was really birthed from a small group of women, you know, who were going through their own personal journey. I was one of them and really experiencing a deep amount of internal pain. And it doesn’t really matter why no women feel pain and then express it through, you know, emotion, um, men do too, but women have this really innate ability to just access emotion very quickly.
And often women are told to. To hide that part, that it’s bad, that shameful, that you shouldn’t be, um, crying in public or, you know, anger or grief. All of these emotions are kind of suppressed, not only with women, but in our culture in general. And so the weeping woman avatar was brought about to help women.
Connect to those innate emotions in a healthy way, and then express them through activism, through bearing witness to the suffering in our world. And, you know, she’s, she not only cries for the pain of the world, but something I learned in the process is like she also weeps for joy. And, um, in the process of creating the weeping woman documentary we’ve interviewed.
Tons of women and at least probably nine or 10 now have become her in full costume. So we handmade this costume for every woman, any, it doesn’t matter what size or shape the costume is created to be able to fit any size woman. And, um, and so yeah, when a woman puts it on, then we put a full mask on using face paint and it’s a little
scary, but it’s also very beautiful and elegant and I’ve, you know, I have some really good stories about people witnessing her for the first time and what that was like that I’d love to share.
K.Lee: [00:05:47] So I want to, I want to hear about that and for the listeners, because they’re, they’re going to be new to the global peace train and whatPresentville is all about.
Could we back up. And could you explain a little bit about how the game works and how these avatars are created and what they’re all about?
Aja : [00:06:06] Yeah. So the Presentville game is kind of a triple entendre. It’s about being completely present in the present moment. It’s about delivering your gifts to the world, which means you have to connect with who you really are at your deepest core.
So you know what your gifts are to give and then giving them to the world. And it’s also about. Experiencing the gifts of the world that are coming to you, no matter how painful they are. And that may be in the form of a lesson could be, you know, it could be something positive. It could be something negative, but really allowing ourselves to experience both the good and bad and ride the edge of both pleasure and pain.
One of my, uh, teachers long ago said. Pleasure and pain, both are ornaments, that it is pleasant to wear. And so Presentville is about being with all those things and learning how to be present even through the hardship. And so each of the avatars is created typically through a personal development experience and.
I took toys and stuffed animals to five different continents and explored how different cultures play and how they use storytelling for social change. And from that was birthed this community storytelling process that I take people through. It can be with an individual, but it works really well with a group of people who are experiencing the same thing or who are passionate about the same thing.
And from that process, we create. A character. And then that character is developed and eventually somebody becomes that character in full costume and they become an avatar. Once we’re able to upload them into digital, the digital world, augmented virtual reality, even two dimensional reality we use to storytell.
So both documentary and. And the real world, we have these immersive events that people come to and they can meet the avatars in both digital and real form.
K.Lee: [00:08:08] Wow. So. I’m I want to hear about the stories from the weeping woman now. Uh, I just want to continue to paint a picture for the listener. So it’s both, it’s both costumes as well as sort of like, not a script, but there’s a personality behind each, each avatar, right.
That the player learns about and sort of becomes and takes on like an actor taking on a role. Is that right?
Aja : [00:08:33] Yeah, the, each avatar is branded typically for a purpose and that purpose might be something like homelessness, which also brings in the concept of sustainable building and how we’re going to build houses for the world in the future.
That is more sustainable. That character also looks at how to remodel spaces. So, you know, Specifically Sammy, the homeless bear is the character I’m talking about. And that one can really deal with anything that has to do with homelessness or sustainable building. From the other side of that, you can have characters that w you know, bear witness like the weeping woman, and that’s her main purpose is to bear witness.
And you have other characters that are like the helpers who will come in after they’re, after someone has seen what’s going on and start to bring in solutions to those problems. You also have characters that. Deal with, you know, animal welfare or, um, letting go of who others want you to be, or even just wellbeing your own personal wellbeing and balancing your self care with your care for others.
We have another character that helps entrepreneurs or individuals stay on track to their goals. So really the, each character can, can address anything you can possibly imagine. They’ve just been birthed, kind of at their own pace, through, you know, serendipity. And when a group comes together and says, Hey, this is what we want to focus on.
Then we create an avatar and then somebody becomes them in full costume. We scan them in 3d reality using typically photogrammetry or something similar. And then we upload them into virtual augmented reality and use two dimensional cartoons or documentaries to tell their stories.
K.Lee: [00:10:28] How did this start? This is so fascinating and it’s incredible. And I’ve, I’ve had the, the privilege of getting to play a couple, uh, events, you know, with you. And so how did, how did this start? Who’s the first character. How did you get to this point of mixing personal development with role-play with virtual reality and extended reality and actual creating, you know, creating social impact.
How did that all, how did that come about?
Aja : [00:10:54] Well, like I mentioned, I started by taking a whole bunch of toys and stuffed animals to five continents and exploring how different cultures play. So I would literally take that toy or at the group of toys and somebody would pick them out of the pile and I’d interviewed them on camera.
About their experience in life, whatever they’re going through their community impact. And we’d bring in this toy to help tell the story. And it’s so fun to watch people who are still connected to their inner child. It’s like second nature to just pick up a toy. Oh, my name is Bob, you know, just start playing.
And then for other people who have lost touch, it’s kind of a ghost like quality where their face goes really pale. They kind of freeze up, they start stuttering. Sometimes they’re just like, I’m done with the interview. This is over, you know, so you really get this really wonderful spread of reactions to asking somebody to play.
And then from there, you know, that each, each character, no matter how many times it was picked up by a person or a culture, you could start to see which that particular group of people resonate with. So up on pine Ridge reservation, for example, the puppy. The Eagle, the bear, those were the most popular, even though we had, you know, dozens of other characters that they could have chosen, but they specifically would choose the characters that are inherent in their culture, or they feel a personal connection with, and then from there we would build kind of the story up around that.
And. Somebody would become them in full costume. The first avatar in this process, it was sort of a self revealing experience or process itself. It wasn’t obvious. In the beginning, when I told people I was taking these toys to five continents and I started a nonprofit, they’re just like, what are you doing?
This isn’t going to work. This is crazy. You’re insane. And. It was just what my heart was calling me to do. And I had tapped in. And so I followed that because I knew there was something really, really special here. And one of the very first experiences I had was probably in 2009, one of my friends, his mother was dying of cancer and I had never met her, but him and I had been doing some filming
in with all these toys and he invited me to come and meet his mother and his mother agreed to do an interview with us and I didn’t know what to expect. So I swung by one of my favorite toys stores on the way, and just found a toy that really deeply resonated with that present moment. I was looking everywhere and none of them stuck out.
And then kind of down on a shelf, there was this little black bear. And I just knew that I had to get this bear. And it’s one of those really bizarre stories. Where I was like my last $20 I had to buy this bear,
it’s embarrassing to that I was like I’m gonna buy this bear. . So I bought the bear, they wrapped it up in a gift wrap and I brought it to her house. And at first she was feeling really, really bad and did not want to. You know, do anything. Cause she was just the, the cancer and just how she was feeling was terrible.
So I thought, oh, we’re not going to get around to doing this interview. And that was okay. I was just sitting in the moment and being present with it. And then suddenly she was just like, let’s do it. Let’s sit down. Let’s do it. So we set up the cameras. We sat down in her room and I looked up kind of to the corner and she had a whole little shelf of her own stuffed animals.
And so in the interview process, it was very natural just to have her take each one down and start to tell me about these stuffed animals that she had had and some of them she had had her whole life since she was a child and it was really touching because she was going through these memories and she was also feeling deeply like, why am I so sad at the end of my life?
I’ve had a great life. Um, she was walking down memory lane with each of the toys kind of feeling really deeply, and then came the point when it was time for me to. Give her this present. And I had no idea how it was going to be received, but I gave it to her. She opens it up and she just fell in love and starts hugging it.
And she’s just like, this is it. And talking to it. And just this joy came across and this, this comfort, the bear was, was really snugly. And some of the other toys that she had when she was a child weren’t. You know, they were made different, so they were a little harder or not. So snugly. And so she was just snuggling, snuggling, snuggling, and it was really beautiful to witness.
And then, you know, I went on my journey. I was out of the country and when I came back, I had a dream while I was out of the country that she came to me and she couldn’t speak in the dream. And it was just like white light. She came and she had the bear next door and it was a real bear. And she was just thanking me kind of telepathically for this experience.
And when I got home sure enough, she had crossed over and her son handed me a gift that she had requested, he gives to me and I opened it up and it was one of her toys, a white rabbit. And that was really the beginning of this long unraveling of Presentville and all the characters.
K.Lee: [00:17:03] Was the white rabbit, the habit rabbit?
Aja : [00:17:08] Um, no, the wa that white rabbit is called clay. The white rabbit. You can find him on Facebook still. He is kind of a hippy rabbit and he helped find Gbaby one of the original characters that we found on a train in India, the actual toy, and we have it all on film.
One day. I can’t wait to put it all together so that people can follow this really bizarre wild journey. But the interesting thing about clay, the white rabbit is he started to show me that my idea of everything, all the toys being very innocent or very, you know, Beautiful kind of the light side of life.
I had this imagination that each of these characters was going to be just so great. And I had failed to see that really, they also address these deep issues in our life that we’re facing as a culture, as a reality. So this little hippy rabbit ended up being a little bit of a pervert rabbit and, you know, and, and a hippie rabbit and, you know, a drug addict.
And it really was shocking when this kind of revealed itself because I had imagined this little sweet, innocent rabbit, and it wasn’t me who kind of came up with this. It was just naturally came out of the process where somebody chose that rabbit to. Take on a small, personal exploration for a day and all this story.
These photos come back of the rabbit, smoking a joint. And I’m like, how is this going to translate? People told me I should not be taking these toys overseas. And maybe this is why, so,
K.Lee: [00:19:09] Wow, so there’s so much there. I mean, it, it makes me think about. When we’re babies and attachment theory and the need for touch and connection and how a toy,
in a, in a sense it’s like, you know, it, it provides that comfort of like, oh, it’s another being, even though it’s not, it’s a placeholder for another being and how important that is for our development. And then what happens when we don’t have those needs met when we don’t have the connection with, with other beings and how those parts of ourself get kind of repressed or disconnected.
And it seems like what, what you’re doing with this work is helping people to explore all those parts and there’s different containers for them to do that in different avatars for them to do that in. And I’m curious, like, were you always playful? Did you lose your playfulness and rediscover it or did you feel like you were always playful?
Aja : [00:20:02] When I was in my late teens? Maybe even early teens, I wanted to be a grown up. And so my grandma, my mother actually gave me a toy for Christmas. One year I must’ve been 13 or 14 and I was like, oh my gosh, this is ridiculous. You know, I put it in my closet. I didn’t think about it again for a long time. And then it came out probably 10, 15 years later.
And that’s when I reconnected with this childlike innocence, it’s like, I wanted to be so grown up that I forgot that that was an innate part of me. And so, yeah, that’s when it kind of re I re-sparked that exploration and realized that really we all have that inner child with us all the time. And if we don’t embrace it fully, then it’s going to act out in ways that are unhealthy.
And so this became a way for me to explore, play and creativity. I’m a very creative person and explore that on an international level and start to understand how every human has been a child. Every grownup has that in them, whether they remember or not,
K.Lee: [00:21:18] you give them a safe, a safe, a safe place to, to reconnect with it.
And also some instructions. Cause I think we need, we, we want to know what to do. How do we, how do we need to like, be taught how to play again almost right. And so you, you teach them that and you use a variety of tools to do that. And I I’d almost like it if you could try and paint a picture of what walking into a Presentville
augmented reality, extended reality experience might be like for someone listening, who can’t experience this yet like, what might they expect?
Aja : [00:21:49] So there’s different ways that that might happen. You might come to a live show and before COVID we were having some really fantastic shows that were starting to become a little more regular.
You would meet a character in full costume, full face paint, a little more wizard of Oz than Disney. So a little scary, but also very in depth art and you’d meet the character in full costume and they’d take you on kind of an experience. And ask you different questions until you sort of pass that character’s criteria for getting through to the next part of the show.
And then it acts kind of like a tr like a treasure hunt. So you find one character, then you find another, or you find a clue somewhere and you unravel this story and each show has a theme. So for like, Christmas or, um, it was the solstice. We had a show that was all about what happened to Santa Claus. And people would go through this whole experience of trying to figure out what happened to Santa Claus and meet the deer and meet these different characters.
And then in the end, they’d enter into a virtual reality experience where they themselves become Santa Claus and realize that they are, they’re Santa.
K.Lee: [00:23:10] That’s so cool. I love that. That also ties into this idea of, of presents and gifts. And you have one quest, the indestructible. Innocence quest, uh, which, you know, it has this element of giving yourself a gift, but giving it to yourself wrapped and like giving that, putting care into that.
Self-love self-care self-love and I love this idea of Santa, of, of us being Santa and sort of the, so again, externalizing these archetypes out onto the world, these symbols, but then reclaiming them as parts of ourselves. So that we can become more integrated and become a Santa and become a powerful force in the world that’s giving joy and give some prosperity.
Aja : [00:23:53] Exactly. So each of the avatars has the ability to not only help us make us whole and reclaim the parts of ourselves like the shadow or the dark sides of ourselves that we have repressed. But it also creates an avenue for altruism or activism so that you can take whatever you’ve learned and then go forward and make the world a better place.
And I always like to make a differentiation between therapy and personal development, because some people will say, oh, you’re playing with toys. It’s like play therapy. And you know, that’s not the point really of this work, in therapy you kind of go down a rabbit hole, so to speak, to discover where your wounds are and heal them in different ways.
And although there’s a parallel that you definitely are going to see your wounds, whether you like it or not, the further you go with this work, we’re not saying they have to be fixed. We’re saying bear witness to them and then transmute them into art so that they can make the world a better place. And so that’s a really, you know, I’m not a trained therapist, although I’ve been through a ton of therapy myself.
We’re not, you know, we’re not trying to help you fix yourself. We’re, we’re helping people discover different parts of themselves, reclaim them and then send them forward into the world to create benefit.
K.Lee: [00:25:25] So there’s this, uh, expectation of, of having, uh, having our mental health journey happening or have a level of stability and that we’re developing ourselves through it.
We’re not going to therapy. Although it could trigger up stuff and bring up stuff, but then that’s kind of worked out with a, with a professional in mental health and stuff like that.
Aja : [00:25:46] I always say, like, especially if you’re going to start doing any of the dark characters, it’s important, you do have your support network.
Whether it be your family, your friends, your therapists, you should have all that separate. This is kind of a tag along experience that could help with your mental health. But. That’s not what it is inherently designed for. It’s more personal development work that has the art and the altruistic action tied into it.
K.Lee: [00:26:13] So let’s talk about that. The altruistic and the act, the social activism and the. And a little bit kind of tying back into the weeping woman archetype or avatar. Maybe you could talk a little bit about Pineridge a little bit about the work that you did in Kenya, in Kenya and, and just any, anything else in that realm so that people can see what the positive effect of playing can have on the world.
Aja : [00:26:36] Yeah. So each of these avatars. Like I said, can be created through community play. So up on pine Ridge reservation, I’ve been connected with the Lakota people for most of my life, just through family ties and the people there started to pull out the different characters that are the most important for their culture.
And so we’ve created some different avatars that work directly with the Lakota people to help them express their wisdom to the rest of the world, and also help us focus in on the projects that are important to them. So we’ve helped women sell their star quilts online, internationally, and connect with other tribes from Canada.
We have, uh, helped a lot of different people actually through cancer treatments, not only in the U S but abroad, you know, it can be very difficult to get the healthcare you need if you’re impoverished. And so having some support network to help. Pay for travel back and forth, food back and forth. Like pine Ridge reservation is very far from the treatment centers for chemotherapy.
It’s like two hours drive to get there and then you get your chemotherapy and you’re exhausted. And then you have to get back somehow. And oftentimes the people don’t have enough money to even get a ride or they don’t even have a car to get there. So. We’ve helped a few people through their cancer experiences and they’ve all survived, which is touching.
And, you know, they get a renewed sense on life, which is beautiful. And now, right, we’re working with Dave swallow, a Lakota medicine man who has written some scripts to help bring the Lakota tradition and the wisdom into more of a mainstream. Storytelling modality. So we’re doing a film short film starting with the very first short film.
And then if it goes well, we’ll do the second short film. And then the full length film and time is of the essence as these elders pass away. I mean, if Dave passes before we get all this out, it could be lost forever. And he’s a, he’s a library, he’s a gem of Lakota tradition and Lakota wisdom that we’re seeing across the whole world.
As the elders start to pass away, their languages are dying, their wisdom is dying. So I think it’s an urgent time to start to get some of their messaging into the world, some of their spirituality, whatever they’re willing to share so that we can hold these gems and integrate them into. Modern day.
K.Lee: [00:29:34] So with, with Dave swallow, um, he, you know, he’s, he is a.
He is also part of the game. He’s a, he’s a, he’s a, a character in the game that you, that players can meet. And you’ve actually brought me and my brother and another friend up to meet him. We’ve gotten to sit on his floor and, and talk to them about Lakota cosmology and the reservation and the challenges and difficulties there and the pipeline and all this.
Um, so he seems so open to the. Culture being shared. And I could, I could hear some concerns from people being like, what about cultural appropriation? So why, why is it different and why is, why does he want to share it with the world? And why is that not cultural appropriation?
Aja : [00:30:20] Well, I think I can’t speak for him obviously, but my own perception of it is that he’s realized that if he doesn’t share these stories, they’re going to be lost.
His wisdom is going to die with him. And if he doesn’t open up his spirituality and his tradition some, that it’s in danger. And that’s my, that’s my guess, my best guess. That’s my feeling of it. And the Lakota wisdom is very magical and has some really incredible stories. I mean, medicine men are renowned storytellers and.
He has these incredible stories. And when he tells them you’re just captivated. And so you can imagine that those stories then put into film can have a way for the modern culture to connect with Lakota wisdom in a way that is relevant, that is modern, that can help spark interest and be very entertaining all at once.
So, yeah. In, in hopes that we can help preserve some of the culture and some of the wisdom that the indigenous people, not only on pine Ridge, but all around the world have and are losing.
K.Lee: [00:31:40] Yeah. So how does VR fit into all this? Because you’re, you’re sort of. You’re on the cutting edge and you’re, you’re a, you’re a leader in this space as well.
You’re developing some amazing different applications and you’ve spoke at Stanford. You spoke at all of these different universities. And can you tell us a little bit about why you’re excited about VR, AR XR, what that even is and why people listening should be tuning in. .
Aja : [00:32:06] Yeah, so extended reality kind of encompasses a few different things, but mostly virtual, augmented and mixed reality.
They’re all slightly different. So virtual reality, when you put on the headset, this world completely disappears and you’re fully immersed in a new world. So you can become a part of the story in virtual reality, instead of watching a two dimensional video or reading a story about Pine Ridge for example, you can.
Literally visit pine Ridge from the comfort of your own home, using a virtual reality headset and become part of the environment as if you’re really there. So virtual reality is a really cutting edge technology that’s being used for so many different things. It’s being used for pain mitigation. It’s used for training.
It’s used for employee retention. It’s used for a huge companies, are using it to train their employees before they have to work in the real world, you know, to work on safety and education. Chop chopping up people. If you’re a doctor doing surgery, right? Learning how all the body parts work, and you can do it in a virtual environment where they’re located, where to make your incisions, and you can work on a virtual human instead of a cadaver in the real world or a real person in the real world.
So it’s being used in these really amazing. ways You can also in non-profit for example, you can bring people right into your cause you can bring them into the room with someone with dementia, you can bring them into the middle of a war zone. You can take them onto the floor of a slaughterhouse and show them the atrocities of what’s going on there.
So there’s a lot of power in virtual reality in that it can transport you anywhere. And with augmented reality, we’re seeing it a lot on just our regular cell phones right now, where you take your cell phone and you can see the digital layer over this world, but soon enough, they’ve already been made and they’re more.
Expensive. But in the coming years, we’re going to see probably our cell phones are going to be our glasses or sunglasses or whatever glasses we wear. Will have the augmented layer on top of it. So you’ll have the digital layer right there on your face. And your cell phone will kind of be connected to you.
And then, you know, the contact lenses are also in development. People are creating them already. And so that’s kind of the next level past the glasses is the contact lenses. So we’re going to see more and more of this technology. It’s not going away. It’s a huge market already. We’re just starting to see.
Some more market saturation from virtual reality because the price point has come down to like three or 400 bucks from like 1500, 2000, a couple of years ago. So the technology is becoming more accessible and with the game and with all of the avatars that we’re creating, we’re creating a platform for people to actually become those avatars in the digital world.
So. They don’t have to dress up anymore in full costume. It’s not, it doesn’t take as much time. They don’t have to drive to a location to experience. They can literally hop inside their virtual reality headset. And be on be at a slaughter house, witnessing the trucks coming in, or be at the side of the feedlot or be at the dairy farm and witnessing all the calves removed from their mothers and their mothers separated.
You know, so you can, you can start to have a very visceral experience of the avatars by becoming them digitally without all the rigamarole of getting dressed.
up
K.Lee: [00:35:56] Wow. So the, the, the costume part is, is now digitized. Is there a part of you that still likes the tangible, real in the real world thing? Where, how does that connect?
And, and where’s the importance and how come you’re, why do you feel good about VR
Aja : [00:36:17] VR
is going to allow this experience to reach a lot more people. There’s just so much time in the day. And I will probably forever love getting people dressed up, doing their makeup, getting them on location and giving them a very, very personal real world experience.
There’s nothing like it. I mean, virtual reality is the closest thing to it, but definitely something there’s something about being yourself in the real world. Becoming a character in full costume, going to a location to witness what has gone on in the present day. It’s much more current, right? So for example, we’re able to get to the scene of a mass shooting very quickly.
You don’t have to go through a virtual reality development to, to be there. You can get the weeping woman dressed and get her there right away. Um, so obviously the real world has a much quicker and more personal experience, but with the technology, it can just reach the story, can reach a lot more people and it’s impressive technology.
The brain can’t really tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not. So when you put on a virtual reality headset, a lot of what you’re experiencing almost becomes a memory in your brain. It’s no longer. Separate. It’s not just a book you read it’s real.
K.Lee: [00:37:41] Yeah. It becomes embodied,. So. Now, there’s this other aspect of you that that is an avid meditator and you’ve been practicing mindfulness and meditation for, for many years.
And, uh, I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about how, how you are handling working in such a technologically focused industry while kind of managing your, your mental health and your presence and, and not becoming so overstimulated with all the tech and like, how do you, how do you handle your digital wellness, especially as it relates to mindfulness and presence?
Aja : [00:38:18] I think it’s always evolving. There are some days that I’ll be so immersed in the technology or we’re kind of one-on-one, but your brother is doing some amazing work. Working to make sure that our digital world starts to become more of a 3d space and more natural for the body. So I’m really excited about that coming into this yeah.
Into this world. Right. So I think it’s about learning how to take the breaks. Do the, self-care notice the triggers for me, I’m both. Blessed and cursed to have migraines. So if I am on the computer too long, the headache will start coming on and it’s a trigger. It’s like, oh, I’m on the computer too much. I need to change something.
I need to go take a break. I need to do some exercise. I need to eat a meal, whatever it is, you know, listening to my own body and what’s going on and just fine tuning it. And then deciding very deliberately, which projects I want to work on in the technical. World. What’s the most important, what can help bring the most benefit?
What’s the most fun and focusing in on those and letting go of all the projects that maybe, you know, don’t have as much power or aren’t going to make as much benefit aren’t as much fun so that I’m not spending my whole life on a computer.
K.Lee: [00:39:46] Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And, um, I’m trying to think now what my triggers are, but definitely my lower back will let me know.
And I’ve been sitting too much. I’m standing here, uh, for those of you who are listening, I’m standing here, uh, and. Definitely helps. Helps do these interviews to do more interviews is to be able to stand. Wow. I mean, there’s so much that was spoken about there and as we’re getting towards the tail end of this, I mean, I definitely love to have you back on in the future so we could deep dive, you know, there’s the, the whole, uh, animal slaughter topic.
There’s going deeper into the Lakota. Uh, reservation and what’s going on there. Uh, but there’s, you know, there’s only so much time. So I always ask my guests a couple of rapid fire questions towards the end. So if that’s all right with you, here we go. So the first question is what is the book that you would like to share with our listeners?
Aja : [00:40:44] Oh gosh, there’s a book that I really love that relates to my work. I was really excited to find it. Yeah. Just recently. I was like, oh my gosh, somebody is validating my work in a totally different way. And it’s called alter ego. Um, and the author I’m drawing a blank anyway. Maybe you can find it and put it in your notes.
It’s a fantastic book about how we can create alter ego. Just in our own everyday life in order to help us move past the struggles we may have in the moments of impact in our life. So maybe we’re an incredible basketball player. We always make the same shot in practice. Then it’s game time the pressure’s on.
And yeah. I have the point shot and we fail. And so alter ego, that book really helps you learn how to create a personal avatar basically of yourself to help you through those moments of impact. So you can be a more empowered human being. I love it. It’s a really fantastic book.
K.Lee: [00:41:50] I just looked it up. Uh, Todd Herman alter the alter ego effect.
Aja : [00:41:54] Yes, that’s the one.
K.Lee: [00:41:57] Okay, cool. I am blown away by that in my coaching program, that I went through my coaches program that I went through. Uh, we had to design our alter ego, and I really do think that it was extremely powerful in stepping into who I could become.
And I remember kind of hitting a wall before of being like, I’m not who I want to be yet. I’m not who I want to become. And I think part of the problem was I didn’t, I didn’t formalize. I didn’t know what that looked like by formalizing and knowing what that looked like. I could bridge the gap.
Aja : [00:42:30] 100 percent..
K.Lee: [00:42:32] So, yeah. It’s very validating to know that it’s a thing. Yes, I was. When I found it, I was so excited. All right. Now, second rapid fire question. What is a podcast that you listened to, that you would like the world to listen?
Aja : [00:42:47] One I really enjoyed was called rabbits. It’s about an alternate reality game.
You kind of go down into this imaginary, but maybe real. Story. And it relates a lot to my life, my work, and kind of riding that edge of fantasy and reality. And it’s a little dystopian and dark, but I loved the ideas that it brought and the things that it sparked while listening to it.
K.Lee: [00:43:19] I’ll have to check that out, really excited to look into these now. Um, Is there any, what’s your virtual reality console of choice? This isn’t one of the rapid fire questions, but what do you use?
Aja : [00:43:33] So for a lot of my work, I’m ashamed and excited to say I use the Oculus quest for just so many things because it’s untethered, meaning you don’t have it connected to a computer.
The price point is amazing. You can bring it. It’s mobile. There’s a lot of great things thing I don’t like about it. It’s owned by Facebook. I don’t like having Facebook that close to my face. I don’t like that. You have to have a Facebook account to run it, but as soon as there are some other competitors in that specific niche that are that high quality, that price point, I’ll be really excited to jump ship on Oculus.
K.Lee: [00:44:14] But, so what, what is an Oculus experience that you would recommend. There are so many, you can only recommend one.
Aja : [00:44:23] No, you can’t do that too.
K.Lee: [00:44:24] Okay. 2, 2,
Aja : [00:44:27] 1 of my favorites, I always take people through is Richie’s plank because it shows the power of virtual reality. You get in an elevator, you go to the top of the elevator and the elevator doors open, and there’s just a plank over the city and you have to walk out.
And it’s terrifying. Most people can’t do it. They’re shocked. They’re terrifying. They start sweating. You actually have to have somebody spot, like spot the person’s because the person sometimes will literally like jump into walls. I’ve seen people get hurt. So you hit, so you do have to be careful with this one, but it feels so real when you’re doing it.
People are just blown away.
K.Lee: [00:45:10] This is an immersion. This is your, your brain doesn’t know the difference anymore between what’s real and not. And so you’re just in this other world. And so your body reacts in a way. Which is why you can get hurt and I’ve actually run into walls too.
Aja : [00:45:25] Yes. The only way you can know it’s not quite real is because it is kind of cartoony still, and then you look down and you don’t have a body and you don’t have any feet.
And you’re kind of like, wait, wait, what? But very fun. Very, um, fascinating. The other one is alt space. It’s such a cool experience because it’s a. It’s social VR, where you can go in at any time of day. And there are people from all over the world in these spaces, and you can sit around a campfire and roast virtual marshmallows.
I don’t eat marshmallows since they aren’t vegan, but you can, in virtual reality, you can take like a sparkler and you can like shoot them into the air. You can play corn hole with people from literally anywhere in the world. It is really bizarre. And then occasionally you’ll get like a little five-year-old kid or something coming in.
Who’s not supposed to be there at all. And they start, they start saying the craziest things. They’re like, Hey, I’m gonna poke your eye out. And then other than the adults. How old are you? You’re not supposed to be in here and like all the, but they’re all avatars, everyone’s in their own unique avatar that they’ve created.
K.Lee: [00:46:40] I wonder if it’s like that for the DMT elves, when we pop in, we’re like these little children running around DMT world being like, I’m going to poke your eye out and they’re like, Hey, here’s all the secrets of reality. It’s okay. You’re not supposed to be here. Wow. Okay. That’s awesome. So, um, Altspace and.
Um, Richie’s plank and, and, and Richie’s plank. So I, I, did you try the, I forget what it’s called. It was a, um, it was a guided meditation one and it was, it was like plants growing everywhere and it takes, I forgot the name of it, but, um, that one really blew my mind. As the, of, of guided cause as you breathe, you see this energy thing happening.
And so I could see the potential for helping to train people how to meditate, how to self-soothe using these, these visual, a visual virtual reality environment. So,
Aja : [00:47:34] Absolutely a couple of years ago, more than that a decade ago, I saw a two dimensional game that really started that exploration for me, where it just would track your pulse from your finger and.
You would see an animation of like balls flying in the air. And as you would breathe, you would slow your pulse and the balls would come to rest. And there’s also some really amazing virtual reality stuff that actually will measure your breath, how fast you’re breathing, how slow your breathing, and then all of the animations take from your biometrics.
To create an experience that’s
K.Lee: [00:48:17] that’s cutting edge two for PTSD. Uh, recovery is neurofeedback. And, uh, currently I, I just got back from a volunteer trip up to Ohio, uh, to help set up a podcast studio in a 32 bed facility that Dr. Marlene Carson is, uh, she’s the executive director of rehabs, hope of Ohio.
She works on the white house advisory or the us advisory council for human trafficking. And she is bringing in the author of one of the most popular somatic trauma workbooks. The body keeps the score to train the staff there on how to do the neurofeedback and neurofeedback, because it’s not story-based because it’s, it’s not about reprocessing the memories it’s about, um, increasing the neuro it’s about the neuroplasticity of the brain and learning how to calm the amygdala and how to be more in control of the, of the whole.
Now the whole mechanism. And so by using the visuals on the screen, uh, I can, I can, like, as if I was lifting weights with my brain, I can give my brain a workout, which really helps people suffering with severe, uh, PTSD. or CPTSD. . Absolutely.
Aja : [00:49:26] Yeah. Virtual reality is being used for a lot of PTSD. Yeah, the biofeedback stuff is amazing.
There’s also these head kind of headsets you wear along with the VR that literally read your mind and you manipulate the animations with just your own thoughts. So that’s next level. We’re definitely going to see more and more of that
K.Lee: [00:49:50] we’re in the future is what you’re saying.
Aja : [00:49:52] We are in the future and it’s just going to get crazier and Wilder from here. Hopefully the technology lands in there, the right hands.
K.Lee: [00:50:02] Well, it’s in your hands. So I know that that it is in the right hands. I’m so grateful for that. And you know, I’m very grateful for your time. Thank you for coming on and speaking to us about the wonderful work, where can people find you and get in touch with you? And what’s the best way for them to reach out?
Aja : [00:50:18] Extendedrealityexpert.com is my personal XR work, you can also visit globalpeacetrain.org, which is more of my nonprofit outreach.
K.Lee: [00:50:30] Perfect. Perfect. And I’ll have all that info in the show notes. And here in the last few minutes, this is where I offer. Uh, if there’s any one or anything that you would like to amplify, my motto is amplify.
What you love or who you love. This is a space for you to do so.
Aja : [00:50:48] I’m a total nerd. Of course, it’s going to be rainbow sparkle pants. My magical dog. Who’s nine years old. And counting and I’m praying one day, I’ll be able to turn her into an avatar that you can actually feel, right? Like imagine when your pet dies, you could go into a VR world and visit them and touch them and feel them and get all the goods that. Hashtag dreams.
K.Lee: [00:51:16] Is she available for cameo or is she for those listening? Rainbow sparkle pants is an extraordinary, extraordinary, little, little being, uh, and very, very well-trained. Oh, and there she is. You should watch this on YouTube if you’re not . Yeah. rainbow sparkle pants. I miss you. Hi, she’s a little wet.
Aja : [00:51:37] She went on a walk is drizzling a little bit. She hated it, but. She’s uh, and she’s a huge part of the, of the experience in the game, uh, as well, right? Yeah. She’s really the opposite of the weeping woman who bears witness. She hears the cries of the weeping woman and brings resources. Hmm.
K.Lee: [00:51:57] So necessary, emotional support, super important. Aja Rainbow sparkle pants is great to have you on Be On Air.
We’ll have you back again in the future, bless you for the work you’re doing. And, uh, we will see you next.
Aja : [00:52:11] See you next time, K.Lee thank you.
