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Jamie Monahan, the writer, director, and star of "Lucid," said the film takes place in a near-distant future and follows Charlie, a young woman undergoing virtual reality therapy after being sexually assaulted.
Streaming on Dust, the award-winning short has already had more than 70,000 views on YouTube, IGTV, and Facebook Watch, Monahan said.
Monahan set out to make the film after becoming frustrated by the lack of complex female characters on screen, and curious about recent developments in virtual reality research.
During the film, the main character, Charlie, becomes addicted to how VR makes her feel, and she slowly loses interest in the reality in which her friends live.
Though long popular in the gaming world, and already part of anxiety and fear research at The Huberman Lab at Stanford School of Medicine, everyday use of virtual reality isn’t so far off, Monahan said.
“We live in a time in which the fundamental ideas of what comprises reality and our experiences of it are in significant flux,” Monahan said. “Technology often moves at a pace where, by the time we’re having the moral conversations about something, it’s already too late.”
Monahan is an award-nominated filmmaker, director, producer, and actress. Her latest project, "Legacy" was a finalist for the Sundance 2020 Episodic Makers Lab.
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