Never tried virtual reality? Here's what it's like

In character from her 2014 film "Wild," she is bedraggled but radiant and seems close enough and real enough to bother for a sip of her water.

Apatosaurus, I am in a different kind of forest, stationed a few yards from a colossal dozing reptile sprawled on the forest floor.

If joining a famed entertainment troupe is remarkable, an even bigger blast is gaining entry to a painting by Vincent Van Gogh.

Thanks to a VR reimagining of Van Gogh's 1888 "The Night Cafe," I can take my place within the brushstrokes of the Café de la Gare and its scattering of tables and chairs, billiard table and lone patron come to life.

Through a doorway in the corner, I can stray into a never-before-seen side room, where a pianist plays a melancholy tune and — lo and behold — Vincent himself sits listening while meditatively smoking his pipe.

Unlike VR video captured with stationary 360-degree cameras, this Van Gogh tribute is more like a video game, letting me interact more authentically with my surroundings.

Despite the possible onset of a headache or queasiness (nothing comes without a price, including this technology in its infant stage), VR is a habitat of countless possibilities, an exhilarating refuge that yanks me from the sidelines and thrusts me into the action.

Could VR ever become the default mode for its audience? I can imagine a time when immersion in VR might be as normal a state of self-imposed isolation as earbuds piping music from an iPod is now.

Could be, as VR comes of age, television will become not quite old hat, but instead what radio became with TV's birth: an atmospheric add-on, just one part of the everyday sensory mosaic.