Dubai is never a place for half measures. It has been running for decades in search of the skyline, building the tallest building and the largest mall. The city is now aiming for the experience, though, in 2025. With Dubai being more than just a tourist destination today, it becomes a place you step inside and the boundaries between the real and the virtual, digital and physical, are blurred.

The highlight of this movement has been the recently expanded Museum of the Future. Its exterior is a work of engineering, a torus, while its interior is a living, breathing being. No longer is the visitor just a walker through exhibits, but a wearer of haptic suits that allow them to feel the "digital rain" of 2071 or to get up and move around in a zero-gravity chamber that lets them experience life in a lunar colony. It's not a museum but rather a time machine.

Deep Dive Dubai has set a new standard in the world of water entertainment. This pool has more to offer than scuba and is located in a sunken city 60 feet deep. Swimmers use bone conduction sounds to hear ghostly whispers of a lost civilization in submerged apartments and arcades. VR lounges are a chance for the non-diver to experience a dry tour where all surfaces (walls, floor, mirrors and more) are screens and digital sharks swirl around your feet.

Ain Dubai, located on Bluewaters Island, has put a whole new twist on the Ferris wheel experience. These cabins are now 'sensory capsules'. On the way up, the glass will become opaque for a split second followed by a 360 degree projection scene which tells the story of the Dubai that has changed from a fishing village into a metropolis. Once the glass is clear, the real Burj Al Arab seems to align itself with the ghosts of the past in the digital image, forming a harmonious mix of fact and fiction.

Retail, much like everything else, is redefined. Dubai Mall's “Immersive Runway” applies artificial intelligence to analyze a shopper's attire and display them on a 360-degree virtual catwalk, where holographic models are competing Immersive experiences Dubai. In Al Seef heritage, AR glasses super-impose the 1960s pearling village on top of the modern-day promenade for tourists, where you can trade virtually with a digital merchant.

What's special about Dubai is the size of this dream. Immersion is often an art installation in Paris or Tokyo. In Dubai, it's infrastructure. The City's motto is "If you can imagine it, we can sensor it. You are not a tourist any longer, whether you're underwater or in the sky or walking through a digital heritage souk. You are the lead in a real-time story written by the city.