This sensory experience in Tokyo will move you to tears

I sat on the floor of a circular, domed room. It was almost full of people yet I soon forgot anyone else was there. Instead, I was transfixed by the visions above my head.

Euphoric, ethereal music played - the type that can lift your soul - and across the entire dome drifted thousands of giant, brilliantly coloured flowers. Some came right towards me magically wrapping around me, as if I had floated right into them.

One or two exploded in mid-flight, their petals scattering all around, while others materialised behind me, gliding past my head like a gentle wave breaking over me and drifting off into the ether.

I was on the surface of a small planet slowly rotating amid a spectacular, interstellar floral blizzard. Or maybe the planet was stationary and this rich, botanic universe was spinning around me.

I didn't know. I didn't care. I sat there for what must have been an hour watching that incredible display but time seemed irrelevant in my new fantasy world.

I am rarely impressed by technology, let alone moved by it, but that experience in a large shed in Tokyo's Toyosu area was hypnotic, ravishingly beautiful and quite overwhelming.

I was witnessing a new, intoxicating world - a world of beauty and wonder, where nature was in charge; a world seemingly without hate or war or pollution. It gave me a complete escape from the pressures of my own life... so much so that I yearned for that virtual world to exist so I could move there and be soothed by the beauty every day.

As I wiped a couple of tears from my cheeks I looked around me and saw couples, families and groups of friends gazing silently at the wonders above them, just as mesmerised as I was. We were strangers yet somehow connected by the rapture of the scene.

This magical place was teamLab Planets, a quite brilliant, immersive and sensory experience in which visitors walk barefoot through a series of different "worlds", created chiefly by virtual reality technology but without the VR goggles. Such has been its popularity that the closing date has been extended to the end of 2023.

My floral planet of joy - officially called Floating in the Falling Universe of Flowers - was just one immersive experience but for me it was the best. The first experience was a very dark room called Soft Black Hole where black carpet covered the ceiling and walls. The floor was made up of giant, jelly-like cushions, requiring visitors to crawl and roll over them to get to the exit. Instant fun for all ages. The idea, according to the designers, was to get visitors to use senses other than purely sight. It was a gentle precursor for what was to come next.

In the next "world", I was walking through an ankle-deep pond of bath-warm water with multi-coloured Koi carp swimming around my feet. As I reached down to touch one it vapourised and turned into a bright blooming flower.

Another space was full of giant soft balls, some loose, some fixed to the walls or ceiling. The balls changed colour, from hot pink to lavender, aquamarine and lime green. No matter how serious or grown up any of us in that room thought we were, we couldn't help throwing ourselves at the balls and bouncing from one to another.

There were people all around me yet somehow none of the rooms seemed crowded. It helped that this was Japan where crowds are usually quiet, well behaved and as courteous as people can be when in close proximity.

In another room was The Infinite Crystal Universe - a large space with mirrored floor, walls and ceiling dominated by hundreds of plastic chains of tiny lights hanging down almost to the floor. The lightshows were carefully programmed. When the lights were static and unblinking or morphing from one colour to the next, it felt as if you were walking through a dazzling and seemingly endless rainbow.

Then, suddenly, they all went out and there was complete darkness for a second or two. When they flicked on again, brilliant star-white light trails ran up the chains to the ceiling, like airport landing lights guiding a pilot towards a night-time runway.

The speed of the light sequence increased and then, in a flash, they reversed direction, zooming towards me horizontally and giving me the sense that I was travelling at warp speed through space. Up was down. Left was right. My brain wanted to know what was going on but my heart said, "It's beautiful, just go with it".

It was mesmeric, thrilling and like watching 2001: A Space Odyssey all over again. I made a mental note to install something similar in my spare room at home but was pretty sure it would short-circuit the entire neighbourhood.

Two more experiences completed the sensory extravaganza of teamLab Planets.

Read more on Explore:

There was another mirrored room, this one packed with more than 10,000 live orchids - real, not virtual - that hung from the ceiling and hydraulically lowered towards me and rose away again.

Then finally, an outdoor space-age area inhabited by waist-high silver blobs standing among moss-covered rocks and draped in mist.

There was, of course, a technological explanation for all these experiences but they were all so mesmerising and joyful that I deliberately did not find out what made them all tick. I didn't want to ruin the magic.

Booking tickets: Visitors need to book tickets in advance, including date and time, at teamlabplanets.dmm.com/en. You'll be emailed a confirmation QR code, which you need to show at the entrance gate. Top tip: they do not accept screengrabs; so go online when you get there and scan/present the emailed QR code.

Prices: Adults 18 and older Y3200 ($36), children aged 4-12 Y1000, teenagers aged 13-17 Y2000. Under-3s are free.

Eating there: Tuck into delicious Kyoto cuisine at teamLab Planets' Vegan Ramen UZU restaurant where digital art drifts across the tables, floors, walls and ceiling, giving you the sense you are inside a living, morphing artwork (kids aged six and younger are not allowed). You can also eat outside at the One Stroke Bench.

Explore more: planets.teamlab.art/tokyo