I'd started feeling a little queasy as soon as I sat down and buckled my seatbelt. Now, as the plane rumbles down the runway and starts surging skywards, my temperature's also soaring and my stomach's beginning to churn.

Thankfully, rather than reaching for a sick bag, I simply whip off the headset I've been wearing and the nausea quickly settles.

I'm back on solid ground, in a quiet room in an office in central London to be exact - and this is precisely where I've been all along.

The aeroplane taking off was virtual reality (hence the headset). Minutes earlier, I'd been standing on the roof of a skyscraper, even leaning over the edge to look at the tiny cars on the streets below. Then I'd ventured into a dusty attic and watched as sizeable spiders scuttled towards me, before finding myself in a hospital waiting room and being ushered into a cubicle for an injection - all while comfortably sat in the same office chair, headset in place.

Virtual reality (VR) is not new, of course. But developments in technology mean the possibilities and quality are ever improving and VR has become a bit of a buzzword again, particularly in gaming.

Senior therapist Michael Carthy, who has founded VRealityTherapy, London's first ever VR therapy (VRT) clinic, believes it has huge potential in treating phobias and anxiety, too. "Our senses are easily fooled. The unconscious cannot tell the difference between real and fake; reality or fantasy," he explains.

VRT dates back to the early Nineties and numerous studies have demonstrated its effectiveness.

It might be virtual reality, Carthy explains, but that makes no difference to our fear responses. In other words, although we know it's not real, the crucial parts of our brains still perceive it as real and respond as such - which enables a therapist to create a suitable environment in which to begin addressing those phobic reactions, usually through techniques incorporating cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) principles.

SAME BUT DIFFERENT Exposure has long formed the basis of a number of phobia treatments, where people are gradually encouraged to encounter the scenario they're afraid of, with the idea being they will re-learn or alter their responses to it along the way.

Carthy says this process can happen much faster with VR - just three or four sessions may be required for "rapid and permanent change". Plus, for people with phobias or anxieties so severe they routinely impact their quality of life, even the idea of confronting the subject of their fears in a therapeutic setting can be too daunting. VR might be a 'safe' option.

REAL EVIDENCE Before I put on the VR headset to 'experience' some of the phobia therapy settings, Carthy hooks me up to some bio-metric monitors, to capture physiological responses that indicate whether I'm having any fear or nervous reactions.

I'm a little bit sceptical, thinking I probably won't be fooled into actually getting scared while, for example, peering over that virtual ledge hundreds of storeys above the ground.

The graphs Carthy shows me afterwards, however, prove otherwise. At the scariest points, there are indeed indications - like an elevated heart rate - that my brain and body were registering real fear. As for the flying episode; I'm not afraid of flying, but I do get travel sickness every now and then, and I certainly didn't need a bio-metric report to tell me I'd come pretty close to throwing up!

:: To find out more about VRealityTherapy, visit vrealitytherapy.com. Sessions from £150, with three to four sessions usually recommended as a full course of therapy, suitable for all ages.