The Museum of Infinite Reality and Animals

I’ve seen Brussels before, including the famous statue of the Mannekin Pis (little boy peeing). This is a must-see thing in Brussels, and it is on all the photos at the hotel. The Museum of Infinite Reality looked like something different. It was either this or walk to Halle’s Gate – an awesome castle that I’ve toured previously.

The Museum of Infinite Reality is an interactive thing with a lot of visual effects and a key fob used for different activities. The idea of the museum is that it will tell you your spirit animal at the end based on your journey through the different rooms answering various questions. It is basically an interactive version of Myers Briggs, with more lasers, augmented reality, cool sounds and dancing than the usual paper version of the famous personality test. You go through the museum rooms in small groups with a guide. I was the only English speaker, so the tour was largely done in Dutch and French, with some English instructions appearing on the walls and our guide giving me quick guidance. 

The fog machines worked on overdrive at this place. The lasers and LED lights changed colors as you walked through the different scenes. In the first room we stood around a circular table with lots of lights and answered multiple choice questions, all tied to our key fob. Our guide shared our answers with the group quickly for the first few questions. When it came to questions about serving the self vs the group, the answers were kept private. I think they’ve seen couples here and learned some things are best left unsaid.

We went into different rooms, answering more questions about introversion and extroversion. We saw dazzling light displays and then learned about different “spirit” animals. There was a bear, a fox, an eagle, a wolf. All were in technicolor lights that moved and beautifully displayed their heads as three-dimensional art.

In another room, we interacted with the different animals. The bear’s face would mirror our expressions and movements. The fox, the eagle and the wolf did the same thing. We could go up to a wall, gesturing and moving with these movements reflected back to us in neon lights on the immersive screens.

In the final room, our guide sat us in an auditorium style seating arrangement. We scanned our key fobs at a sensor near our seat and put on our headphones. Everything I heard was in English. Our guide then put on a bunny costume and stepped behind the screen. An immersive light show started with the guide dancing in the bunny costume, illuminated like a laser show. It slowly went from him dancing to something with many people dancing, doing flips, appearing and disappearing, becoming a fox, an eagle, a bear, a wolf, etc.

Finally, sitting in the auditorium and watching the screen it was time to reveal our spirit animal. The animal that we most connected with and was “our true self”. Each person had headphones on and heard something different. Would I get the bear? The bear was cool and fuzzy and powerful. Would I get the eagle? The eagle was wise and had awesome wings. Listening intently to my headphones, my animal was revealed to me. I was a tiger. Wait, where did the fucking tiger come from? This was the one animal I didn’t have time to see in any of the other rooms! And it clearly didn’t know how allergic I am to cats!

Our guide returned, no longer dressed in the bunny suit. We each said our animal. A wolf, a fox, a lot of bears. The couples were something complimentary to each other. I went last. I was the only tiger in our group. I was also the only single guy who decided to go to a truly trippy museum to learn about my spirit animal. I guess it does make me a lone – it can’t be a wolf – tiger I guess?

The last step was to write a wish and put it into a cauldron of fog from overworked fog machines. Our pens were quills with ballpoint pen tips. I wrote something down quickly. The pen didn’t write. Was this supposed to be magic ink? No, the pen was just dry. It finally started to write in a dark ink. I folded my wish and cast it into the cauldron of mystery. Then we had our picture taken, augmented with our spirit animal. A card came out of the machine with the picture and a description of our “true self”. My tiger face is more tiger than Trevor – thankfully as I’m sure I looked a little worse for wear after doing a chocolate workshop prior to this.

The gift shop invited us to get personalized merch with our photo and spirit animal. I passed. My card is about as much as I’d like to carry. I need to go out and hunt for more chocolate to bring back to my den, I mean hotel room.