Here’s the full brainstorm of sessions ideas for Happiness Interactive Lab from around 2016. I’ll leave the details of what I meant up to your imagination.
My friends Kate Nichols, Andy Miller, Wendy Mitchell, and Steve Geiser contributed ideas to this list as well but I can’t remember which ones. The more serious sounding ideas were borrowed from various happiness/mindfulness books.
- Barnyard yoga
- Breathing exercises
- Gratitude
- High five booth. people running around (employees) giving high fives to people. High five time. Or handshakes. Handshaking time.
- Kitten corral
- Laughter yoga
- Sound bathing room
- Old people who can’t get out on skype and people get on and talk to them
- Wheel of compliments. Spin it and people say it to the crowd then the crowd says it back to them. Maybe back and forth a few times. It only works if 5 people line up to do it. So people have to interact and get others to do it
- Volunteering
- Soundproof “screaming box”
- Best possible self journaling
- Busking
- Habit and willpower visualizations
- A place where people shower you with compliments. Like one of those boxes that blows dollar bills around.
- Tunnel of awesomeness (they walk through and it talks to them)
- Karma chairs
- Distraction meditation or yoga. try to do yoga with farts, noises, etc. Could also be distraction meditation or anything, really.
- A whole bunch of physical challenges you can accomplish easily. Maybe 100 of them in 45 minutes. Like picking a cup up. Or turning a book over. Or underlining a sentence etc. It’s like a confidence building obstacle course. Read the instructions on each task then do it. Some are verbal. Some are thoughts. Some are physical actions. Some involve others. Some involve looking at something. Or listening.
- A telephone in one part of the place that you can call another part of the place and it gives you instructions to tell the person something. Maybe you can call the phones. And if someone picks up then you can tell them you are awesome. Maybe it changes your voice too. Maybe when you pick it up, there is a video screen and it starts up a random karaoke song. Or maybe it’s like “prince is calling” and anyone that answers the different phones is supposed to sing along with the others on the other end. Probably want a closed off box for that
- What Went Well (three good things)
- One word answer to questions posed by box
- Build some giant piece of art. Or dig a hole. Or plant a tree or flowers in a flower bed. Pay $1 and get a plant to plant or its just free.
- Chanting nonsense words or chaning sounds
- Conjure list of 20 emotions
- Ideal life training
- Light shining through you (real lights in room)
- Meditation
- Meditation headband biofeedback
- Phone booth type things, each bathing you in a different light. There’s this thing called color therapy where different colors are supposed to do different thigns.
- Musical instruments everyone plays. drums? zylophones? kazoos? Busking. LIke half do the busking and half do the giving. Then they switch places. Allot real money to everyone.
- Share spaces that have mystery thing people talk about.
- Singing
- Smells. Or smells room.
- The like room. Where loads of stuff is written on the walls and people “like” it in some kind of physical way. Even things that they might not like. Get them to get up the feeling maybe?
- A thing that looks like 3 pairs of boxes on top of each other. When people get inside then they can press some buttons to make something happen on a video screen they each watch. But it can’t happen unless they all do it in sync and figure out what it is.
- Press a button and a whole bunch of stuff happens.
- A room where you have a folk saint.
- Visualizations
- Good enough training / awesomeness training
- Ideal friends creation
- Time machine like “Integratron“
- Photo booth
- Flattery Room
- Hearing Meditation (listening to the sounds around you)
- See what the different types of yoga out there are like. Get your questions answered.
- Phone meditation connected or visual queues grid of squares or cardboard
- Those books that have lists of things that make you feel good. Have those available.
- Feel the fear and do it anyway training
- Take their FB feed and replace with friends just saying how awesome everything is.
- A room where all 20-50 participants have roles in a play. Multiple people have the same part and speak at the same time. Would have to set the verbal tempo for them somehow. Maybe the play is about what. Hmm.
- Obstacle course that is easy. Maybe show different obstcales on a tv and each time they are shown, they get smaller and look less intimidating. Hm.
- Everyone sings fake opera room.
- Self-compassion room
- A room where people can create their own experiences. And then they can post the times for other people to come and do those experiences. People can collaborate and never to make experiences.
- Anti-gravity.
- Video games that put you in flow because you really can’t lose.
- Chalk art or something creative and flowing.
- Drink coffee and eat tacos
- Funny scenes and scripts for people to act out. they are ridiculously positive. and maybe slapstick
- Funny walking
- Gongs (playing or hearing?)
- Hammocks
- Journal: Abundance/the world is good.
- Journal: accomplishments listings
- People record their own voice and their own meditations. They can listen to their own or other people’s.
- People dressed as fortune tellers
- People going around giving compliments.
- Psychadelic videos and lights Strobe lights, lazers, etc
- Robes/costumes (in what context?)
- Room where you think good things,then take those thoughts and the strength of it to the “bad” feelings and thoughts to heal them.
- Setting intention
- 3D projection mapping
- Slow motion room
- Teach about other places that do stuff like the Coltrain Church
- Thank you notes
- Nature sounds. Or birds being loud. Or teach people some bird and nature sounds that they hear in the city.
- Music (speakers and/or headphones)
- Talks
- Anthemic music and sounds
- Meditation led by a cat (I already wrote a script somewhere for this.)
- Bucket list maker
- Cardio
- Improv type games.
- Rejuvenation station
- Video: videos. repeating what the video says
- Wheel of fortune. Not sure what that means.
- The “great books” room. With different famous texts to read on spirituality and mindfulness, etc. People can just sit and read or whatever. Comfortable chairs, lighting, etc
- Videos. body relaxation
- Cheerobics
- ASMR
- Big writing. Writing really big.
- A sort of yellow-bike thing where people can take positive signs and put them around the walls and hallways then other people can take them and put them elsewhere. Maybe you can make new ones as well.
- A room where people practice exhaling by blowing up balloons until the room is full of balloons.
- Video: Show them a tag cloud and have them say the first word they see (sometimes all the words are the same)
- Tarot cards but for maybe what you will do right now. They tell the future because they tell you what action to take right then. Typically it is a writing exercise.
- The Don Quixote Experience
- Giant coloring mandala for multiple people
- Standup comedy room. Where you are given the jokes to tell and others laugh. The jokes are not good.
- Flow Lab
- Altruism Prank
- Video: Show them phrases to read on video or through audio
- A room just to brainstorm throwaway ideas that aren’t used for anything.
- Deprivation water tanks
- A wall or virutal wall where we have to “connect” everyone. Maybe that’s the tag cloud. If you have an experience with someone else you can make the connection or line
- Act like a waiter.
- Act out parts of movies
- Ball pit (or other pit)
- Cardboard box sarcophagus (what is the goal?)
- Conga line
- Distributed dance party
- Entertainment from upbeat people and bands. (how do we keep from being just a spectator thing?)
- Funny mirrors or funhouse for selfies
- Journal: religion for non-beleivers. Put them in a place where they have to believe in a creator of some kind. Try to feel the thing that religious people feel
- Make some crafts or coloring (think this out more)
- Video:Completing sentences
- Video:First thing you think of / Word association
- Wacky movie room
- Someone reciting speeches. You reciting speeches
- Puppy corral
- Testifying in front of a crowd (could be a prescribed or jokey or serious)
- Awe inspiring images (studies show that it slows down time and gives more time affluence)
- Write your bio and find the things in it that you really liked and didn’t like. idenifty why and then start focusing on those things
- A warm shirt coming out of the dryer. sweat beads on a frosted glass. That book that has all these types of ideas
- Tibetan bowls
- Dance party (club)
- Wandering around. Not sure what this means.
- Commiseration room/wall. Not bitchy but more of a place to connect with I’ve-been-there.
- Scrambled eggs room where you go to scramble your brains eggs.
- Vibration. (not sure what this means other than the sense of touch)
- Mumble Karaoke
- TED talks that would never be TED talks
- Dress like a king or queen. Have a big throne.
- A game where you run around and have to put the positive words on certain spots.
- Yoga with really tiny mats. (why??)
- A place with a bunch of optical illusions.
- Think of pizza room. See if you can get yourself hungry just from thinking about pizza a lot. See how your thoughts can influence your body
- Silent disco
- A room where unless people hold ropes the ceiling falls down.
- Yurts. (No ideas beyond that)
- A thing that people find and then have to go take somewhere.
- A machine that you exhale into and it measures the amount and shows you some graphical representation.
- Robot monks. They lead you in some meditation, prayer or some related chanting about nuts and bolts. Talking like a robot is fun in a group.
- A bunch of different textures you feel with your hands.
- Life-sized foam brains that you can hold and visualize you are changing. Or a whole set of internal organs and muscles that you can feel while you are meditating on those organs.
- Video/vr: sunset room or virtual reality
- List all the people you know who have brought some light into your life.
- The water room. Listen to the water, feel real water. See water videos.
- Slow motion talking
- Think of something. Write it down. Trade with someone else. Did you match? No? Try again. Keep trying until you get it. Then switch to someone else. Somehow get the whole room on same word.
- The made up holiday room. There’s costumes and rituals and there is a lead that leads the room. There’s a lot prescribed to people so they interact with each other.
- A psychic that tells each person the same fortune but everyone knows that.
- Brian Eno oblique strategies
- Curated youtube
- Dancing. 2 step, ecstaic dance, night day
- Darkness. Maybe a maze. Or something.
- Death room. We’re all goign to die. LIke that field of dead bodies in tibet, this can remind people to live.
- Failure room. Experience failing and getting back up.
- Forgiveness
- Literal tag cloud with name tags
- Nidra yoga
- Regular yoga
- Small spaces with strangers.
- Stop judging
- Treadmills in the mountain scapes. Basically a small version of the “feel good gym”
- The placebo experience. Ask them to believe in different objects healing powers, etc.
- Thing where you hang upside down.
- Video abundance. Focus on one word and then it grows and multiplies on the screen. It keeps taking words and concepts from small to overflowing. Maybe it is even touch screen. When you touch things get bigger and more abundant.
- Writing all the fears then taking them on. Maybe like the 12 bad thinking habits (all or none, etc)
- Monks. (what could they do? Is this just meaningless asthetic?)
- Video:Stars falling down
- Glass carpet or other strange flooring
- A place where you throw fake cell phones into fake toilets or otherwise do fears and mistakes
- Mermaid yoga
- Fake newspapers to read that just say how awesome you are or how awesome the world is.
- Staycation room. the vacation room. An ocean, a mountain, plants, beach chairs, smells and things that feel liek the real thing.
- Hand sanitizer that is full of gross stuff.
- Small chairs so you feel big.
- Abundance room. Where there are videos showing how much stuff and good things there are in the world.
- Fog machine.
- Keep looking up
- Head decombolulizer
- Act like you have the flu. Then act like you mediated it away.
- Videos of puppies and other cute stuff
- Massage
- Forgiveness letter
- Schedule partner (for eat, sleep, exercise)
- LAB: dont’ strive to be happy, strive to be open. Also be realistic and be flexible
- Daily journaling
- Self-compassion after a failure (be a friend to yourself)
- 14 questions to reflect on every day for 2 weeks
- Videos of people failing and getting back up again.
- Internal Control development
- Video screens all over that show the same sun rising and falling over the course of the day. Or maybe even make some surprise announcments
- Forgiveness exercise
- Dispassionate pursuit of passion. Reminece and reflect. Three bad things that turned out good. see 6th habit
- No set identity. Allows that you can change to be happier
- Positivity Resonance Day reconstruction method
- Reflect on social connections and how you felt in tune and how much you felt close to the person
- This too shall pass and others are in the same predicament
- Meditation LKM for others you know.. to strangers to the world
- Explanation of “set point” of happiness
- Optimism – best possible self
- Acts of kindness
- Music repeats over and over again. Headphones where there are two people that match and you have to find the person that matches you by singing what you hear or maybe you don’t have the same thing but they are somehow related. Like one person is talking about fruit and another is, but they don’t know they go together. Then maybe they think someone else and then no. The music changes some.
- Card games but nonsensical or the rules are always changing. Or every card in the deck is the same and you play anyways. Or really big cards and really small cards together in the same hand. And the cards might be normal numbers or they might be instructions to meditate or to think about something or chant or whatever. Maybe if others have the same card they join in. Or some kind of cards for humanity concept.
- Cards where each person takes a turn putting one down. One word on each card. The resultant sentence is chanted or thought or discussed or something. Maybe acted out.
- Board games. Not existing ones, but a new one, maybe life sized. And maybe doesn’t make much sense but doesn’t matter.
- Rube goldberg machine. Must be assembled.
- A Puzzle. Like puzzle rooms or otherwise.
- A jigsaw puzzle. A big puzzle in the lobby people can work on. Maybe the table vibrates the whole time so they can’t get it done. Or maybe there’s glue and you just glue pieces together even if they “close enough” of a fit. Maybe we have scissors at the table to help make the pieces fit.
- 3D theater. Where real things get thrown at people.
- Superdangerous circus. Maybe that is dangerous in that we take your fears and put them into a circus motif.
- Staring. Either at self, others, videos or pictures.
- Bid Practice. We give them prompts of situations and they determine the good way and bad way to respond. Critical and complain.
- What about a quiz show that asks you questions about what you just learned? Or learned that day? Or a website that quizes you every few days for a month to make sure it sticks?
- Something like ANKI where we do spaced repitition throughout the day instead of learning just once and forgetting it?
- Touch this thing with your elbow, etc. Things that both focus awareness and create physical comfort.
- A row of chairs looking at a row of chairs and people all sit on one side and picture the other being their compassionate best friend.
- Sitting in chairs. Relaxing. Satisfying fit of a chair.
- Like things you push together that just physically feel good or look good to satisfy OCD.
- Dream cost estimator. Really what would it cost to get started? Probably not that much. But if it would cost, then what is a small step that gets you the same feeling
- A million ways people start thinking they aren’t good enough. internal/external.
- A one-person physical space tent like nature’s treasures at the cardboard fort night.
- Plinko fate. So you deal with where it lands. So if it lands on family or friends or job or whatever then you go with that and you work on that.
- Menu and server room. The menu has suggestions on it, the server takes the suggestion or says they are out. No, not out. They just repeat back what they person ordered. Then there’s a lot of please and thank you and then the server gives the menu to the patron and they switch roles and find others in the room.
- A thing where a disembodied voice gives instructions to people so that they can prevent the planet from being destroyed. It’s a lot of rituals or mental exercises. Maybe some interaction. Really the idea is more of a format than a topic
- Selfless-ies. I have no idea what this means other than I combined the word selfie with selfless. Photos? Take of other people? Or create a “mental photo” of yourself being selfless? See what comes up in terms of fighting it.
- Superhero mirror. Describe the qualities of a superhero (as a group, not individual superhero). This makes you more likely to act like one
- Challenge vs quest mindset exercise (superbetter) and also quest 16, the opposite of the worst reaction
- Develop “powerup” list
- Pick your power songs