The most advanced immersive entertainment on the horizon now may be the Oculus Rift, a strap-on virtual-reality headset. Virtual reality, a catchall term for digital simulations that can be experienced with goggles, earphones and, in some cases, gloves, enjoyed a brief vogue in the late 1980s; now, with far more advanced computer capabilities, it seems on the verge of a comeback. To demonstrate the Oculus Rift’s capacity, developers created a “guillotine simulator” that, even in its primitive form, seems to be a big — frightening — hit with those who have tried it. Twist your neck and you see crowds of spectators; look down and you see the basket waiting for your head. But at the end of the day, you’re just lying there with a box strapped to your face, staring into a pair of screens.

No one has yet managed to invent a technology that dispenses with screens entirely, as Mr. Spielberg envisions.

But Gene Roddenberry, who created “Star Trek,” offered a blueprint for this kind of entertainment in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” the 1987 follow-up to his original series. In the pilot episode, the first officer of the Starship Enterprise enters the ship’s “holodeck,” a chamber specially outfitted to project a holographic simulation of reality; the first officer, for example, walks into the room and experiences a verdant woodland.

The fictional holodeck in “Star Trek” didn’t depend entirely on holographic illusion; it also relied on fanciful “matter replicators” capable of transforming energy into a chair you could sit in or tea you could drink. Thanks to sophisticated programming, it provided an extraordinary range of entertainment possibilities for the Enterprise crew: they could, for example, enjoy a simulated ride on the Orient Express or fight a simulated Battle of the Alamo.

Life-size holograms and energy-to-matter converters are probably a ways off. For the moment, the closest we have come to a holodeck-like experience may be immersive theater.

“Sleep No More” and “Then She Fell” are two current theatrical productions that dispense with the traditional stage and dissolve the barrier between performer and viewer. Instead, the audience interacts directly with the characters in the play.

It is not surprising that such productions have been called “theater for the video game generation.” They combine the first person engagement of video games like “Grand Theft Auto” and “BioShock” with the warmth and emotional engagement of flesh-and-blood interactions.