The idea for Reverie, NBC’s upcoming psychological thriller, came to creator Mickey Fisher (Extant) while “hanging out in my underwear,” Fisher told an audience at New York Comic Con on Saturday.

Fisher was “unemployed” sitting on his couch and playing with the Google cardboard virtual reality headset. “I folded up the cardboard and slipped my phone inside and all of a sudden I was instantly transported to a jungle,” Fisher said. “It was so exhilarating and so exciting… I wondered where are we going to go?”

This experience served as the inspiration for Reverie, which follows former hostage negotiator Mara Kint (Sarah Shahi) as she attempts to rescue people trapped in a super advanced virtual reality program that fulfills the player’s wildest fantasies. Of course Mara’s got her own emotional baggage to wade through as well, this in the form of a negotiation that went wrong and resulted in the death of her niece.

Shahi said she hopes audiences will be drawn in by the technology but stay for the stories, which are ultimately about emotional connection. “This whole idea of this being a virtual reality world – that’s not 500 years away, that’s tomorrow,” Shahi said, adding, “the show’s message is one that I really believe in which is that if you get too immersed in that world [of technology] you become disconnected from what’s most important,” Shahi said.

Sendhil Ramamurthy (of Heroes fame) who plays oneirologist (that’s someone who studies dreams) Paul Hammond agrees with Shahi that the heart of the series isn’t really science fiction. “At the core of each case there’s something that everybody in their real life can relate to,” said Ramamurthy. “It’s about wish fulfillment and it also raises real life questions.”

The series attempts to mirror real life in other ways too: by presenting an impressively diverse cast led by a female protagonist, Shahi, who is of Iranian descent. “NBC does make a good effort to try and branch out…they are completely colorblind,” Shahi said. “The world is not just white and male – there’s a lot of other things out there,” she added, and the cast of Reverie reflects that.

NBC has yet to announce a release date for the pilot season of Reverie.

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