NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Imagine an Internet world so intense that what happens online sometimes spills out into the real world.

Video: People Start Second Lives In Cyberspace

The fantasy world can result in real life consequences, including lawsuits, divorce, and fortunes made and lost all in Second Life.

Tony Gerber is at work. He is performing for 50 people in a space station high above the earth, and by the time the concert is over, he'll be $100 richer.

It sounds hard to believe, but not in Second Life.

“In one aspect you can think of it like, when you see some of the kids, or you know, ourselves playing video games, you’re interacting with a 3-D environment on the screen. It’s like Internet 2.0. It’s the next level of what the Internet can do,” Gerber said.

Second Life is a virtual world that 20 million people escape to. It’s a world where people like Gerber can be anybody they want to be.

“My name is Cypress Rosewood. It’s not Tony Gerber as it is in real life. Your avatar can be a representation of yourself, or it can be like, I’m an elf,” he said.

To join the second world, beginners simply answer a few questions, take a stock character, take one of the free names and jump into the world.

The 360-degree world has water with continents and islands. It also is a place where its residents use real dollars to buy Second Life money called Linden.

For those who decide to get serious about their second lives, they can buy land.

Then they can use downloadable tools to build a home, buy clothes and furniture and start living their second life.

“This is my home. It’s actually a huge tree. And, I built this all from scratch,” Gerber said.

Gerber gave Channel 4’s Dennis Ferrier a tour of the vast world. Gerber took Ferrier to a butterfly garden in France, ran into a woman named Nooky Bebenco and then went to a spectacular cathedral in Germany.

Then they went on to NASA's island where Gerber has been given a piece of land to build a space music museum.

“I’ve built these replicas of these instruments. The Theremin from 1927,” he said.

Gerber isn't the only one doing business in the Internet. Universities, NASA and IBM all have real meetings in Second Life.

“If I’m in my avatar, my character, I come up to building, come in, walk down the hall, go in just like a real building and come into a classroom, I find a seat, I sit down, an instructor comes in and stands there. And he’s either shouting out his lesson or talking it, probably talking it, probably through a broadcast, which is how I do my music,” he said.

Second Life also has its own problems: Gambling has been banned and adult entertainment is everywhere.

There have also been some messy spillovers into real life. A woman is divorcing her husband because he had a girlfriend in Second Life. She caught their avatars in the same house. They weren't doing anything, but she doesn’t believe him.

“It’s a form of entertainment. In my own case, it’s business. I mean, I’m going in there to do my variety show. I’m going in there to do a live concert, I’m going in there to network with people on a project, an art project. I’m doing all I can to keep up with the business that’s in there. It’s really no different than sitting in a cubicle and working for somebody. That’s how I look at it,” he said.

To take a look at Second Life, click here.

Popular Sllideshows On WSMV.com:

Red-Hot Redheaded Celebrity Women

15 Horses Found Starving In Giles County

Readers Show Their Tattoos