Forum Discussion
App Idea: Altered Consciousness
Hi fellow Oculnauts:
I'm interested in using the OR to explore ways of altering our states of consciousness, but I'm an artist by trade and have no coding knowledge, so for now I'll put up some ideas for discussion. If you have the skills required and would like to take a crack at it, I would love to work with you, or to cheer you on from the side lines, whichever may be the case.
My idea at the moment is basically a dreammachine + bin-aural beats.
A dream machine, if you've ever used one, is a ridiculously simple yet effective way of manipulating the brain through visual stimuli. It seems to hijack visual circuits of the brain and use it to influence the entire conscious state towards a certain frequency.
http://www.netliberty.net/dreamachine.html
If we could synchronize it with an bin-aural beats generator, which tries to achieve similar goals using the auditory circuits, and give the user the ability to manipulate the perimeters easily using hotkeys or preferably a gesture control such as hydra or leap, and that should provide a fairly convincing brainwave entrainment experience.
No doubt certain substances that have the effect of relaxing inhibitory/filtering mechanisms in the brain could be stirred into this mix for even better effect.
I'm no coder but I would imagine such a program to be somewhat simple to write compared to a graphics driven game, and the OR would be ideal if it could be rigged with noise suppressing headphones so that both visual and audio interference from the outside world can be shut out.
Thoughts?
I'm interested in using the OR to explore ways of altering our states of consciousness, but I'm an artist by trade and have no coding knowledge, so for now I'll put up some ideas for discussion. If you have the skills required and would like to take a crack at it, I would love to work with you, or to cheer you on from the side lines, whichever may be the case.
My idea at the moment is basically a dreammachine + bin-aural beats.
A dream machine, if you've ever used one, is a ridiculously simple yet effective way of manipulating the brain through visual stimuli. It seems to hijack visual circuits of the brain and use it to influence the entire conscious state towards a certain frequency.
http://www.netliberty.net/dreamachine.html
If we could synchronize it with an bin-aural beats generator, which tries to achieve similar goals using the auditory circuits, and give the user the ability to manipulate the perimeters easily using hotkeys or preferably a gesture control such as hydra or leap, and that should provide a fairly convincing brainwave entrainment experience.
No doubt certain substances that have the effect of relaxing inhibitory/filtering mechanisms in the brain could be stirred into this mix for even better effect.
I'm no coder but I would imagine such a program to be somewhat simple to write compared to a graphics driven game, and the OR would be ideal if it could be rigged with noise suppressing headphones so that both visual and audio interference from the outside world can be shut out.
Thoughts?
15 Replies
- I am also interested in this field and was delighted to discover Robin Arnott's SoundSelf kickstarter today. Rift support is a planned feature. It has five days left to meet its funding goal!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/soundself/soundself
Here's a great write-up from Gamasutra:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/189085/The_intimacy_of_sound_Robin_Arnotts_mysterious_SoundSelf.php - I've seen that one, and it's a very interesting idea.
My criticism of the project is that I'm afraid at the moment they're not providing a very immediate/satisfying feedback mechanism. When I hum or whistle, there is no change that can be reliably distinguished from just the regular shifting of the visual patterns that would happen regardless of my input, but it could just be the beta release I got, or my mic setup wasn't working properly.
That said the kind of visuals they're developing would be perfect as an Overlay to my dream machine idea. So the pulsing is not just white screen but patterned. "nihilian" wrote:
I'm interested in using the OR to explore ways of altering our states of consciousness
I recently moved to Washington State so I could legally explore the intersection of these ideas. I would be happy to help as I can. I'm not without technical ability, but I can't really consider myself a coder either. Still, I can be useful.
Would you be willing to write up your plans in "Altered Consciousness" thread in the collaboration forum? Check out some of the other threads people have submitted, too. There's a lot of useful things we're contemplating, discussing and taken action towards.
Looking forward to hearing more!- Sure craig, let me spend some time and write something up, then I'll post there and see where we can go with this. :)
- Great Post, Nih !
The role of the Rift, combined with binaural beats is something I also have given thought to...
I attended the Monroe Institute years back, and completed the Gateway Voyage program, which deals with intense immersion with binaural beats, and other trademarked audio technologies. As for what can be accomplished by adding visual stimuli with the Rift, probably the sky is the limit, for research....it occurs to me, though...The Rift, and the VR experience in general, is so akin to lucid dreaming/out-of-body experience, I wouldn't be surprised if some people start experiencing unexpected psi phenomenon after prolonged Rift exposure. Human consciousness hasn't experienced the all-encompassing visual sensory input that VR is starting to give us...(on a large commercial scale, anyway) If what can be accomplished with audio alone is any indication, combining audio & the overwhelming visual control of the Rift, again...who knows what is possible! - Hey!
Yeah the enormous potential for VR to shape our perception of reality(hopefully to our benefits) is very exciting.
I think for the first step I'm going to simply create a 2d concept video, incorporating strobing, binaural beats and a 3d fractal fly through. I do believe a 3d environment can be fitting for the device since we do experience being in a 3d space when head tracking is involved.
People who already have a headmount display can test it out to see how well the concept works, and if not, why not, and how can we improve it. Once we nail a concept, we could hopefully pitch it to someone who can develop it fully.
Stay tuned, - Let me know if you need me to do anything to help you accomplish your goals. I *really* want to use your App!
- I really appreciate your enthusiasm!
I think the best thing to do is to find someone who can code and is willing to do it for minimum to no pay. ^^ - My app idea has the same requirements. Friendly Merger?
I propose that Altered Consciousness become a NYOA filter for human telemetry data dedicated specifically to euphoric/out-of-body experiences, with unlimited skins, naturally.
My reasoning is: it's way more subversive to tell people you'll give them the news, and then alter their consciousness, than it is to give them your intent to do so. Parents and Grandparents watch the news. How many of them have ever sought to alter their consciousness?
I propose our friendly merger has a name: The News
Because that's what we are, all of us. Look at what we're discussing! I have another thread going in this forum where I talk about giving myself a sense of apartment. With virtual reality, I can become my apartment. That's weird. Disturbing, even, and deeply transhuman. But I refuse to accept that I'm weird, so instead I choose to think I'm just something New.
Let's be The News Team!
UPDATE:
from the pebble developer forums I'm also haunting. Here is someone looking to induce lucid dreaming with the pebble vibration.
http://forums.getpebble.com/discussion/ ... aid#latest
Pretty cool! Wonder what it would be like to use the pebble to track my sleep cycle, induce lucid dreaming, train me to "listen" to the haptics of a second distinct vibration to get me awake enough to enter VR (put on the helmet etc), and then re-enter a state of lucid dreaming in VR. Whoa. Blew my own mind a bit there! We could be the first people in the world to experience that. - I also had the same idea :) Glad to see so many people thought of this, hopefully something cool will come out of it!
I even watched the docu "Flicker" to get more background on the original dream machine and where that idea came from. Some good info there but most of the movie is pretty .. dull :P
