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nihilian
Up and Coming
April 2, 2013

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?

    15 replies

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    PapaBliss
    New Participant
    April 5, 2013
    So glad to see this post. We are working on very much the same ideas and I am really excited see that there are other like minds out there.

    We have been working heavily with sacred geometry and mandalas in our world creation, while utilizing binaural beats and other frequencies on the sonic side. We have also been combining some other mind altering devices to work in tangent (we hope)with the RIFT to truly simulate an out of body experience for the user. We have also been working on bio-feedback devices to control the user experience to further enhance the mind/body connection inside the rift.

    We have been testing out these ideas using a Sony HMZ-T1 which is the best available VR system on a consumer basis in my opinion. Its field of view is the biggest limiting factor and that is where the rift along with its full tracking will take these ideas to a level that could not have been achieved prior.

    I would love to connect in the near future with you fellow RIFT pioneers and hopefully collaborate on some amazing apps to add a new dimension to the human experience with VR.

    And in case any of the shipping Gods at Oculus see this post, I am ready anytime to receive my rift, I will jump on a plane tomorrow to hand pick it up even to save you the shipping costs ;-) (one can dream anyway).
    nihilianAuthor
    Up and Coming
    April 7, 2013
    ^ That's awesome that you're already working on it. Anything you can show?

    @craig
    I'm all for pooling ideas and efforts! But unfortunately I will only be able to contribute in my spare time, and not on any technical basis.
    craigotron
    Up and Coming
    April 7, 2013
    Nobody should ever feel that they've committed to anything here. I'm just trying to facilitate the creation of awesome stuff. Many of us want to see the same types of games and experiences with the Rift. If we all know which ideas are simpatico, people can choose whether they want to work together and in what capacity.

    I think it basically boils down to: share what you can with those you want.
    nihilianAuthor
    Up and Coming
    April 10, 2013
    techno-libertarianism? I like it. :)
    Anonymous
    June 26, 2013
    awesome, It's inevitable that projects like these will become a reality. Ever since our childhood we were altering our state of consciousness by spinning and feeling drunk with dizziness. I experimented extensively with coolwav back in the late 90's, it was sound software that generated sounds that apparently stimulated areas of your brain, claiming to get you into certain brain states such as alpha beta theta and delta. There was also visual software that you could run simultaneously, blinking desired colours at specific rates, again to stimulate certain brainstates. I used to meditate with table tennis balls cut in two placed over my eyes while facing a monitor with headphones on listening to the brainsounds. It was trippy. Auditory hallucinations and deep strange relaxation states were achieved and on rare occasion a slight dissociatiation from the body.

    soundself looks great, can't wait to try it. My own project aims to be somewhat like an interactive exploration space where strange architecture and strange animations and art capture the rifters attention and they can trip out on what they see for a while. I'm learning as i go, i'm not a coder, but feel confident that i can teach myself by my self-imposed december deadline. Here's an awesome talk terence mckenna gave back in 1996, it's so awesome we have arrived at what he saw coming, now we just gotta loving craft these VR spaces!
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