Tripping on virtual reality: The artists trying to replicate psychedelic experiences in VR

Can virtual reality replicate a psychedelic experience, or does its real value lie in creating altered states unique to the medium? Rich Haridy explores this question through Jan Kounen’s Ayahuasca (Kosmik Journey), Sander Bos’s Visionarium, and conversations with artists and researchers. He finds Kounen’s recreation visually striking but ultimately superficial, arguing that depicting a ceremony is not the same as inducing its psychological, embodied, or spiritual effects. He also raises concerns about reducing an Indigenous ceremony to a consumable spectacle.

The article introduces cyberdelics as a broader exploration of technology’s potential to produce “mind-manifesting” effects rather than simply imitate drug experiences. Artist and writer Jon Weinel describes altered states as including meditation, trance, dreaming, and hallucination—not just psychedelic states—and suggests that immersive media can offer transformative experiences on its own terms.

The University of Sussex’s Hallucination Machine combines panoramic imagery, Google’s DeepDream neural network, and VR to simulate aspects of visual hallucination. Researcher Keisuke Suzuki reports similarities with some subjective effects of psilocybin, while stressing that this does not reproduce the psychedelic experience as a whole. Ego dissolution and a sense of unity remain beyond what the technology described can reliably simulate. Haridy’s central argument is that compelling cyberdelic experiences should embrace VR’s distinctive strengths and acknowledge its limits, rather than promise a shortened substitute for a drug-induced journey.

https://newatlas.com/vr/tripping-virtual-reality-ayahuasca-vr-psychedelic-experiences/