Drug Interaction with Virtual Reality

[RaeFi]

As many of us know all too well, our Set and Setting plays a crucial part in the nature of a psychoactive substance experience. So, what happens if Set and Setting can be adjusted at will, rapidly, with a simple push of a button? Turns out -- weird, weird stuff.

I became an active psychonaut long before comfortable VR devices appeared on the market, and I've been a regular user of VR since only a few years ago, both mostly for the purpose of gaming (adrenaline-releasing), media consumption (relaxed and non-interactve), and productivity (intense and persistent focus on an interactive task). And, naturally, I've explored various psychoactive substances while under the influence of VR.

Recently, VR headsets became significantly more comfortable and powerful, and so I find myself spending more and more of my time immersed entirely within synthetic worlds. So, a few things have became clear to me as I've gained some hands-on experience with this recent odd technology trend.

1. Some substances mix better with VR than others. Psychedelics like psilocybin seem to make every trip emotional. Stimulants make it exciting and ready for a challenge. Cannabinoids make it fun and creative. However, nothing beats an NDMA receptor antagonist (DXM, K, MXE, PCP, etc) at being symbiotic with VR, in my opinion. I find time spent in VR while under the influence of dissociatives to be more memorable and comfortable.
2. Strange things happen when one can observe AND control unnatural experiences like flying, teleportation-like locomotion, and interacting with artificial worlds not governed by laws of physics. VR experiences combined with most substances produce predictable result, I determined. But, blocking NDMA receptor activity with ketamine-like drugs appears to accomplish a couple of interesting things. First, because perception of pain and fatigue have been reduced, the discomfort of wearing 500 grams worth of VR tech on my face simply vanishes. This increases immersion, as compared to baseline. And second, I tend to notice immersion breaking occasional imperfections in virtual worlds a lot less, I assume that's because normal receptor activity has decreased between visual- and auditory-processing regions of the nervous system. This also further increases immersion. And now that I have "forgotten" that I am in VR, the experience becomes lucid dream-like.
3. VR territory is "safe" to explore when in a mind-altered state, but only within very narrow kinds of experiences/apps. The simple act of standing up or balancing is difficult for us humans when our peripheral vision is blocked. Worse yet, when the visual information is not rendered correctly by poorly-designed VR experiences, a simple balancing problem has turned into a nauseating and highly uncomfortable one. What happens when the effects of [drug of choice] kick in? Nothing good. Sticking with VR apps designed for comfortable experience reduces a chance of a triggering a bad trip.
4. Unknown short- and long-term changes are happening to the VR user's mind and body. The theory of life-long neuroplasticity suggests that my cells have already started adapting and re-configuring neural connections to accommodate for the various super-natural experiences that VR induces. Further into the future still, it makes me wonder what sort of constructive and/or destructive genetic mutation(s) daily VR use can trigger in the bodies my genes will inhabit after one or two or ten generations?

Anyone have any additional ideas/observations to share?

 

[S.J.B.]

Moved from Neuroscience and Pharmacology to Drug Culture.

 

[ageingpartyfiend]

Interesting thread.

Have never experienced VR but am not at all surprised that dissociatives gel with the experience. Makes sense given the VR experience is, I guess, dissociative in and of itself.

I strongly suspect that a VR session after the peak of a reasonably-dosed lsd trip would be quite something

 

[RaeFi]

Thank you S.J.B. for moving the thread.

Yes, dissociation from reality is what makes VR so attractive in the first place.

Surprisingly LSD and tryptamines in general didn't make a very memorable VR session, I found. Perhaps it has something to do with low resolution graphics/screens used in VR headsets back when I tried it a few years ago. Haven't tried it with my current headset, but I just didn't have the urge to explore the limited synthetic worlds when tryptamines are involved. These days it's mostly just PCP analogs and cannabinoids that my mind seems to learn most from.