SoundSelf is a technologically-mediated, psychedlic experience (aka “technodelic”) that is being released by Andromeda Media on Wednesday, April 22nd. Developer Robin Arnott has been working on it on 8 years now, and he just released a The Technodelic Manifesto that describes his vision for how immersive technologies paired with game design principles can help facilitate the “transformation of the player into deeper and more self-realized modes of consciousness.”
I’ve previously talked with Arnott about his SoundSelf experience and the concept of technodelics in episodes #484 in 2016, #655 in 2018, and #779 in 2019. The release of SoundSelf next week marks a new phase of the genre of consciousness hacking and technodelic experiences that are explicitly being designed for consciousness transformation.
I’m personally really excited to see how this experience is received, and how the broader consciousness hacking movement continues to evolve. I found that using SoundSelf for the past couple of weeks to be a wonderful catalyst to get into VR every day, and to start my day with an experience of gamified chanting that produced a mode of being that I found my body craving after the first couple of days. One of Arnott’s explicit goals was to try to gamify the process of chanting and meditative practice, and he’s been able to do a great job of that. If you find it difficult to become motivated or hard to maintain focus, then the gamification of your voice into unpredictable feedback loop cycles is a really compelling catalyst for maintaining engagement into the scaffolding of the practice.
I had a chance to catch up with Arnott to reflect upon the larger context of a pattern and habitual interrupt that the coronavirus pandemic represents, and how this can be an opportunity to create some new habits that can deepen your sense of presence & commitment to a consistent contemplative practice.
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Music: Fatality
