An exploration of the mystical experiences professed by those having experienced the virtual reality environment 'Osmose'.
Introduction
This essay focuses upon the accounts given by people having experienced 'Osmose' a Virtual Reality environment created by Char Davies, specifically the accounts which relate to 'mystical' or 'spiritual' experience. I will be exploring mystical experience, what it is and how it is induced so that I can properly compare these accounts with accounts of mystical experience from other sources, including drug experiences as well as more ordinary or common experiences.
I will try to see if there is anything in common between these and what, if anything, Osmose or similar Virtual Reality environments offer in similar terms of effect compared to other forms of art. I will begin by explaining what Osmose is and involves, I will then explain mystical experience and how it is induced before comparing testimonies of different mystical experiences with the accounts of people having experienced Osmose.
Chapter 1: Virtual Reality, Char Davies and Osmose
There are many uses that VR environments are being put to. The larger part of available resources is being spent on projects for the military or science and medicine. Due to the expense of creating and providing the technical support needed for these environments their employment in the arts is not very common. Char Davies, an artist based in Canada, has managed to find funding, in one form or another, to create environments for purely artistic purposes.
She has created two VR environments 'Osmose' and 'Ephémère.' The first of which was finished in 1995 the second of which was finished in 1998. Around ten thousand people have been into either of these environments. A person will spend around fifteen minutes in the environment and due to the fact that only one person at a time can experience the work there are obvious restrictions on the amount of people who can view it.
Fig.1.1 - "Rocks and Roots,"
real-time frame capture from Osmose
The most common use, in terms of content, for virtual reality environments has been to represent the physical world around us. For whatever purpose it has been put to, either true to life or in a fictitious manner, the VR environment has, on the whole, been made to mimic at least a part of the physical nature of our world, for example in the way that solid objects behave or in the way that we view perspective.
When Osmose was first shown it created quite a stir. It was probably the first virtual reality environment to break from the traditional representation of realistic worldly structures in terms of its visual imagery and operation. Before Osmose control within an environment had, on the whole, been conducted via hand movements as might be used with a 'joystick' whilst playing a computer game. In Osmose the more subtle movements of the user, or 'immersant' as Char Davies likes to call them, are used for control. For example breathing in will make you rise up, breathing out will make you descend, leaning forward will make you move forward and bending your knees will make you accelerate.
The depiction of a version of nature plays a large part in this work. At the same time, the imagery used is, on the whole, quite abstract. Abstract shapes and patterns are used to make up a lot of the space (see Fig.1.1 and Fig.1.2). However, it does use a lot of objects that the user will be able to relate to, such as a tree, leaves and words. There are various sections which can be explored, such as: 'Forest,' 'Clearing,' 'Pond,' 'Tree,' 'Abyss' etc. Osmose transcends conventions of real-world representation in the way in which the user can interact with the surrounding virtual environment. It allows the user to move through objects and to gain a sense of being within that object, whatever it may be. In one section Char Davies uses philosophical writings from some of her favourite or most inspiring writers, another presents the actual code used to run the system.
"The visual aesthetic of Osmose is semi- representational / semi-abstract and translucent, consisting of semi-transparent textures and flowing particles. Figure/ground relationships are spatially ambiguous, and transitions between worlds are subtle and slow. This mode of representation serves to 'evoke' rather than illustrate and is derived from Davies' previous work as a painter."
Anonymous - Taken from immersence.com (Davies' website about her VR work)
Char Davies began her artistic career with painting and she saw her chance to use VR technology as an opportunity to explore her aesthetic concerns more fully. Her work is based on her vision of giving people the chance to experience themselves in an enhanced state of being, in something other than that of the everyday mind. She wants us to be able to break from the normal mindset that we have been brought up to accept, to have a feeling of the connectivity that we have with nature.
Fig.1.2 - "Tree,"
real-time frame capture from Osmose
Not everyone has been impressed by her work or ideals. The arts journal 'Mute' gave her work a scathing review (which seemed to be based around the concept that Osmose isn't 'fine art' enough for them). The cost of these projects is another basis for complaint, although with the advancement of technology the hardware used on these projects is becoming all the time accessible to a greater number of artists.
Char Davies sets out to bring what she regards as an altered and beneficial sense of self-awareness to people. Her attempts have, in some cases, been successful. There have been wide ranging, yet mostly positive reactions to the experience. The levels of emotion shown by people on leaving Osmose have been surprising, immersants have been moved to tears or have reported a great sense of peace or euphoria. People have certainly emerged from Osmose having had what they would describe as a 'mystical' or 'life changing' experience.
The head curator of the Musée d´art contemporain de Montréal said that she was no longer afraid of dying after she had been through Osmose. Mark Pesce called Osmose a "virtual kundalini, an expression of philosophy without any words, a state of holy being which reminds us that, indeed, we are all angels." Brenda Laurel called the work "breathtaking," describing it as "a fundamentally powerful use of technology in the service of, dare I say, nature. There's a healing there, not just of individuals, but of the technology itself."
What is it in these works that elicits such strong responses in people? Why do so many people who have experienced Osmose relate their experience to spiritual experiences? To answer this question, I shall refer to what is known as the 'mystical tradition' of accounts and analysis concerned with 'mystical experience'.
Chapter 2: The Mystical Experience
Perhaps for obvious reasons, there is no universally accepted or 'scientific' definition or explanation of the 'mystical experience', or the 'transcendental experience'. Descriptions come, themselves, in a mystical and unscientific language and therefore may be considered by some as wholly unreliable as the basis for true description or explanation. However, From the testimonies of those who have had what could be described as a mystical experience we can generalise from their accounts and construe an experience that seems to have taken them beyond the normal understanding in which we live our lives; and in which our ordinary conceptions of the world are lost for a short time and replaced with a sense of something greater or eternal or extraordinary.
These experiences are often explained by the individual who experiences them through whatever core set of concepts they currently hold to explain their 'world view'. So, for example, for some it may be a direct experience of 'God' or the 'holy trinity' whereas for others it may be an intense experience of peace and joy.
The most generally recognised transcendental experiences in the mystical tradition (up until the 1960's anyhow) come through the mystical practices of religion, such as meditation and prayer, although the mystical experience does not always require us to take any special form of action or set of methods in order to produce the desired result. Similar accounts have come from people in common life situations or people having experimented with hallucinogenic substances.
The paths to mystical experiences are, in more common religious situations, taken through the practice and development of contemplation and renunciation. Contemplation, in a religious context, is the concentration upon or observation of an object without discursive thought - to perceive it as it is before we attach subjective meanings or our conceptualisations to it.
Similarly, renunciation is the giving up of 'earthly desires' which bind us to our sense of 'self', the 'negative' aspect of self which sees the world as a separate entity from itself, thereby producing a desire that can never be met for possession of the objects it observes. To loosen attachment to these objects will leave us to contemplate freely. Many religions take this as far as proposing such things as poverty as a state best suited to a person wishing to gain a 'higher understanding'.
Through the right practice of these conditions (or perhaps without) a person will be able to attempt 'contemplative meditation' in which they can gain a concentration that can give them a sense of freedom from their ordinary perceptions in which they will be able to perceive the higher realities of 'God' or 'reality'. The practice to gain the required state of concentration for such experience can, reportedly, take a long time, perhaps a lifetime.
In the linked 'spiritual practice' of concentration the person must be free from all distraction. The concentration required for this practice, in paths such as Yoga, can be gained through focusing the mind upon an object such as the cycle of our breathing.
The underlying link between varied and various accounts of mystical experience is a sense of unity or oneness with 'God' or the 'spirit' inherent in the totality of the phenomenal world.
This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the absolute and we become aware of our oneness... In Hinduism, Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism, in Whitmanism, we find the same recurring note, so that there is about mystical utterance an eternal unanimity which ought to make a critic stop and think, and which brings it about that the mystical classics have, as has been said neither birthday nor native land. Perpetually telling of the unity of man with God, their speech antedates languages, and they do not grow old.
James, W.
People who experience such states of being frequently describe a new view of the world in which beauty is seen more clearly and intensely in every object, however mundane. The psychologist Arthur J. Deikman says of this phenomenon, "that the undoing of automatic perceptual and cognitive structures permits a gain in sensory intensity and richness at the expense of abstract categorisation and differentiation."
Deikman explains contemplative meditation as a 'de-automization' of cognitive structures. Automization, in this context, is the automatic processes of the mind in its perceptions of the world or in abstract thought. This 'automization' is essential to the individual's physical and psychological survival in the world. De-automization is the "undoing" of this. He says that this "undoing" is "presumably" being done by "reinvesting actions and percepts with attention."
It is believed by certain religions that through the practice of renunciation and contemplative meditation people can overcome the restrictions that they have placed upon their senses ('de-automisation'). These restrictions are the result of their surroundings; the political and social environment they have been brought up in. When they achieve this they are free to experience the world without attachment or conceptions. The senses are open and they are free to receive unfiltered perceptions.
In 'normal' consciousness we perceive the conceptualised objects, which we observe, as reality but in mystical states when outside influences have been dissolved through renunciation and contemplation the mind perceives the inner objects of the mind and its thoughts as reality, Deikman calls this process of a changed perception in reality "reality transfer."
Deikman puts accounts of mystical experiences into three categories "(a) untrained sensate, (b) trained sensate, (c) trained-transcendent." The first two categories refer to people who are either engaged in religious practice ((b)) or not ((a)). He describes their experience as being profound yet lacking the purity of the 'trained-transcendent' experience, in that the former tends to be perceived or constructed around the individual's goals, personal experiences or sensations. For example, a Buddhist monk may have a vision of Buddha or a Christian may have an experience of Christ. The 'trained-transcendent' experience is one where the experience lacks connection with the conceptions or perceptions of the individual and they enter a state that has been described as a union with 'all' or a feeling of 'oneness' where the sense of 'self' is lost; other reports mention a state where the sense and thought processes seem to pause. In this state inner as well as outer sensual influences have been ignored or overcome.
Chapter 3: The Induction of Mystical Experience
What is it that causes people to have 'mystical experiences'?
Such experiences are commonly referred to and categorised as Altered States of Consciousness or ASC's. Charles T. Tart would say that an ASC is a state of mind which is "importantly different" from our ordinary state of mind.
According to Tart ASC's can only be experienced under extreme conditions. He says that under normal circumstances a person already experiences three types of ASC. These three ASC's are all related to our different sleeping states: dreamless sleep, dreaming sleep and the hypnogogic state. He also says that most of us have also experienced other ASC's, most notably when we experience very strong emotions. In this state we can do things we wouldn't normally do and our perceptions may be different from normal.
He says that ASC's begin when "disrupting forces... psychological and/or physiological actions" play on our ordinary state of mind. These interfere directly or draw awareness away from our ordinary state of mind. Our ordinary state of mind has "multiple stabilisation processes" so induction processes may not work. For an example he says that a hallucinogenic drug may not work because these "stabilisation processes" may counter the effect of the drug. Therefore, and most importantly, he goes on to say "Induction, then, is always a combination of psychological factors with whatever pharmacological or behavioural procedures seem to be the overt induction technique."
In the 1960's Alister Hardy published his findings from a study of thousands of first-hand accounts of mystical experience. Including a list of averages for the triggers of these mystical experiences (see Fig.2).
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| Fig.2 - The results from Alister Hardy's study of first-hand accounts of mystical experience. |
We can see from these results that mystical experiences do not happen to people when they are sat on the bus, so to speak, but that they come about through intense emotional states or through the purposeful acts of the person, and, according to Tart, that these experiences also need the person to have a required psychological mind set and aptitude in order to become engaged in such forms of experience.
Chapter 4: Links between Virtual Reality and Hallucinogens
These days one of the most commonly recognised ASC's is that induced through the effect of LSD or other hallucinogens.
There are, of course, links between the sensations in VR environments and the sensations witnessed by people having ingested hallucinogenic substances such as LSD or mescaline. One person experiencing Osmose used the word 'trippy,' a common reference to the effects of hallucinogens amongst drug users, when describing their experience. The following is an anonymous account of someone having taken LSD.
When I close my eyes, then I have all these funny sensations. Funny pictures, they're all in beautiful colours. Greens and reds and browns and they all look like Picasso's pictures. Doors opening up at triangular angles and there are these colours ... an unreal world. It must be my subconscious or something. If I open my eyes, now the screen is, the dome gets darker. Looks like something is moving on the outside. Right along the edge. Some writhing. There's a figure - isn't exactly a figure, huge wings like a hawk, but legs of a man beneath a bed. Now it's gone.
This person was obviously seeing things that were not there. They mention their increased sensitivity to colour and an experience as though their dreams or imagination have, you could say, come to life. These visual sensations are similar in numerous accounts of hallucinogenic experience. The visuals in Virtual Reality environments are similar to these experiences in that they are not real; they are not really there. They are both dreamlike experiences experienced in consciousness.
The hallucinations produced through the ingestion of these substances are seen to be very real by the witness and they report such experiences as gaining an understanding of the totality of existence through the perception of the links between all manifestations of existence. As with the lower classification of mystical experiences described by Deikman (untrained-sensate), the experiences that people have under these substances are subject to the 'inner' concepts of the user. Hallucinations can stem from the thoughts or images contained within the users mind. The hallucinations can seemingly be metaphorical or multidimensional representations of the users thoughts and images, which can produce feelings of, what seem to the person experiencing them, profound realisations about life.
Albert Hoffman, the 'inventor' and 'proponent' of LSD, when talking about producing an "alteration in our perception of reality" in order to heal "the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society," says, "Foremost among such approaches are the various methods of meditation, either in a religious or a secular context, which aim to deepen the consciousness of reality by way of a total mystical experience. Another important, but still controversial, path to the same goal is the use of the consciousness-altering properties of hallucinogenic psychopharmaceuticals." Leaving the full purpose of his assertions to one side, he is, in this statement, drawing the similarity between mystical experience and the LSD experience.
Chapter 5: Links between Virtual Reality and Mystical Experience
When people give their testimonies for mystical experiences there are certain descriptions, explanations and feelings that they express which are similar across the accounts. No two accounts are ever the same, but common themes can be easily uncovered through their study.
The following examples are from anonymous sources, from people who had not used any mind-altering substances or any out of the ordinary sensory stimuli before or during their experience.
I was lying in a field under a tree thinking rather deeply of love and the joy it brings. Suddenly I became aware of myself as being a leaf hanging on that tree. All materialism disappeared completely, and I felt like a torch burning in the darkness. I seemed to be filled with the rays of the sun. This experience lasted for about three minutes. It is interesting to note that my behaviour pattern has changed since this experience. I feel a lot more peaceful and happier within myself, and I look upon life as being a spiritual evolution within a material body.
It is interesting to note this person's use of the description (or metaphor) of light and radiance when they say "I felt like a torch burning in the darkness. I seemed to be filled with the rays of the sun." The following person also says something similar.
In the morning I awoke to a wonderful feeling of love for all humanity. I felt as though bathed in light... All the hatred and anger that I had built up during my life had gone, leaving this state of bliss and knowledge that all would be well. I felt fused with the life force; trees, clouds, all living and inanimate things I had an affinity with... Colours were brighter; everything took on a vibrant force and I was part of it. The feeling of love for everyone lasted for about eight or ten days, leaving me with the Knowledge that I had experienced something wonderful; it has stayed with me all my life."
The similarities between these accounts are that they both report strong alteration in their visual perception, changes that weren't really there. They report a change in their emotional state and that this experience has had a lasting effect on them in a positive emotional way.
Here is an account from the Christian saint Theresa of Avila.
One day while I was having a meal (and not in the least recollected) my soul began to be suspended and recollected, so that I thought a rapture was sweeping over me. And a vision appeared suddenly... like a lightening flash. It seemed to me that our Lord Jesus Christ was beside me.
St. Teresa of Avila
The following selections, and the others used in this essay, are anonymous accounts taken from the Osmose book of comments at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal between August 19th and October 1st 1995 (see Appendix A for more).
Thank you for giving me this experience! This work gave me a feeling of being connected to the natural world of being immersed in nature and being a part of that nature. It is a unique experience..."
Ah - oh - sound, movement, body, dream, move, see, breathe, more through, light, energy a reminder of who we are and can be in our sacred selves.
I found the experience extraordinary. A new domain that explores art which opens another dimension of space, sensation, perception, feeling part of the whole, energy within energy, microcosm in the macrocosm of the universe.
Osmose was a profoundly meditative experience!"
I discovered in myself a fascination for the depths! I am surprised and eager to understand the deep sense of my own being in this real unreal space.
Of course not everybody was overcome with emotion following their experience of Osmose, but on the whole the comments convey that people had, at least, a unique and enjoyable experience.
A difference between these two sets of accounts is that the previous accounts described spontaneous events whereas the experiences within Osmose came about after the person made a definite decision to enter the environment. They may well, therefore, have entered this virtual reality environment with pronounced anticipation and expectation. Another difference is that a computer produced the visuals in Osmose whereas the changes in light and colour, noted by the others, were again spontaneous.
What we can say is that, similar to accounts from people unaffected by drugs or sensory stimuli and those on hallucinogens, a lot of people who have experienced Osmose have had an experience which they felt brought them closer to something, either themselves or nature, and some of them also had a strong, positive emotional response that would have a lasting effect on them.
Osmose is being one with nature on a micro-level rarely experienced... except maybe in a meditative state.
This short experience will surely mark me for the rest of my days.
Some people were moved to declare a desire to continue to explore further the experiences they had, not just in the Osmose environment, but also in their ordinary life. Others related their experience with similar experiences they have had in religious or spiritual practice. For example:
I don't have the words to express how I feel but I will try - the closest experience I have had to this is coming out into the bush in the Blue Mountains near Sydney in the middle of a 12 day "in silence" meditation retreat - and having intense clarity, intense... in the experience of multiple worlds and their light extraordinaire.
Conclusions
Art, in whichever form, has, as an intrinsic value, the use of sensate objects, even if it is something seemingly abstract such as colour or sound. In whichever way the artist uses to convey the meaning which they are trying to convey, be it metaphor, representation, juxtaposition, conceptualisation etc., it is through the concepts that we hold within us towards the objects in their work that we experience whatever it is that we experience when we encounter the piece of art. It is these 'inner' concepts that the artist is trying to manipulate in order to give the audience the experience or feeling that they wish to portray.
People from many cultures and over many centuries have used ritual and ceremony, containing visual and aural representation, to induce in themselves and their audience a sense of 'other;' a way to see or experience life that is different from their everyday reality. Such people would be, for example, certain shamans, medicine men and artists. These people strive for such experiences. Some of these people have used, and still do use, drugs to induce these altered states.
Artists from many disciplines have attempted to deal with, convey or induce mystical or spiritual experiences to or in their audience. Artists working with virtual reality, such as Char Davies, are attempting to give people an experience beyond their more ordinary experience of life. In this they are clearly succeeding, as we can tell from their audience's reactions. Char Davies describes her goal with virtual reality as that of "exploring its potential as a site not for escape but return, not towards some transcendent technological sublime but as a context for undoing our habitual perceptions and refreshing our sense of being here now."
Virtual reality has the same limitations as any other form of art in its dependence on the use of sensate objects to create effect. Because of this the 'mystical' experience of someone in Osmose would also be categorised in Deikman's lower classification of mystical experiences, 'untrained-sensate.' People who have obviously had experience, in one form or another, of spiritual practice have declared the links between their previous experiences and their experience in Osmose. This is illustrated in the following two examples.
I've practiced with astral projection through meditation, but Char Davies this is truly magnificent. I had a realisation of immediate experience.
The body and the mind too often work separately. It is good to have a tool like this to reunite them in twenty minutes. The future is reassuring if technology can give us in a few moments what people try to achieve in 20 years of yoga."
According to these accounts, their experience was of a seemingly immediate entry into a state of mind similar to that which can be achieved through intense and prolonged spiritual practice. Could, then, Osmose and similar environments be regarded as a 'fast-track' to mystical experience? Could it have such an effect for certain types of individual, perhaps for those whose psychological structures are attuned to such forms of experience? If the accounts of Osmose users are accepted, we must allow that virtual reality environments such as Osmose can be a direct way for artists to evoke such strong 'transcendental' experiences in their audience. Not many other art forms, certainly not in modern times, evoke so many strong responses in those exposed to it.
If we accept what Charles Tart says about ASC's always being induced by the combination of the persons psychological mind set and the outward factors involved then we might reach the conclusion that these experiences are all 'in the mind' of the person. Also most of the accounts from people experiencing Osmose are not couched in 'mystical' language to describe the experience, so it would be safe to assume that most people didn't see their experience as particularly 'mystical'. However, perhaps a lack of experience in describing their inner states and emotions and, therefore, a lack of vocabulary about this and other forms of ASC mean that they did not describe it in terms that carry clear, formal and objective meaning.
Without breaching the subject of whether mystical experience is 'real' in the first place, it seems to me that the evidence of Osmose users taken together offers many striking parallels to descriptions to be found in the mainstream body of ASC's or 'mystical experiences'. Osmose seems to be able to tap into similar areas and evoke similar sensual, psychological and 'spiritual' responses to those recorded in the mystical tradition and thereafter, experiences concerned with religious meditation, contemplation or even drug-induced or assisted attempts to alter levels of consciousness.
William James pointed to the common reference between mystical experiences in the mystical tradition of unity and 'oneness'. This is also the one single reference that links most of the Osmose accounts to each other - 'oneness' within oneself and within all the perceived world of creation. In this respect, Osmose can be regarded as clearly linked to the mystical tradition and its variants. The extent to which these are 'real' experiences or not, we cannot state objectively and verifiably. That is the nature of 'mystical' experience, intensely subjective, emotional and always reliant on the expressive limitations of language after the event. That they are as real for the person undergoing them as that person believes is certainly true, and, judged by the accounts of Osmose users, it seems that, in many cases, a substantial benefit and enhancement has been made to their personal or inner well being through their encounter with this kind of virtual reality.