During Andrew’s recent retreat, The Bardo of Becoming, Virtual Retreat, Zoomed via Menla with Professor Thurman, the Professor talked about getting Hollywood types to produce videos and multimedia experiences to help children with terminal diseases—to sensitize them to what would likely be coming when this life would be over, and they would be transitioning to the next. I was interested to see if the Oculus Quest (2) had any content that simulated some of the Bardo experiences that we heard about during the meetings, particularly those of Dr. Thurman’s vivid descriptions from “The Book of the Dead.”
With Halloween just a couple of weeks away, I found one, Freddy’s Nightmares (on Elm Street) that did a pretty good job of scaring me a few times, in a short seven minute journey that also reminded me of the advice Andrew’s was given, and passed on to us, to watch horror movies in preparation for the Bardo.
This Nightmare was VR realistic and I was genuinely frightened more than once. It was great! Then, it weirdly segued directly into a sexy pool party music video that was so crazy, so different from the “Nightmare” genre that I felt like I was really out of this world. It was like a lucid dream in the daytime. Like a real Bardo transition might be. I was expecting Freddy to jump out at any moment, but of course that didn’t happen. It was a mindf***. I wonder if anyone else with an Oculus device has tried this program?
There are some other posts that discuss the VR experience and I thought I’d put this out here since many Night Clubbers have taken one or more of Andrew’s Bardo courses and might be interested in checking this out. The new Oculus Quest 2 is “reasonably” priced at $299 and can be returned up to 30 days from purchase, so you can try it out to see if it works for you, or not.
I did not attend the recent retreat but have a great interest in using VR to simulate various night practices. I have yet to use any VR device but have been collecting a shortlist of programs that might be of interest to lucid dreamers or bardo practitioners.
Aside from the games/experiences mentioned in the “other posts” you link above I have a few that you might like to check out:
Richie’s Plank Experience: for flying dream practice + fear of heights or falling … Andrew worked with Jordan Quaglia on a paper based on people’s first experiences. Here is the video for that:
Jurgen Ziewe is a long time astral projector or OBE explorer and a computer artist. His VR experiences look great. Check out this page and also this one to see his work.
SoundSelf is dubbed a technodelic and attempts to simulate a psychedelic experience.
I am into the immersive, meditative experience more than games. If you are interested in discussing this further, I would love to explore right along with you!
I’ve been using the Quest for quite a while with Richie’s Plank and Tripp as my primary VR experiences. I’m not much for the games. There is even a nightmare mode to Richie’s elevator which is quite scary, full of darkness and spiders! Very scary. I also tried SoundSelf and would like to see/hear it in a VR mode. There’s a program that comes with Tripp that is a lot like SoundSelf, so maybe I’ll just go deeper into that. Like you, “I am into the immersive, meditative experience more than games.” Thoughts?
Barry, do you have a link to the Freddy’s Nightmare’s VR experience you are talking about? I couldn’t find it in a quick search.
You mention Tripp, I consider that to have a light Bardo-like vibe at times. In the transition stages of that I often like to think “farewell, farewell…onward. Onward!” as a kind of practice.
Not VR, but I’m finding the series The Haunting of Bly Manor to be very interesting from a dream/bardo perspective.
Hey Barry, still not finding it; finding a lot of stuff that doesn’t seem to be what you’re referring to. Please provide a link or URL if you can, otherwise I shall conclude I’m not meant to see this and move on.
In any case, speaking of cool 360 video dreamlike experiences, I highly recommend DREAMTIME: A Deep Dream VR Experience. A Youtube search for Dreamtime 360 should have the proper result close to the top. It looks like this:
Hi there - I found Freddy in the Quest under Oculus TV. Fun! But then unfortunately I couldn’t stop watching all of the scary stuff. I’ll probably pay for it tonight
Andrew has said, the word “fear” comes from the same root as “fare,” as in a payment. No need for a “fear stimulus” these days, plenty enough to go around for us to take into our dreams. We just got a bonus via Quest 3-D.
