Meditating in Virtual Worlds

I've been having a wonderful time in VR, with its vast selection of social experiences, unique environments, and immersive games. However, one thing that I did not expect was how much VR would contribute to the practice of meditation. Here are a few VR titles that I recommend for those who are looking for peace of mind through mesmerizing digital spaces.

Personally, I've frequently found it difficult to meditate. I've got way too much intrusive clutter inside my head to quiet it on my own, so using audio and visual cues like the ones provided in these apps has successfully helped me focus on relaxation. These apps also demonstrate the biggest advantage that VR has over other mediums: its focus on engaging three-dimensional environments. Providing beautiful, relaxing spaces that can be readily accessed through a headset is something no other form of media can do, not even AR.

Of the VR meditation apps I've tried so far, I've divided them into three categories: environmental, abstract, and environmental/abstract. Environmental apps place the user in vivid, calm environments as a means of encouraging relaxation, while abstract apps take cues from the user to create patterns of colors, lights, shapes and sounds to induce a meditative state. The environmental/abstract apps combine both approaches, creating a balance that neither of the other categories can achieve by themselves. 

Environmental apps are the most common type of VR meditation app that I've found. Of those, the most ambitious is Guided Meditation VR. What you will get with this title is plenty of customization, from the kinds of guided meditations you want to do to the kind of music you'd like as part of your meditation (if any). Yet what I found to be most impressive about this title is the sizable selection of environments from which the user can choose to meditate. The selection includes locations such as tropical islands, forests and mountain ranges, each rendered in high detail. Furthermore, users can either find a specific spot within the environments to meditate, or they can select the option that lets them drift through and above the environments as they engage in meditation. 

There are two other environmental apps I would recommend for mediation in VR: Nature Treks and Playne. Nature Treks is mostly a walking simulator that provides a selection of natural environments; within the environments, users can choose the time of day and add items such trees, flowers and rocks to the landscape. Treks also features a meditation feature, where users will be placed within a glowing lotus blossom where they can meditate in the habitat of their choice. On the other hand is Playne, where users find themselves on a deserted island. The goal is to build an environment on the island while learning existential and meditative lessons from a fox spirit guide. Playne isn't the most graphically impressive app of the ones named here, but it is still very good at what it does and is the most interactive title that I list in this post.

Abstract apps in VR are harder to come by, and many of them are kaleidoscopic audio/video experiences that run for a short amount of time. The notable exception among these apps is Soundself: A Technodelic. I can't adequately describe it in my own words, so I'll quote the Steam page for Soundself: "An exhilarating journey into altered states of consciousness, powered by your own voice. Explore a hypnotic world of light, color, and sound. Emergent music harmonizes with you, as you drift through strobing tunnels of light, impossible shapes, and deep into a meditative trance." 

Soundself was the first app that I encountered that generates visuals, sounds and rhythms based on my voice and I'm still amazed at how effective it is. It excels at harmonizing with the user to create a meditative state; as such, Soundself has become one preferred meditation apps. Users can choose how long each session is, and they can also turn off the strobe effects if they prefer. Unfortunately, the biggest drawback about this app is that it was taken off of Steam last June so the creators can use it instead for medical and therapeutic purposes. (You can learn more about the non-Steam version of Soundself here.) Hopefully, once Soundself establishes itself within professional psychiatric circles, VR users will regain access to this app sometime in the future.

Good abstract apps can be hard to come by and environmental/abstract apps are even more rare, but that does not make them impossible to find. The app I found and highly recommend is DeepStates, which is a VR creation of Marc Zimmermann. DeepStates consists of six different environments from which users can choose to meditate. Each environment is extremely detailed, which significantly enhances the immersion effect. The environments include natural landscapes, a temple that consists of four geodesic domes, and a strange, non-terrestrial location. As users begin their meditation, the app generates multicolored visuals and spatial sounds to encourage relaxation. Not only do the light effects appear in front of the user but they also permeate the landscape itself, further encouraging harmonization between the user, the app, and the artificial environment in which the user is meditating.

Zimmermann has discontinued development on DeepStates and has moved on to Realms of Flow, another meditation app. I also have run into some problems with the audio features in DeepStates, and it took me some time to figure out which settings on my PC I needed to select to activate the audio in my headset. Nevertheless, I would still recommend DeepStates as a VR meditation app. It is very well designed and provides users with so many options to customize their meditations--it has the most customization options of all the apps listed in this post, which enables the users to fine-tune their meditation session to fit their preferences.