http://i.imgur.com/RcKnX5q.jpg
[Part 1 here](https://steemit.com/drugs/@alexbeyman/into-the-mind-virtual-reality-and-psychedelics).

My history with VR goes back to childhood. It was one of those things which defined "the future" for me. Like, I'd know it was officially the future when VR arrived. 

I remember reading early interviews with Palmer Luckey about his own disillusionment when, despite constant promises during the 1990s that VR was here, it flopped. I know how that felt because that was me too, I really felt like Luckey was a comrade of sorts when I read his accounts of feeling gutted that the dream of VR had died.

I went to a VR centric Summer camp when I was maybe 10 or 12. We had a bunch of [Forte VFX1](http://www.roadtovr.com/brief-history-of-virtual-reality/) headsets, not quite QVGA resolution but close, 256 colors, 45 degree diagonal FOV. Just fine for Hexen or Descent but not really immersive, more like looking at a 3D screen in a dark room. 

http://i.imgur.com/nXgDGrH.jpg

They had it working with Duke Nukem 3D until I arrived, that's when they were in the middle of switching over to using the Quake engine instead of BUILD and as a result did not consistently have the stereoscopic 3D working right.  

I wound up getting [pretty good](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmC6u5kwNeA) with the BUILD engine as a result of tinkering with it during the camp's duration, sector based game engines are neat. I made a couple of maps for Quake but lost interest quickly as it was comparatively unlimited in what sort of architecture you could make, which made it less interesting to me than the challenge of trying to make what you want despite the constraints of a comparatively primitive engine.  

Even those rudimentary headsets opened my eyes to the possibilities, and I wound up saving up nickels and dimes to buy my own VR headset later in life. Namely one of [these fuckin' things](http://www.amazon.com/eMagin-Z800-3DVisor/dp/B000CCYL3S).

http://i.imgur.com/YRe0bx6.jpg

800*600, 45 degree diagonal fov, not really much different than the Forte except in resolution and color depth. The head tracking sort of worked but latency was high and drift was a constant problem. 

I did have some good times with this in Quake 3, and browsing freakier parts of Second Life, but Nvidia stopped supporting it in drivers as of like 2005 so it became impossible to make it work with newer games. 

Mind you, that was all after buying, then selling an ICUITI DV920 which I was so disappointed with I didn't bother keeping it for long. There was just no place to go and try out something like this, and the figures quoted for field of view are difficult to conceptualize until you actually stick your face into it. 

http://i.imgur.com/jZUWkRS.jpg

I wanted the VR future to happen so badly that time and time again I wasted money trying to force it. Imagine what it's been like for somebody like me to witness Oculus succeeding where everybody else failed. Such that now there's an ecosystem of competitors even, like OSVR and Vive! 

Like space Jesus personally descending to Earth from his Moon igloo to bestow sparkly blessings upon us. Picture the biggest watery anime eyes anatomical constraints will allow, then quintuple it. That was my reaction. 

I've tried the DK2 and while the resolution is unacceptable, it's still such an improvement over what I've had before that I found myself making all kinds of excuses for it. Because I'm someone who has slogged through all of the shit quality HMDs until now and appreciate how difficult it was to get to this point. 

http://i.imgur.com/s4z2hjc.jpg

The head tracking is however flawless which, in conjunction with the high framerate and wide FOV, sells the illusion of reality. It could be showing you untextured polygons and it wouldn't matter, what matters is that the interface is as responsive, immersive and fluid as your brain expects it to be. It no longer feels like looking at a display, but like you're peering through an analogue "scope" at something real.

The other thing is, the content was made for it so the scale of everything relative to your body was correct. The games I played on the eMagin weren't made for VR, so the scale of everything was all wrong. I felt like I was playing with miniatures. Tiny little gun, running around a tiny environment shooting tiny enemies. 

The DK2's perfect super low latency head tracking and high framerate as well as the ~100 degree FOV compensated for the low pixel density very well. I came away thinking that the crucial pieces are all finally in place for the quality of VR we were promised by films like The Lawnmower Man. 

You'd think, having waited two decades, I could wait another month or two for the Oculus. But I happen to have a Samsung smartphone. You know where this is going I'm sure. It's an S5 so just barely not sufficient for Gear VR but I got [the nicest cardboard compatible viewer](http://www.zeiss.com/corporate/en_us/zeiss-vr-one.html) I'm aware of and have been very happy with it. (though since writing this, I did upgrade to an S6 and the Gear VR)  

http://i.imgur.com/5oamph8.jpg

The resolution's very noticeably better than the DK2, the field of view is the same so far as I can tell, what suffers is the framerate and head tracking. They're still good enough that I am never frustrated with them but having tried the Oculus I am constantly aware of every little hiccup or judder however brief. It's a matter of having already been spoiled by something better.

A lot of the content assumes you have an S6 or higher, but that's mostly remedied by turning down detail if the game allows it. The detail is much less important than ensuring as high a framerate as possible, otherwise I hope you like headaches. Low framerate anything in VR is intolerable.  

I ate 3g of dried mushrooms at 4am, as I was up all night anyway exploring the latest revision of a game I'm doing tech consulting and some minor writing for. 

I didn't actually read the NDA before signing so pardon me if I'm conservative about details, I'm sure they wouldn't want someone on their payroll identified on this particular site. I do try to be conscious of stuff like that. 

http://i.imgur.com/i28jLfY.jpg

I'd forgotten how slow the comeup is, having not done mushrooms since last Summer. I appreciate dosing is much less of a hassle than it is with NBOMEs, my usual jam, as I don't have to hold anything in my mouth and can just swallow and be done with it. I did fast the night before but ate soon afterward, I've heard that can diminish the effects(?)

The visuals were underwhelming. My usual dose is 5g, I just happened to score 3g off a friend of a friend who home grows. It really isn't enough for me. 

I love the flowing organic visuals of mushrooms but need higher doses to see any substantial amount of it. All I was really getting was stuff like texture drift and minor breathing. 

It did put me in the mushroom headspace though. Which for me is routinely age regression. It makes me 4 years old again. I have been known to take mushrooms, then run around in the woods loudly singing the theme to the 1986 Transformers movie while battling imaginary Decepticons. 

This turned out to be a really interesting state of mind to try VR in. Because while my experience normally makes me very forgiving of flaws in VR systems and appreciative of the difficulty of making it as good as it is now, 4 year old me is comparatively brutal in his assessment of what's fun, what works well and what doesn't. 

http://i.imgur.com/4VPlqO3.jpg

Kids below a certain don't know what goes into VR or videogames, they just know what they like and will flat out tell you if some part of it sucks and could be better, pointing out the emperor's nudity where nobody else will. 

I know market research with groups of kids is a thing but even more broadly, many products could benefit from the critical commentary of human beings in the 4-8 age bracket. 

So while I found myself having much more fun than usual I was also thinking to myself that this or that needs improvement. Mission Leviathan was the first app I loaded, and I found myself simultaneously impressed by it and wishing it were better. 

Like many of Fibrum's VR offerings, it's a cockpit experience where you can look down and see yourself seated in a chair, within a vehicle. In this case a submersible. You and the submersible are the only realtime polygonal assets in the "game" however, as everything you see outside the sub is just spherical pre-rendered 3D video. 

This is not a bad way to go. But they didn't make anything inside the sub react to violent occurrences outside. At one point a shark bumps you, later on an octopus throws you around but your character remains perfectly still, there's no red lights or alarms. 

I will say that as the sub lazily drifted past glittering corals growing on the exterior of a sunken ship, I found myself glad I bought the app. It's worthwhile, it could just be better than it is. 

Next I played [Caaaardboard](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dejobaangames.caaaaardboard&hl=en), the mobile VR port of [this game](http://www.dejobaan.com/aaaaa/) you may already know of on PC, wherein you throw yourself off a building and steer using your head, trying to avoid colliding with obstacles while skimming near the sides of buildings for extra points. 

http://i.imgur.com/ZDfbUvQ.jpg

Loads of fun. Far and away one of the most substantive, worthwhile titles for mobile VR, which is right now plagued with flashy but forgettable tech demos. 

You're actually looking down (not so far as to be uncomfortable, the game shifts your view further downward than you're actually looking for this reason) so there's a sense of physical descent, and speed, as you strategically decide which gaps you'll make it through and which bonus squares are worth risking it for. 

Though it was nicely polished and nothing took me out of the experience, I was never fooled into thinking it was real, the original goal of my investigation into combining VR and psychedelics. Only DXM seems to achieve that, while also rendering you unable to properly navigate the VR game world. The article I linked earlier talks about that. 

You're immersed and forget it's VR but for that matter you're also no longer a human. One guy talks about becoming a rabbit and trying to munch the grass, actually the arm rest of his chair while playing [Windlands](https://share.oculus.com/app/windlands). Not the goal of the game that I know of but whatever, that's a valid way to enjoy it. Be a rabbit if you want. [In a cup maybe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hh9lWK-iwc).

The next app I tried was [Vanguard V](http://www.vanguardv.com/?page_id=2938), by the super talented fellow who made [Proton Pulse](http://www.vanguardv.com/?page_id=5), one of the other few genuinely worthwhile mobile VR games. The soundtrack is superb and got me pumped. 

http://i.imgur.com/14YGVSy.png

I found myself moving my whole body to weave around asteroids and space junk. Just having loads of uninhibited fun, a rarity for me as I tend to be self conscious and hypercritical, thinking I could be spending time more constructively, not just letting myself enjoy something.  

It was just superbly entertaining. VR itself is superb entertainment, nothing negative to be said, simply fantastic great fun. This is the sort of experience I used to seek from seeing big budget films in theaters. I still enjoy a good movie but it's nothing remotely close to VR. Every second the HMD was off my face I just wanted to put it back on. 

The game is something like Star Fox except with a girl in flying power armor followed by a helmet shaped robot, to explain the third person view (as if that's necessary in this day and age.) The gameplay is fantastic, employing head tracking for movement but also to position the targeting reticle over several enemies at once, following which a burst of guided missiles will be sent out to destroy them. 

The dialogue was a weak point which surprised me as it says they've hired a writer. I didn't find the jokes funny, some of the exchanges were stiff or strange and the back story for the main character is uncompelling, she's just "someone who enjoys browsing the internet". The enemies also didn't have much characterization besides being bugs of some kind.

Four year old me was pissed. Make me want to shoot them! They just look like red dots, give them visible monstrous features ingame and supply some backstory as to why I hate them other than "they invaded Earth". 

http://i.imgur.com/ry2MsOD.jpg

Likewise make the main character somebody bold I can believe would be sent to fight them and make her lines and manner of speech reflect this. I want to feel pumped and ready to go out and wreck aliens, the novelty of the immersive format isn't enough. Even great gameplay isn't enough, although it's the most important thing to get right. 

Make her part of the space fleet or something. Give them rad uniforms. Show scenes of misery and devastation following attack by the aliens. Show the aliens themselves being dicks, then our rad protagonist, fired up for revenge. 

It was enough to take away some enjoyment, though the game itself was very fun and the music is outstanding. Any time I saw darkness, like when the stage ended or before the demo began, I saw all kinds of typical mushroomy CEV imagery. 

I expected to see more texture drift on ingame geometry and wonder why I didn't. Maybe because all of the games I played were very fast moving. The next title I played was [InCell](http://incell.nivalvr.com/), the sequel to [InMind](http://inmind.nivalvr.com/) (the free bait they use to get you interested in the paid sequel)

http://i.imgur.com/4eawGur.jpg

As the name implies it takes place within a human cell. The details are scientifically accurate with respect to the structure of the game environment but beyond that realism is sacrificed unrepentently on the altar of fun. Do not expect to be educated by this title, but you will appreciate accurate aspects of it like the terminology used if you have a background in biology. 

The visuals are really beautiful. Abstract and otherworldly, dreamlike, perfect for a shroom trip. You're racing along the filament you can see [here](http://rebrn.com/re/inside-a-cell-a-vesicle-is-being-pulled-along-by-a-motor-protein-225515/) as would a motor protein, except much faster. 

Like much of the [Fire Field](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Aetc_Vmjvg#t=1m27) track in F-Zero GX, rotating freely around the filament to avoid barriers and hit speed boosts. All very fun, what let me down was that the shooting gameplay from their prior title wasn't folded into this. 

http://i.imgur.com/xndOEfn.jpg

It wasn't really taxing enough just to spin around a filament, avoid barriers and hit boosts, I also wanted to be shooting at shit. Hell, give me a jump button and some special barriers that require it too. 

They do introduce a "virus wave" behind you to add tension but what's really needed is an extra layer to the gameplay, the Rez or Panzer Dragoon style multiple target shooting found in InMind. Had they blended the two together, gradually introducing more and more added gameplay mechanics as you progress further in (the way Proton Pulse does) I think the result would've been fantastic. 

That said, InCell was by far my favorite thing I experienced. There are little touches of cheeky humor in the writing, the setting is interesting and beautiful, it ran wonderfully smooth, and was really a warm, charming, inviting experience given the mindset. Very organic and congruent. 

I then tried A Time In Space II. Which is basically just a cool hands off fly around in space demo. It's paid, so the length is satisfactory, but the writing wasn't. I sense English is not the developer's first language. The little robot character was cute and never became irritating despite some instances of Engrish like "Hurry up in the spaceship". 

http://i.imgur.com/cBCALYq.jpg

I found myself marveling at the spectacle many times. Just floored by speeding through this rad looking scifi space environment. Maybe not the best mindset for it though as watching space fighters blow each other up, I kept thinking that guy probably had a family. War does not become cool just because it's in space. 

Setting aside the catastrophic loss of life should a large spacecraft be compromised there is also the loss of invaluable offworld infrastructure that could be put to use colonizing blah blah blah, my mind really goes on like that. I can't really stop it, just ignore it and enjoy the spectacle with it chattering in the background about what sort of economic impact the destruction of trillion dollar spacecrafts would have and why they wouldn't just send unmanned ships, or just missiles. 

This was the signal that I was coming down. My mind turned from HAHA RAD SPACE EXPLOSIONS to more mundane, practical matters but the lingering pleasant buzz and mild visuals made tottering through Tuscany Dive or A Chair In A Room enjoyable, just not so much that it's worth writing about. The games already listed are the ones that dominated my time until I started coming down, and I would recommend them to anyone. 

http://i.imgur.com/yIpJVeq.jpg

Even without "mycological enhancement", VR is fantastic fun. If you have anything other than a Galaxy S6, S7, Note 4 or 5+ you'll want the [VR One](http://zeissvrone.tumblr.com/) if you happen to have an S5 or iPhone 6 (though they let you download CAD files for 3D printing custom trays to fit any phone) or the [Freefly VR](https://www.freeflyvr.com/), which is adjustable to fit any phone I know about. 

I only didn't pick it myself because of the hassle of getting the phone into/out of it, compared to the easy slide in tray of the VR One, which I happened to have the correct phone for.  I did get the "GX" revision of the VR One which comes with a stick-on magnetic slider that some cardboard compatible apps require, but it comes without the elastic head strap so I've had to fashion my own. If bothered about it I can find the package and tell you the specific width of black waistband elastic I used.  

I came away feeling lucky to be alive right now, in a wealthy country, and at last in a position myself where I can afford such entertainment after years of struggling. Where usually I mentally insert all sorts of caveats into such statements about how I should be ashamed to enjoy myself this way when there are people living on the street (Vital concerns I will never lose sight of) it was great just for a short while to be a kid again, dazzled and delighted by the arrival of the VR future he dreamed about.

http://i.imgur.com/sqzWsAY.jpg