Immersive Cave Environments in VR: A Tool for Exploring Altered States of Consciousness and Creativity in Archaeology

Summary

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) cave environments were used to explore altered states of consciousness and creativity in archaeological contexts. Participants experienced higher emotional arousal and spiritual engagement in the VR cave compared to an open-space environment, leading to improvements in creativity and flexible thinking. These findings indicate that VR can effectively reconstruct early human experiences and enhance our understanding of their ritualistic uses of caves.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This study explores the use of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) cave environments to investigate hypotheses concerning altered states of consciousness, creativity, and flexible thinking in archaeological contexts. Building on the premise that ancient humans used caves as sites for rituals involving altered consciousness, we recreated a virtual cave environment to simulate these experiences and examine their impact on participants’ cognitive processes. Participants engaged in pareidolic tasks within both a virtual cave and a virtual open-space environment, allowing for comparative analysis of semantic network organization and subjective experiences. Our findings show that the cave environment elicited higher emotional arousal and spiritual engagement, as well as an improvement in the aspects of creativity and flexible thinking. These results suggest that VR can serve as a powerful tool in archaeology for reconstructing early humans’ experiences and investigating their psychological and cognitive states, thus providing new insights into their use of caves for mind-altering or ritualistic purposes. This interdisciplinary approach contributes to both cognitive archaeology and the development of immersive VR technologies in scientific research.

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