Virtual reality can create profound experiences of connection and ego dissolution comparable to psychedelic drugs, but without substances. In groundbreaking human-computer interaction (cs.HC) research, participants experienced their bodies as luminous energy forms in shared virtual spaces, allowing them to merge and connect with others in unprecedented ways. Using four established measurement scales, these virtual experiences produced levels of self-transcendence and group bonding statistically similar to those reported in psychedelic studies.
A distributed virtual reality framework called Isness-D, in which groups of people co-inhabit a shared space as luminous, diffuse bodies, can produce self-transcendent experiences statistically indistinguishable from those induced by psychedelic drugs. In a citizen-science experiment with 58 participants across an international network, scores on four standard scales—ego-dissolution, inclusion of community in self, communitas, and mystical experience—were comparable to published psychedelic studies. The findings demonstrate that distributed multi-person VR can reliably blur self-other boundaries and create intersubjective experiences of merging with others.