What do you know about "Mood Glasses"?

I'm not ahead of you but can share some things :

First, I have a blue light that I use in the winter that gives the same color as a clear blue sky. You're not supposed to stare straight at it, just to have it in your field of view. It helps with waking up when everything is still dark, and the manufacturer claims that it MAY help with mood, MAY help with seasonal depression. It's a lot of mays but I do believe it helps with those things. Mine is made by Phillips. Never tried it during a session but I may (hehe) just do that now that you gave me the idea.

Second, if you check reccomandations for buying a tent for winter camping, you'll come across some info about choosing a bright color for the interior fabric, like orange, because during an expedition you might be stuck inside for days and need some cheering up. Anecdotal, but interesting. Seems there's some truth to this thing.

Third, you can get a cheap VR headset that you slip you smartphone inside, might be worth a try with this if you can find the right videos or still images.

And fourth, years ago a company was selling glasses with colored lights built in for use with hypnosis audios and meditation, I believe they were pretty expensive, don't have any more info about them sadly... 

Hope some of this was useful !

Posted by: @zentai

And fourth, years ago a company was selling glasses with colored lights built in for use with hypnosis audios and meditation, I believe they were pretty expensive, don't have any more info about them sadly... 

Hope some of this was useful !

Good lord, those things have been around for dog's years. Before LEDs it was just blinking lights in blinders hooked up to a knockoff Walkman.

I got a phone VR headset some time ago to mess around with, do you know where any of the vids might be? 

@kaygo

There's water diving vids on YouTube that are very cool but would be too intense for a session, pretty sure I'd panic. Too much moving around. But I've seen relaxation videos, fish tanks with low lighting, soothing colors, maybe they could work ?

You can find some spirals and flashing lights on porn sites but they're all "brainwashing" videos and I get a bad vibe about them, they don't feel right to me. Many off them on the 'hub.

Google had cardboard VR glasses at some point, so there's some stuff on their appstore, but I don't remember seeing what you're looking for. Might be worth a check, it's been a while since I looked.

And you can get apps that just "doubles" a normal video and adjust it for VR, so it's not 3D but it fills your entire vision. I think one was called simply "VR theater" but not certain, it worked pretty well.

Sorry that I can't point you directly to something, I didn't go very far in the whole VR thing... oh check your phone temperature, they get pretty hot in there after some time. 

@zentai

I just meant the color therapy ones. I have a player app that will work.

@kaygo

Sorry, got stuck on the "VR + Aneros" part and got carried away... oops.

Don't know of any specific video for color therapy.

Edit :  found this 36 minutes of color therapy

Starting from there you'll see different videos with different color transition speed, etc. 

On the Google app store under Light therapy, there's a bunch of stuff that could work, depending on exactly what you want to do. I just downloaded "Chromotherapy" and it seems like it could be a start. You can adjust some settings but it's pretty basic.  Might try it with the VR headset later today, will report back here if I do.

Take care and keep us posted on your findings.

@zentai

I can't find one made specifically for Cardboard, but the headset i got came with a remote that acts as a mouse cursor, so I can still use the apps that are there. There's a really good binaural beat generator that I'm going to try, if i can keep it running in background with the chroma app going in foreground, that'd be swell.

Mine came with a remote that looked promising but it's... junk.  Always losing connection. But for the cost of the headset, no miracles were expected. Cardboard only has a magnet on a cardboard hinge that you use to "tap" the screen in a single spot but at least it always works, looks like what you have is better than both. 

I looked around a little more and couldn't find a dedicated chromotherapy vid or app optimised for VR, so it looks like for now we have to make do and run two apps like you suggested. It would be great to be surrounded by different colors and be able to look around.

All in all this looks like an interesting addition to the toolbox. Glad you shared your idea.

@zentai

YT has a bunch of "10 hours of solid/cycling color" videos, people use them for party ambience or streaming on their smart TVs, or just to have something playing on it so you don't have this ugly blank monolith the middle of the room. 

@kaygo

Hehe they even have goofy titles like "Super HD 4K 2D 3D 4D full screen 10 hours of solid orange" but they're not that hilarious when you see the millions of views ! Now to find the right one... 

I think that one of the smart RGB lights, like the Hue, could work well in the right setting.

I hope other people will chime in, surely someone used colored ambiance light for sessions and could share how it improved things (or not). It would be pretty cool to discover that for example, green lighting improves results for a substantial number of people.  

Didn't get a chance to give this a real honest try yet, any results on your end ? 

@zentai I’ll chime in, sure...

In my aneros sessions I am less sensitive to light and don’t really care about it either way. I am too lost in my head to pay attention to it.

But with a partner, perhaps because there is a much more visual aspect, there are many types of lights that I cannot stand. I have become very particular about bright lights and direct lights (except sun), I can’t tell you why. For years I thought that various partners dimmed the lights because of self consciousness, but now I suspect it was because low and indirect lighting is just more pleasant than direct artificial light. Colored lights are nice too, but no one color seems better than others for me. I love Christmas lights because it creates a very diffuse light with no strong source. And candlelight is by far the best, for the soft yellow light and the dancing shadows. So I’m chiming in about light and ambience in general, not about colors, for which I have no preference.

@divine_o

It's not about a preference of color, it's about the effect of color on your brain. Wear a set of lenses tinted blue when the sky is gray and overcast. It'll look just like a clear blue sky (Like this photo I took with my blue glasses over the camera lens; the actual sky wasn't as vibrant). Besides that psychological aspect, there's theories about your brain expending one chemical or another to process different wavelengths of the light spectrum, thereby either creating a balance, or even favourable imbalance. Consider how wearing amber lenses allow you to stare at a screen all day without the migraines you'd get without them. You're still looking at the same bright screen, but certain wavelengths are prevented from reaching your eyes.