The Museum of Consciousness: Interactive, audio-based exhibits for cultivating altered states of consciousness

The Museum of Consciousness presents a collection of short audio samples designed by artists and consciousness explorers to cultivate expansive states of consciousness. The samples include mindfulness meditations, placebo highs, sound journeys, and novel introspection methods. Visitors rate each sample using Raph Milliere's 6D model of self-consciousness, which was inspired by psychedelics and meditation, and play a game guessing the curators' pre-assigned ratings. Feedback from visitors is incorporated into a regenerative system that shapes future exhibits.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The Museum of Consciousness contains exhibits by a multitude of artists, mavericks and consciousness explorers who are here to transmit their most treasured work: For the first exhibition we decided to use short, audio-based samples that are designed to cultivate and manufacture expansive states of consciousness. The range of samples encompassed by the current iteration of the museum includes mindfulness meditations, “placebo highs,” sound journeys, novel modes of introspection, and more. The structure of the museum is centered around recipes for consciousness augmentation. The museum also has an interactive component: visitors will rate the samples according to Raph Milliere’s 6D model of self-consciousness, which was inspired by the effects of psychedelics and meditation on subjective experience. Additionally, visitors will play a game in which they try to figure out the ratings that the curators had pre-assigned to the samples. Finally, visitors will have the opportunity to provide feedback to the artists, as part of the cyclically regenerative system at the heart of the museum.