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` m a p s • v o l u m e X n u m b e r 3 • c r e a t i v i t y 2 0 0 0
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`Psychedelics and the Creation of Virtual Reality
`
`Excerpted from an interview with Mark Pesce at the 1999 AllChemical Arts conference
`
`MAPS: How have psychedelics affected your creative
`process?
`
`Mark Pesce: I(cid:213)m not sure that I(cid:213)d be doing any of the work
`that I(cid:213)m doing now. I don(cid:213)t know. I think I(cid:213)d probably be
`some silly software engineer
`working in New England,
`unenlightened and bored
`with life, without
`psychedelics. I can almost
`guarantee that. My use of
`psychedelics and my
`intellectual career essen-
`tially began synonymously
`somewhere in the first or
`second year of college. And
`so there was an opening up
`that came from the psyche-
`delic experience, which
`resulted in my becoming
`attracted to certain types of
`ideas(cid:201)certain types of
`research. It(cid:213)s not that it
`established the agenda, but
`it gave me a magnetic
`center(cid:209)that(cid:213)s what the
`Gurdjieffians would call it.
`But a sense of self that is
`very particular. And from
`that, what I had to do was
`just follow where that center would take me, and listen to
`it. And the times in my life when I(cid:213)ve gotten fucked up are
`the times when I haven(cid:213)t done that. By the time I got a
`little bit older, I was into what Joseph Campbell would call
`(cid:210)following your bliss.(cid:211) Well, my bliss was revealed through
`the psychedelic experience. It wasn(cid:213)t achieved through the
`psychedelic experience, but it was revealed through the
`psychedelic experience. Now, I won(cid:213)t make any attribu-
`tions to what the divine is, but if psychedelics reveal the
`divine, or allow you to eminentize it, to see it physically,
`or this sort of thing, wouldn(cid:213)t it make sense for that
`moment to be synonymous with the moment of revealing
`of what your bliss is? I mean it would be sort of silly for a
`divine being to show itself, and to not show you what you
`are. That would only be a half revelation, because behold-
`ing the divine also means beholding the divine in yourself,
`and that(cid:213)s part of what you are(cid:209)what you(cid:213)re doing, why
`you(cid:213)re there.
`
`MAPS: Do you ever use psychedelics for problem-solving
`tasks? Where you have a specific question in mind, and
`then you take psychedelics in search of an answer?
`
`Mark: They(cid:213)ve certainly been facilitators or catalysts for
`that. The most striking
`example is all the
`cyberspace protocols that
`came to me. I mean
`(cid:210)wham,(cid:211) it came to me like
`that, and I just saw them. I
`got the big picture, but the
`big picture said, (cid:210)Okay,
`well you know roughly
`how to make it work. Now
`you have to go in and do
`the detail, right?(cid:211) I spent
`three years doing that
`detail work, and out of that
`detail work came VMRL,
`and some stuff which
`you(cid:213)ll probably still see in a
`couple of years. So in that
`case it was very direct(cid:201)
`I(cid:213)ve done a bunch of
`research work on the
`ethics and the effects of
`virtual environments. And
`that also was catalyzed
`specifically in a psyche-
`delic experience. You know, it was like (cid:210)snap.(cid:211) It(cid:213)s a
`moment of clarity. Not like the same AA moment of
`clarity, right? But it(cid:213)s a moment of clarity, you see it. Just
`because you see it, doesn(cid:213)t mean that you(cid:213)re immediately
`able to talk about it. I spent six months with that, and
`managed to sort of piece it together, and say, (cid:210)Okay, well
`I(cid:213)ve got this great tapestry up there. All right, I think I see
`a relationship within the elements, let me spend some
`time with it and get it codified into something that(cid:213)s
`visibly solid in feel.(cid:211)
`
`MAPS: It seems to me that one of the things that you are
`getting at is the idea of working with the inspirations. I
`know that there are a lot of people who take psychedelics
`and have inspiring thoughts, or get into an inspiring
`realm, and then come out of that and then they(cid:213)re just
`looking for their next trip, where they enter into that
`inspiring place again. But they don(cid:213)t actually ever do
`
`BUNGIE - EXHIBIT 1041
`Bungie, Inc. v. Worlds Inc. - IPR2015-01264, -01268, -01269, -01319, -01321, & -01325
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` m a p s • v o l u m e X n u m b e r 3 • c r e a t i v i t y 2 0 0 0 5
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`anything with it. So how do you bring it back?
`What is it? Is it just so inspiring that it causes
`you(cid:209)when you are straight(cid:209)to think, (cid:210)Yeah,
`I gotta get to work on this!(cid:211)
`
`Mark: I know that there are people who just go
`right back to that space, but I think that if you
`go right back to that space you(cid:213)re just going to
`be in the same space again. But with the same
`question. And where(cid:213)s that going to get you?
`In the cases that I(cid:213)m talking about, the vision
`doesn(cid:213)t fade for a second, right. It(cid:213)s still there.
`It(cid:213)s still as tangible as it was the moment it
`came. It(cid:213)s not psychedelic. It(cid:213)s not possessed
`with that same eminence, but it(cid:213)s still as
`present. I could ignore it, I suppose, although
`I(cid:213)ve never done that and I wouldn(cid:213)t really
`want to know how it felt, because I think that
`I would feel enormously frustrated inside(cid:209)
`that I(cid:213)d gotten this thing and I wasn(cid:213)t doing
`anything with it.
`
`In particular with all this stuff that(cid:213)s become
`VRML, and all that. I didn(cid:213)t get all the details.
`I got the chunks. And part of that is, you know,
`I get the chunks, and it(cid:213)s software. Well, I(cid:213)ll
`just go work on it. You know. And I(cid:213)ll turn it
`up. And I(cid:213)ll sit and I(cid:213)ll think on it, and think
`on it, and think on it, talk it out with other
`people. I mean after I did that, I actually talked
`it out with other people while we were
`
`tripping. And this is a case of specific usage.
`I(cid:213)d go back into the space and take a look at
`specific parts of it again. And, the funny thing
`is I(cid:213)d be very methodical and rational(cid:209)
`which is not my normal mode of experience.
`Normally I(cid:213)m just (cid:210)experiential.(cid:211) But in
`these cases I was very methodical.
`
`MAPS: While you were tripping?
`
`Mark: Yes! And I had to go back to the person
`I was working with, who was my partner in
`the endeavor when we were doing it. He
`understood that, and came right into the space
`with me, and we were methodical. We were
`giggly and all that stuff, but we were methodi-
`cal about it. And so we were able to really say,
`(cid:210)Okay, well here(cid:213)s this block right here. Okay,
`let(cid:213)s take that block and go from one side of
`the block to the other side of the block.(cid:211) And
`we did. We did this on a number of occasions
`over about a month period. And managed to
`take everything that I had gotten and really
`get it out.
`
`MAPS: What particular compounds were
`you working with?
`
`Mark: That was LSD, I think entirely. There
`were some mushrooms at the beginning, but
`I think that at that time it was entirely LSD. ¥
`
`“I’m not sure that I’d be doing any of the work that I’m doing now. I don’t know.
`
`I think I’d probably be some silly software engineer working in New England,
`
`unenlightened and bored with life. Without psychedelics,
`
`I can almost guarantee that.”
`
`Mark Pesce (www.hyperreal.org/~mpesce) co-invented Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) in 1994. He is the author of a new
`book, The Playful World: How Technology Transforms our Imagination [Random House].