PODCAST: Virtual Reality and the Future of Psychedelics
The following podcast was originally published on the Brom Podcast Page, by Empath Ventures. The Brom Podcast covers the emerging psychedelics industry from a business, investing and social impact perspective. Episodes feature Empath's Founder, Brom Rector interviewing psychedelic CEOs, scientists, investors, and other change-makers operating in the weird, wonderful world of psychedelic medicine. You can see the original publishing here.
Full Transcript:
Brom Rector:
All right, we are here with Lyle, the co founder of MTO. Digital. How's it gonna? Sound for you guys to be out here? Yeah, I'm excited to check out this thing. What is this thing that we're gonna be playing around with over here?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah, so this is our mark company's very first digital therapeutic. It's called Sound self. And it is a biofeedback voice driven experience using haptics lights and an audio feedback to create a techno Delic experience meaning creates very similar brainwave states, we've been doing a few pilot studies showing that from an EKG or ECG, rather, that you're creating the same brainwave states as a full dose of psilocybin and a matter of 20 minutes using this technology. So you're going to be laying down on this vibroacoustic bed that has four subwoofers embedded in it, and you'll be feeling your voice, you'll be connected to these mind plays Cassina ABS glasses, which are audio visual stimulation glasses, and headphones, and you'll be toning which is essentially any sort of prolonged vocalization you know, any sort of singing or humming chanting, even screaming into your mic will create a biofeedback experience that transports you into this light sound frequency dimension of your own bio rhythms. No, well, let's do it. Then next version, like how we're rebuilding it is literally going to be like gods talking to you. You can do like your own audio recordings. So saying like, you want to program some positive affirmation, yeah, we're also going to have the ability for like loved ones to send info. So your parents or your or your friends like saying, awesome, you know, affirmations to actually have encoded in the software. So keep your eyes closed for the entire experience. And there'll be a nice guided meditation for you. And then I will see you on your way out.
Brom Rector:
[When asked about his reaction] It's like, so I've tried I've tried like the guided meditation stuff, but this but the difference between this and just like having the bed with these subwoofers and everything. It's like night and day, man. It really is almost like a psychedelic experience in a way. It's intense and super. Just like just sitting on that bed. It's like vibrating my organs.
We are here with Lyle max and the co founder of Entheo Digital, and we just tried out the SoundSelf. What did you call it technodelic experience. It was pretty insane, man. Like, I couldn't even stand it for the first like three minutes. It was like a little it was like so intense, you know, in a good way, obviously, like not in a bad way. And just compared to some of these other Oculus apps that I've tried, which, you know, it's like the footage is a little grainy. And it's cool. But you do it two or three times. And then that's it, you don't really feel the need to go back. But this was like, fully immersive, even though it wasn't actually using virtual goggles. Like it was like, what are those things called?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah, so we've been using ABS glasses, which are audio visual stimulation glasses.
Brom Rector:
And the idea is that like, why don't you explain to me the whole thing in more detail, just like what exactly is the idea of the sound self? And like, who's sort of the target user and that sort of thing?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah. So sound self was initially created for the entertainment market. It's been in development for almost 10 years, where my co founder Robin had this this oneness experience at Burning Man, back in 2012, as many people do, and he was already a game developer and sound designer and was really, you know, had an epiphany around how to create these experiences where you could use the voice use biofeedback and use the emerging technology of VR back in 2012. That was right when the Oculus was starting to come out. So now, you know, Flash fast and fast forward, you know, whatever, nine years, and we've been we've published it on them major gaming platforms meaning like steam, Oculus HTC and have had success seeing people coming in and out of the experience. So I think we've had easily over 10,000 downloads of the of the game.
Brom Rector:
Is that sound self itself? Is that another title? So if you go to the store you searched SoundSelf you could find it?
Lyle Maxson:
Yes, yeah, yeah, you could, you could buy it now for a VR headset. But what we did and quickly realized anecdotally was that people were using this for psychedelic therapy, they were having these experiences, where they were using it before after their psychedelic session, or just using it as a standalone experience without psychedelics, and having the same type of epiphanies coming out, like curing things like eating disorders, like we've heard crazy, amazing stories. By using this tack, and as the psychedelic industry started to blossom, we really quickly realized that we can start to tailor this to a more therapeutic experience, and actually remove the VR headset, and use these these light therapy glasses to induce a much more relaxing state. And then also allowing it to be you know, you talked about replayability with these other VR experiences, having the these lights strobing while your eyes are closed, allow you to basically have a new experience every single time based off of your voice. So the whole experience, you're using your voice, you're toning into a microphone, and that's creating haptics, vibration is what haptic technology does, along with feedback from the lights. And then also your audio comes back in this choir, this echoing effect. And that whole experience is the technodelic.
Brom Rector:
Yeah, it's interesting like it there. I think that's the one thing that is very different between this and some of those other apps that are out there. It's like, when I did the ohm, I heard the ohm echoing in the headset, because there was the mic. And then if I owned like, loudly enough, I guess the bit the sub fire would sort of kick in and like vibrate my whole being, which is super dope. And just not something that can be replicated in those like regular Oculus headsets. And I think that I was kind of surprised, I initially thought like, Oh, these little glasses with the lights, like what is this, you know, compared to the regular VR headset, but I think it's actually maybe better because like, the VR headsets that we have now are good, but they're not there yet. You know, like, the video is still little grainy, if it like shifts on your face, it's like out of focus. Whereas this, you know, Tommy was describing it as laying down on the beach with your eyes closed, and the sun's like in your face. And there's all these weird like patterns that kind of come up. So it actually felt like more like a natural kind of psychedelic experience. So I could see this being useful, like you were describing, if someone is curious about psychedelics, but afraid to like, take that plunge. This can kind of warm you up to like a weird, experiential medicine type experience, which is pretty cool.
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah. And I mentioned before we started recording that even if you have done psychedelics in the past, you're still, you know, I at least get anxious. And, you know, there's this, there's this moment of hesitation before going in. And this is a really nice way to prime your body dropping into your body before the session, and it's helpful for the clinician to see how people respond to an altered state without giving them a full dose and knowing they're going on a six to eight hour ride, right?
Brom Rector:
Yeah. And this, I mean, it's like, this thing is intense. Like, there's no drugs involved, but it is very intense. Like I was saying it almost like within two minutes. I was like, I think I need a little break for a second on my first time because it's like, it's serious. I think it would actually do a good job of letting a therapist sort of know, like, how does this patient respond to being in sort of like an intense, full, like hallucinogenic type space. What were you saying about some study that showed that it replicated some similar brain patterns as like psilocybin? Can you speak more to that?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah, we've done a few you know, quantitative research studies now, using EEG and measuring brainwave states, and it really does show very similar like almost a fingerprint of the brain on a full dose of psilocybin versus the brain after 20 minutes of SoundSelf. And that means shutting off of the default mode network increase in theta increase in alpha. And what's really unique to the experience is an increase in gamma brainwaves as well.
Brom Rector:
Okay, so what is the gamma Brainwave?
Lyle Maxson:
So gamma is like more of the low frequency, it's more in charge of like, the creative process. It's like that kind of flow state is really what gamma does.
Brom Rector:
And you don't get that with psychedelics?
Lyle Maxson:
Well, no, usually digital therapeutics are like if you you know, use a muse headset, or if you use like all the the hardware that's out there now, a lot of it is dropping, you're into more theta state, and doing the more alpha state but the gamma and that flow is pretty unique to our experience.
Brom Rector:
That's interesting. I probably need to read up on my different brainwave Greek letters. I'm not, I'm not too familiar with them, but that's really interesting. Um, and the goal so the goal is that you are, you have this company, you're sort of like raising money for the company now and you're going to try and start like selling this sort of hardware plus software package to Who who is the target audience? Is it like clinicians? Therapists? Yeah, biohacking centers?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah, so it's all b2b right now. And we are specifically focused on psychedelic therapists. We have a closed beta happening. So we have about 30 clinicians using it now. Yeah. And we just rolled rolled out the product. So essentially, what's different about us from a normal startup is that our team has been working together for three years. So we have a VR publishing company called Andromeda where we publish this, and another title called Audio trip to the mainstream gaming markets. And that company is still growing and doing amazing but Robin and myself stepped down. We're still active advisors for Andromeda, but we're focused fully on, on pushing this into the digital therapeutics realm.
Brom Rector:
Yeah. And how did you just so people like sort of understand your story and how you guys came together? Like, how did you actually get involved in this whole psychedelic therapy space? You know, like, how did you get led to this place that you're at now?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah, so I've been a big bio hacker for a long time. And I was in the music industry for about eight years, actually creating and producing music festivals. So I had an agency called the courtiers and we would go around and create these immersive, interactive, you know, interactive experiences using mixed reality using biohacking technology. Well, you know, working with Insomniac in their VIP center, working in campgrounds, and building out these these spaces. So I've met Robin, because I actually brought in my business partner for MTO, I brought him in to curate a sound self experience. And that was when it was in its early phases of development, and really quickly realized the power of software. You know, I was obsessed with working in music festivals, because I saw that it could create such a big impact. You know, there's 100,000 Millennials there. They're all these seekers, they're using psychedelics, they're, you know, looking for human connection, they're going into this mystical world. And, you know, coming out with these these amazing, you know, a lot of times, yes, it is a lot of partying, but there's a way to curate it, where there's yoga stages and workshops, and I was doing all of that as well in the space. But then when I came across software, I was like, Holy shit, that's not a $400 festival ticket that you have to fly halfway across the world for, it's a $30 piece of software that you could just download. And now you have this transformative experience that you could access at any time.
Brom Rector:
Yeah, so it allows you to scale it much more. That's really cool. And then the rest of the team I know like, what is sort of their backgrounds? Like how are I know that one of your guys sort of has the What did you say like the only PhD in digital therapeutics?
Lyle Maxson:
That we are aware of, anyway.
Brom Rector:
You have a pretty interesting team. Do you want to maybe like talk about some of their backgrounds or anything?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah. So Robin, my business partner, as I mentioned, he's been a game designer for Yeah, I think going on, like 15 years, he was the original creator of sound self. He's incredible. He's done some TED Talks. He's very deeply and he was basically utilizing the term digital therapeutic before there was a word for it. And you know, really preempting this market of not just within psychedelic therapy, but how can we use these technologies and where him and I agree on the most is, you know, long term vision is getting people off of pharmaceuticals, and actually being able to be prescribed, you know, quote, unquote, video games, to relieve yourself of a lot of these mental health conditions that you know, the world is facing. So that's robbing him and I are the kind of the creative powerhouses behind the the team. And we're like the very much like out there, you know, so we have two other executives. One is Sandeep Prakash, that you mentioned that he's our Chief Science Officer. So he actually came to us using sound cell for his PhD for his thesis. And has he's responsible for our second research study around that. So we hired him full time. And then we have Michael festa, who I think he was the first hire at survios. And I if I'm not mistaken, survios is still the biggest VR company today. So he has been in the industry for years, he was responsible for essentially going to Asia and seeing the virtual reality market blossom, including VR arcades, we call them LBE location based experiences. And he opened up 500 locations here in the US. So he's a distribution mastermind. He's also responsible for doing a lot of acquisitions within survios. And then he left and joined Springboard VR, which is the platform essentially, that all these LBE is used to facilitate these VR experiences. But with COVID happening, obviously, that was a huge issue. And then fast actually led them to being acquired. So he's like an acquisition, Master distribution master and an amazing, he's our new COO. So that's our that's our four executives.
Brom Rector:
Seems like a strong team. You mentioned going towards this future where people can be prescribed like video games or digital therapeutics. The word prescribe sort of suggests that the FDA is involved in this somehow. Is there a point where this stuff gets like put through an FDA trial and actually It becomes like a medicine that insurance can reimburse.
Lyle Maxson:
So a new classification for FDA is called a de novo. And there's a guy named Adam Ghazali, who's very prominent figure. He's kind of unofficial adviser for us. And he owns a company called Akili. He owns a few companies neuro scape. He's also a partner in jazz ventures, which is a venture fund that is funding a lot of digital therapeutics right now. And last year, around this time, he had the first ever FDA cleared video game for doctors to prescribe for ADHD. So now kids can literally so these are game now that doctors can actually prescribe. Yeah, and it's a cell phone game, and it creates new neural pathways by them playing this game that effectively could get them off of their Ritalin and Adderall by creating new neural synapses playing this game a few times a week, that's actually enjoyable for the kids playing it.
Brom Rector:
Right. So you say you think this is something that Anthea is going to pursue, like actually pushing a clinical trial pushing this to the clinical trial pathway and seeing what happens?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah, so right now we're very much in the iterative process. You've tried the the beta version, yeah. But a part of the raises that we're rebuilding the experience entirely, we're going to make it more platform agnostic, that it can be used with any sort of light therapy glasses. And being that our backgrounds in VR, it will start to be published on the major VR channels as well. But essentially, the the rebuild will allow us to target clinicians initially do this iterative process of working with the therapist, we have a community going online, where we're talking to the people that are using it around best protocols, how they're pricing it, and that essentially is going to we don't see FDA as being the path forward. Now we just know that we need to get the application ready for that when when we are and right now it's very much going to be a wellness technology that doesn't necessarily need to be FDA cleared for clinicians.
Brom Rector:
So this will show up in high end, wellness studios place like Equinox fitness, maybe who knows, right? Like that sort of thing. Right? Yeah. Really doctor's office first?
Lyle Maxson:
Well, the the clinicians we are targeting, we are interested in but..
Brom Rector:
…but it doesn't have to be FDA approved for them to right, right, gotcha. So what what is sort of, you know, who knows about the future, but like, timeline wise, how long before this thing is, you know, available in your favorite clinician or wellness studio?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah. So, as I mentioned, there's 30 places using it now. So you could, you know, some of them are a lot of them are independent therapists. But we are starting to work with companies like you Sona… Koya is a big center that's opening in Austin, there's another one called heartspace, that's opening in Austin. And those are kind of our three big ones that we're looking at, and we're distributing to now. And then we're really focused on psychedelic therapy trainers. So you know, targeting amazing trainers that are pushing out, you know, upwards of 200-500 therapists a year that they're training, and actually using this as a part of their protocol and integrating digital therapeutics into that.
Brom Rector:
Okay, so the future is already here. To some extent.
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah, okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're doing it now. They could buy it on their on our website now. And again, it's just kind of like the iterative process and getting feedback, so we could build the next version to really meet the clinicians standards.
Brom Rector:
Well, I know we're kind of coming up on the end of our time, I want to make sure we don't go over, but is there anything that you want to like, make sure people know that I didn't ask or any questions I should have asked or anything like that, you know, with with the closing message?
Lyle Maxson:
Yeah. I mean, you know, always the call to action. So we are looking for therapists. And if you or someone you know, is a psychedelic therapist, and interested in using this technology, again, it's really we're focused on the priming, before going into a session and a big piece that's not really touched on and is easily the most important is the integration. So we see that anecdotally we're doing now, research around this as well. But if you use the technology a day, after a week, after or even six months after your psychedelic session, you're bringing back those same Brainwave. So you're, you know, creating the epiphanies, the emotions that they felt during that session, and allowing that integration process of journaling, or whatever it is to go much deeper and kind of bring those memories to the forefront. So those are two big focuses. And then of course, we have, yeah, we've been pitching a lot of a lot of great investors. We're about halfway through our 1.5 million raise. And, yeah, we have a lot of great information around how we could benefit psychedelic therapy trainers as well lower their cost for training, because you typically they have their their clinicians that they are going through the training process have to go through an altered state, meaning that they have to do some sort of ketamine journey. It's really expensive. They have to have an on site licensed clinician to be able to administer that. And then it's a one one shot experience, where with sound self, we could do that at a fraction of the cost and you could continually do it. Continually create these alters It's a habit as an iterative process to increase the training.
Brom Rector:
Yeah, I can see that it's definitely like a lot easier to do something like that without you know, versus doing ketamine experience repeatedly or something like that. I love it, man. Well, thank you so much for your time and for showing me all this stuff. It was super cool, man.
