Satori Sounds Review — VR Meditation With 360-Degree Sounds and Environments

Satori Sounds by Brainwave Dynamics is a meditation experience that takes place in 360-degree virtual reality and is filmed in real and relaxing locations. This is a soothing sound-based and nature experience that’s compatible with Oculus, Vive, and Gear VR headsets.

Pairing music and nature imagery together in a meditative way can be great for the body and the mind. Exercising can leave you feeling like a champion but can also have you feeling sore, tense, or full of energy (which is great, except when it’s not and you’re trying to sleep).

How do I heal my body and calm down my mind after those workouts, you ask? The answer is meditation or Satori Sounds VR. Meditation has been shown to help boost the immune system, decreases inflammation and pain, and makes you feel less stressed, more focused, calmer, and happier overall.

Get a glimpse of Satori Sound VR down below!

Preparation

Simply sit down on your sofa, meditation pillow, or any comfortable place you can find with your headset and then enter into Satori Sounds. I used the Oculus for this review and initially couldn’t figure out how to select things in Satori Sounds menu, so to save you time, what you’ll want to do is use the joystick and push that in to activate the laser pointer.

Once the menu comes up select which environment you want to spend time in. They currently have 8 locations: Rocky Coast, Redwood Forest, Foggy Beach, Paradise Bay, Rolling River, Lava Cliffs, Tropical Shore, and Coconut Island.

After picking your 360-degree chill spot you’ll need to select the green bar and select the type of meditation or sound bath you’d like to listen to. Each of Brainwave Dynamic’s songs or listening experiences have Solfeggio frequencies, binaural beats, and isochronic tones that are played at different levels.

What’s great about their set up is that each layer of sound can be customized to how loud or quiet you want them to overlap each other. Satori Sounds has 6 meditations or sound baths you can unwind or re-energize in: Meditation, Day Dream, Deep Relaxation, Alpha Mind, Alert Awaken, and Healing Energy.  

Relaxation 9/10

You won’t need to think when you sit down, watch and listen to the waves crash on the shoreline along with the undercurrent of healing sounds. I gave it a 9 for expending almost zero mental energy. In fact, I felt like my mind was significantly replenished after 20 minutes inside Satori Sounds.

Time Perception 9/10

Time seemed to float away when I was in Alert Awaken and Alpha Mind for 20 minutes. I wanted to keep going but took off the headset because I thought I might go to sleep if I closed my eyes. My home was really quiet at the time of this review, so time perception might be different for you if you’ve got a lot going on around you at work or home.

Replayability 8/10

I intend on revisiting Satori Sounds whenever I need to calm the heck down, take a mini-vacation from the world, need to be re-energized, or before heading to bed. For every person that uses Satori Sounds VR, there’s going to be a different reason to revisit it. It’s simple to use and navigate, and there’s customization that makes it worth revisiting to see what experiences and musical accompaniments you like the best.

Fitness Scalability 5/10

This is a meditative visual and sound experience that isn’t going to make you move around or anything. Just sit there, breathe, take in the scenery, look at the ocean change, the waves come and go, and the palm trees blow in the wind. There’s nothing to do but relax your mind and tense muscles.

I gave Satori Sounds fitness scalability a 5 because what is the body without the mind? If you’re in a negative headspace are you really going to push yourself in the gym or while playing active games in VR? Maybe, if that’s what personally drives you.

Or, maybe you need better quality sleep in order to have the energy to workout the next day. Restoring your mind by throwing out all the mind clutter will keep everything balanced. I’m more of the get your mind right and then get your body tight perspective. You feel me?

Social Aspect 10/10

Satori Sounds is made for a single person to view and listen at a time. If this was a social game I probably would spend more time talking than relaxing. It’s a party of one solo adventure, which is just how I like my meditations.

So, I gave the social aspect a 10/10 because it’s not meant to be multiplayer and didn’t want the score to go down because there wasn’t a social aspect to it. You can go to Satori Sounds VR Steam Community and start conversations with other users there or on Reddit if you wish to be more social.

VRFI Fit Mind Score 8.2/10

Take a few minutes to appreciate nature at Coconut Island. Credit to: Brainwave Dynamics/Satori Sounds VR

The Good

I loved that I could switch through Satori Sounds VR and their 360-degree environments whenever I felt like I needed a change of scenery. Their diverse range of alpha, beta, theta, and delta wave tracks was also a great touch along with the binaural beats, isochronic tones, and Solfeggio frequencies.

The locations of the environments were also really soothing and invigorating because there’s natural movement going on around you and sounds that are true to the spot being filmed. After using Satori Sounds VR for 20 minutes I could see how their sounds and environments could lull anyone to sleep or help people destress after a busy day.

Improvements

Although the environments were filmed in beautiful locations and in 360-degrees, the quality of the video fell a little short. Don’t get me wrong it was a relaxing experience, but there wasn’t a crispness or vibrant color to the images. The environments looked a bit gray and overcast. Maybe the weather wasn’t the best on film day. Also, I’m not sure if the additional screen door effect was from the headset, my computer, or Satori Sounds camera quality.

I think adding click turning would make a huge difference in the quality of the experience as a whole. That way I can look around in 360-degrees when I’m sitting down. Luckily, I can move my head around, however, some people that use Satori Sounds VR might not be able to. So, I think the creators should keep that in mind.

Satori Sounds Tips

Push in your Oculus joystick to get the laser pointer to work. Also, put on an alarm before you go into Satori Sounds because chances are you’ll relax yourself into forgetting about the time and can potentially fall to sleep if you really let go.