If I get caught up in a mindscape (knowingly or unknowingly) and I drink potions, use wand/staff charges and scrolls while within the mindscape, are those charges still expended when I return to reality?
What if I lost a non-charged item within the mindscape, such as if my primary weapon was sundered, or tossed into an eternal abyss? Such items don't mysteriously break or disappear upon awaking do they?
So far the only rule I can find on the matter, is in regards to psychic duels:
Does this mean that if hurt, I can enter into a mindscape, heal my party up to full using a charged item, then leave the mindscape thus getting all of my charges back, but keeping all of the healing benefits?
I think all conditions need to carry over for harmful mindscapes, none for nonharmful.
Conditions gained during a psychic duel rarely carry over into the real world, but damage is dealt to the physical body of the duelist, so it's possible for combatants to die. Similarly, unlike all other effects that occur in the real world after a psychic duel begins, damaging and healing a duelist's physical body carry over to the psychic duel.
When a character enters a binary mindscape, she uses the following statistics as they were prior to entering: her current hit points
Only physical damage caused to your physical body during the psychic duel carries over. Apparently wounds that already exist don't carry over. It appears (arguably)as if your current hit points at the moment you enter a mindscape become your maximum hitpoints for your psychic form.
In many ways, as you take psychic damage wounds appear on your physical body simultaneously. Similarly if someone hits your body while you are within a mindscape wounds will appear on your psychic form. Otherwise you treat them independently.
Also:
Bonuses and penalties granted by items, as well as spells and effects active before entering the mindscape, apply to these statistics, as such items and effects gain psychic equivalents when a creature enters a mindscape. However, while the mind is engaged in a psychic duel, only damaging and healing spells and effects cast on the body of a combatant have an effect on the battle.
I don't think you can use wands/potions/charged items in a psychic duel as they are not active when you enter a mindscape. Only things that grant bonuses and active spells/effects carry over.
If you can use them, then I would rule they use charges (or drain the power from potions) as normal, but that's more a balance thing than something I can point to a firm rule for.
Psychic duels are different than the general (Greater) Create Mindscape rules. So you can't necessarily carry over too much from the one to the other.
If Paizo published 20 pages fleshing out how mindscapes work in all possible circumstances they couldn't eliminate more than 80% of the existing issues and potential abuses.
Ah! ok that makes it even easier. What I previously stated is true for binary mindscapes - those created for psychic duels. Immersive mindscapes let you choose the magic quality, from dead, normal or altered.
normal magic mindscapes: Spells are consumed and charges or consumables are spent....However, any magic that requires physical manipulation (such as drinking a potion) might not behave in the expected manner (the character could "drink" the potion and discover that nothing happens).
Which means it's largely up to the GM whther using a wand requires physical manipulation. But it either works and uses charges, or doesn't work and doesn't use charges.
Altered magic only gives you the options for using the rules for the enhanced, impeded, limited, or wild planar magic traits.