Brainwave entrainment experiment.
Take two sine waves 100hz and 108hz. Pan one hard left the other hard right.
In space these waves will cancel eachother out physically with phase
cancellation 8 times a second. If you listen to them on headphones with the
waves hard panned there is no physical reason for them to cancel out... but
your brain creates the beating sound. Brainwaves then have a tendency to
entrain to this frequency. 8hz is in the light sleep Theta range. I have
found this tone to be helpful for falling asleep. Try it for yourself.
Monroe Institute tapes use this principle and the brain machines use it too.
Don't try it if you have epilepsy (same with strobe lights) and I would
suggest a very low volume for sine waves in headphones because they can
cause hearing loss.
Here's an interesting page on the Monroe site. I think it has an audio
example:
http://www.monroeinstitute.org/programs/hemi-sync.html
I'm not necessarily endorsing the Monroe Institute but I don think it's
quite interesting :-)
Noah,
www.listenlabs.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Aaron Meyers" <adm226@nyu.edu>
To: "nat hawks" <natbot@hotmail.com>
Cc: <idm@hyperreal.org>; <leo.goldsmith@harpercollins.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: [idm] noise is the frontier?
I came across this program on the web somewhere not too long ago and it
was this Brainwave Generator thing. Anyway, I don't feel like hunting
it down and getting specific numbers, but our brains apparently generate
different frequencies in different states of awakeness and whatnot.
These frequencies, if I remember correctly, are very low... something
like in the 20 Hz range. Since no pair of headphones out there is
capable of generating those kind of low frequencies, the guys who made
the program found a workaround where two separate frequencies are
generated, one in each stereo channel and the difference between these
two frequencies will be something in the 10-30 Hz range of the different
states of the human brain.
The point is, by means of their subtractive frequency trick, by
subjecting yourself to these frequencies, your brain will float towards
them and you will enter the coresponding brain state. Their program has
different settings... some for relaxation, some for inducing sleep, some
for alertness and creativity.
I'll admit, I gave it a shot and I'm not really sure if I felt any
closer to falling asleep or whatever. Sham or not, all the theory
behind it was damn interesting. Try googling "brainwave generator" and
I'm sure it'll come up right quick. Enjoy being a nerd.
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