Blog Comments

  1. jasond's Avatar
    You wrote "The frequencies in the Spin Systems aren't any faster than the fractal ones. All range from 1hz to 30hz, with emphasis on the mid high end. In fact, really the spin ones tend more toward the slower end than the fractals. Maybe the additional LEDs are overwhelming you?"

    Good point! I think that's exactly what's overwhelming me. I've tried turning the visuals down to 80, then 50, then all the way down to 10 for the Kasina built in sessions. Still experimenting with this. Will need to find a good number that keeps the original idea of the programmers' (sound and images) intention intact yet find an experience that is on balance for me.
  2. neuroasis's Avatar
    I mentioned as well that these tests were created in an audio editor, in my case Ableton Live. I have an Operator synth that is set to produce the SS red signal, 18700hz. Another track contains a reference signal recording.
    I map the modulation wheel on a keyboard to control the frequency of an Auto Pan effect which is set to act as an LFO.
    Then I just put on the glasses, push a key on my keyboard which triggers the Red and play with the mod wheel while recording the output.
    Fractals like this really need to be tweaked live to experiment with settings that produce the best images. With the midi sequencer you can record a control track which captures your moves on the mod wheel. This is in addition to recording the actual light output as audio. So you can edit and alter the effects or pick the best sections, quite easily afterwards.
  3. neuroasis's Avatar
    Fast frequency changes have a tendency to produce illusionary colors. There are hints of whites, yellows, and even blues in these changes. These are especially apparent in high beta changes.
    It is usually around 18hz or so that you start to see entoptic imagery like little crosses, stars, or x's. These phenomena fascinate me.

    The frequencies in the Spin Systems aren't any faster than the fractal ones. All range from 1hz to 30hz, with emphasis on the mid high end. In fact, really the spin ones tend more toward the slower end than the fractals. Maybe the additional LEDs are overwhelming you? Again as mentioned in a normal session these would be broken up by more solid fields and slower changes.
  4. jasond's Avatar
    Fractal-Systems... loved it... this is the most crisp I've seen to date. Amazing that you could do so much with so little. The frames only showed a square red light blinking, yet I definitely picked up many other colors while viewing.

    Spin-Systems... lights moved way too fast for me. This actually had all my the colors blinking and was overkill imo. I can't keep up with it when it's too fast. I think this is a big reason I'm having trouble with the Kasina overall as my mind can't process these fast changing images. Need something a bit more mellow like the Fractal-Systems.

    Look forward to comments from others!
  5. enriquegmi's Avatar
    Thanks You . I love my Kasina and the tecnical support .
  6. neuroasis's Avatar
    Also, I want to mention a little trick discovered by TomC for NeuroProgrammer.

    If the session that you open from the Session List has AudioStrobe, and you have the Kasina AVS device selected as the sound output in NP3, then if you push the main Play button, it will play AudioStrobe out to the Kasina. If you select the Play on Kasina button (labelled Kasina beneath the Play button) then it will play SpectraStrobe to the Kasina.

    In this case there are 2 different audio pipes as far as NP3 is concerned. One for AudioStrobe and one for SpectraStrobe. More explanation (probably a video walkthrough) is needed for this.

    Kinda strange, but useful.
  7. neuroasis's Avatar
    Yes, Biodag, that is it exactly. You said it with much fewer words too!
  8. Biodag's Avatar
    Thanks for a helpful blog. The idea of a playlist is very useful. Isn’t the basic idea that in any folder, if you begin a session by pushing the center button Kasina will play that session and stop, but if you begin a session by pushing the navigation wheel toward the right, it will play that session, then the next, and the next until it reaches the end of the folder? Peace, Biodag
  9. CraigT's Avatar
    Hi Scott,

    Excessive skepticism, or skepticism for the sake of it, as in Skeptics Societies, is a major handicap and rapidly becomes irritating. It's one of the things to be applied judiciously, although in many other matters I find moderation over-rated. To be honest, it's not something I have to think about much any more - I'm exposed to information, it gets processed in accordance with the model I have learned/developed for maintaining integrity of knowledge.

    It takes time to acquire the understanding you have and a special type of dedication. As you are well aware, many coming new to AVS want to know it and do it all by next Tuesday. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but leaping straight into the extraordinary can lead to all sorts of misunderstanding. I like to encourage at least a few well paced steps before leaping, at least sufficient to understand some of the implications of the leap and prepare to realistically interpret the experiences. As I've said elsewhere on numerous occasions - with AVS everything is worth trying and something of value can be extracted from every experience, just not necessarily what you might seek or expect. "Naming" is innate to our being - it was one of the first things Adam is said to have had the opportunity to do, naming the creatures of the new world around him. There's no way around it, irrespective of the imprecision we have to make up words. It works quite well for things and events but it sucks for thoughts/ideas/inner processes. AVS can be dynamite and I would hate to be perceived as denigrating its potential.

    Thank you for the blog reference - I will spend some time there. Taking your advice to look at 2010-11, the first page I came upon was this... http://insanebraintrain.blogspot.co....e-helluva.html - the full title is One Helluva Kasina. Did you intend me to trip over that, or was that just a "coincidence".

    Cheers,
    Craig
  10. neuroasis's Avatar
    I agree in the sense that we tend to have experiential lenses under which we group or interpret a range of 'supranormal' mental states. The number of tools available in one's imaginative toolkit of what is 'possible' determine how easily you can move into expansive areas without extreme triggers. That is why I tend to keep alive a certain aspect of myself that engages in wildly magical thinking. I do this intentionally. I am as skeptical as anyone else but as a mindset it is so limiting. As a worldview I don't find overarching skepticism very appealing at all.

    Now for the range of phenomena that could be interpreted as NDE (again not 'real' NDE as our machines won't nearly kill you first), I think AVS is a well suited tool. Without patterned familiarity with bright flashing lights and trance states, it is very reasonable to categorize fruitful outcomes in this arena. It is especially so because it is such a prevalent cultural mythology and great writers and broadcasters have painted vivid pictures.

    Concerning your discussions of psychedelics, let me point you to a very lucid and interesting blog: http://insanebraintrain.blogspot.com/ . Especially early posts around the 2010 -2011 timeframe.

    Best,
    Scott
  11. CraigT's Avatar
    What an unbelievably cool toy! Or is it a ploy to get people to buy armloads of AVS devices

    I'll have to resurrect my halogen/xenon strobe beasty - it's currently buried in a very messy garage. The way it was usually used (it's a black cube with a circular hole in it) was to bottom illuminate a fishbowl full of milky water - very effective in a dark room, especially with colored gels over the halogen lamp.

    Another visual trick worth playing with is monochromatic illumination of a plain white unlit paraffin wax candle in a darkened room. Try it with your AVS LEDs. See the black spots throughout the candle? They will be easiest to see without the lights flashing and using a single color at a time. As the spots move with angle-of-view, this is an excellent stillness tool. This works super-well with a decent laser.

    NDE is a very explicit term, the implications of which are often overlooked. NEAR death isn't death or any approximation thereof. The experiences are a phenomenon and no more. They provide zero insight into the nature of death or the hereafter. I have experienced rather a lot of NDEs - one very near miss through a stupid suicide attempt over thirty years ago, long before I was in any way prepared to make much use of the experience, and numerous subsequent adventures of varying extremity using a variety of potentially fatal techniques that I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT RECOMMEND. While providing little information about death itself, much is revealed about one's attitude towards it, especially if the plunge is taken deliberately (again NOT recommended) or is otherwise authentically life-threatening. Unless the process necessitates letting go of life (or clinging fearfully), if it is from the safety of certainty of return, it isn't really anything much. Like various psychedelics, notably Salvinorin A and DMT, the population of the altered state is largely dependent on the individual's fantasy world conceptions - one who is attached to the idea of fairies will probably find fairies, those with a predilection for aliens will probably find aliens, and those with a God/Heaven bent will probably do the inviting white light thing. The experience can be programmed by filling the mind with an imaginary realm before stepping into it although I prefer to take a headlong plunge into the unknown by initially suppressing ideas to the best of my ability. Salvinorin A, in heroic doses, in well structured practice, is probably the safest, legal in most places, reasonably accurate way of having a close look at personal death from this side of the great divide - although lacking actual likelihood of death, it's hard to remember that fact during a really intense journey! Salvinorin A is great in that it is short acting and clears quickly, leaving almost no physical or mental residuals - you can go again and again, just like a roller coaster ride.

    Personally, I have found nothing less aggressive that is remotely similar to a "real" NDE. Better value will be found by understanding the Tibetan and Egyptian Books of the Dead.

    All that notwithstanding, the dissociative, pseudo-psychotic states that AVS can facilitate are extraordinary in their own right and can contribute much to the understanding of one's own mind and, to a surprisingly large extent, mind in general.

    Neuroasis is right on the button with the matter of "claims" and again, language fails us, having so few satisfactorily agreed understandings of terms for subjective and extraordinary experiences. I do not in any way intend to suggest that anyone did not have an experience they say they have had - just that the words may be misleading.

    The desire to work with perception-altering toys and techniques is indicative a particular type of mind in itself

    Cheers,
    Craig
  12. neuroasis's Avatar
    I have actually had some 'near death' type experiences with AVS if you would care to label them as such.
    Now having said that, would I say that this or that session or this or that machine could reliably produce the same result in all people.. no way. Would I say that it produces that result with me in a reliable way... nope. Can I rule out any other factors? No.. Was I dreaming... yes. Did that change the nature of the experience? No. Did the session help me to set the right conditions? Yes.

    See, that is where the line gets crossed with 'claims'. If I say I experienced that, then it is one thing. If I say the session or machine 'does' that... that is a much larger thing.

    And if I paid $25,000 the machine better well do what it says it does.
  13. neuroasis's Avatar
    Wow, that's good money if you can get it. Some of these 'high end' spa type systems are trying to get outrageous prices. I hope to show in this blog and other materials that for a reasonable budget you can still get excellent results with a bit of knowledge and imagination.

    I have actually had some 'near death' type experiences with AVS if you would care to label them as such. Something I encounter with certain theta/delta borderline sessions is what I have come to call the 'tunnel of sleep' where hypnagogic imagery really starts to become vivid and encompassing. Tunnels of light and a sense of familiar (familial) 'passed' presences is one manifestation of this phenomena I have experienced.

    Scott
  14. Robert Austin's Avatar
    I had a chance to try a Lucia last Spring at a conference in Oakland, and it was quite impressive. I had a prototype Kasina with me and ran a session on one of the inventors who was there, who said it was quite nice. Lucia is very expensive, though, around $25k as I recall. It's advertised as useful for triggering near death experiences (!).
  15. neuroasis's Avatar
    Hi Carie,
    Thanks so much for that. I didn't know about the Lucia n3 before.. http://www.gesund-im-licht.at/en/lucia-n03.html . I have experimented with similar setups using strobe lights and also AVS controlled high intensity LEDs. I will say that bright white light provides an incredible range of pseudo colors.

    I also have an inexpensive 'zero-gravity' chair setup as well as a more extreme 'inversion table' setup... looks a great deal like what some of the pictures on that site show. I will detail these in later blog posts.

    More details to come on how I utilize the machines together with these glasses.

    Thanks so much for your comment!

    Best,
    Scott
  16. Carie373's Avatar
    Genius! I think you probably have a mini-Lucia there :-) I'm looking forward to hearing about the experiences you have with this brilliant setup. The key to a good experience is of course the firing of the LEDs, but also try it with the white light on for the entire duration of a session with no flicker. Good luck Scott!
  17. Robert Austin's Avatar
    Very interesting project, Scott--thanks for posting this information!

    -Robert
  18. neuroasis's Avatar
    Right, that is what I mean by 1 MyFirstFile, 2 MyFirstFile... you might even be better off to use 01 MyFirstFile, 02 MyFirstFile..... 10 MyFirstFile.

    Thanks for helping me clarify it.

    Scott
  19. Biodag's Avatar
    As to your number 2, the files will be sorted alphabetically automatically. Rather, to sort them in some other order, number the files.
  20. Psymatic's Avatar
    This description is really helpful ! Thank you Neuroasis , The controls work fine once you get used to the cycle of the color sets. The Kasina really is the best AVS machine with so many options and controls.Thank you all at mind place for creating such an awesome tool to explore our perception and consciousness!
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