Procyon First Impressions

[Interdimensional_Playboy]

Got my Procyon about an hour ago. Thanks Marisa, especially for the help with the tracking information.

It was packed well for shipping. The only complaint in packing is that the manual seemed to be shoved in the box and the cover is torn along the spine from the top for about an inch and the top of edge of it is crumpled. I'm disappointed about that but I am happy that in this age of CD, or worse, online manuals, that a hard copy is included at all.

My only other experience with L/S machines is my old Zygon SuperMind. That one was metal with membrane buttons. The Procyon is plastic with pushbuttons. I dislike membrane buttons, so the pushbuttons are a plus. And the plastic doesn't bother me as most portable electronic devices are plastic nowadays.

I own a portable digital stereo recorder manufactured by M-Audio which is about the same size and also plastic. This has a rechargable lithium battery in it that can only be replaced at the factory. I like the fact that the Procyon can be run on easily replacable AA bateries. I read a comment or two on the forum where the user prefered a rechargable battery. My biggest complaint with the digital recorder is that there is always battery drain. The engineer I contacted on this explained that the recorder is always energized so it can receive an "on" command. This eventually discharges the battery to the point that it needs to be recharged for some time before the unit can even be powered on, even when powered by the recorder's USB connection. Also a built in battery eliminates the ability to change batteries in the field. The engineer's fix for this was for me to purchase a cell phone emergency battery that plugs into the USB port and uses a replaceable lithium battery. So the fact that the Procyon doesn't contain a rechargable battery is a plus to me.

What I would like to see in the next generation of the Procyon or its upgrade is a LCD display with alpha numeric characters. Again though, this is a minor point.

I like the glasses with the flat LEDs. They are a better quality than my Zygon glasses. The Zygon ones have been patched several times and the bows are held together with heat shrink tubing and dowel sticks now. Like the Zygon, the weak point of the glasses looks like it may be where the cable enters the frame. I had to resolder my Zygon cable several times as it would develop an open in the wiring at the entry point due to flexing. I hope the cable for the Procyon is sturdier as these glasses don't look repairable as they are put together in a better fashion. The Zygon used double sided tape to hold the led circuitry onto the frames. Again, I really like the flat LEDs. I hated getting poked in the eyes with the Zygon glasses and eventually put foam weatherstripping along the top of the frames to keep thim higher off of my face.

The headphone designe is retro cool. I like the fact that the cable only comes out of one earpiece instead of both, which is common now. The padding is minimal and a bit hard on the ears at first, but not too uncomfortable. As I will be using this probably mainly at bedtime, I will often be using clip on earphones instead so I can lay on my side if I wish. Sound quality is good, so again, the comfort complaint is minor.

I was on my way for a relaxing bath when the Procyon arrived but I wanted to try a quickie, especiially to see how the tri-color glassed worked. So I tried out #46, the 10 minuite "Fast Trip." WOW! Talk about kaleidoscope eyes!

All in all, first impressions are that it is a well made unit and I'm going to have fun exploring its capabilities. I'm looking forward to participating here and sharing my experiences.

[Marisa]

Got my Procyon about an hour ago. Thanks Marisa, especially for the help with the tracking information.

It was packed well for shipping. The only complaint in packing is that the manual seemed to be shoved in the box and the cover is torn along the spine from the top for about an inch and the top of edge of it is crumpled. I'm disappointed about that but I am happy that in this age of CD, or worse, online manuals, that a hard copy is included at all.

Oh, that shouldn't be! Would you like us to send you a new manual?

I didn't look inside the Procyon box before I shipped it. Does it look like this happened at the factory or did your box look like it had been opened by customs and they shoved the manual in damaging it. I only want to know so that I know whether to check the other boxes. Either way, if you would like a new manual, we will send you one!

P.S. I'm glad that you enjoyed your first session.

M.

[CraigT]

Great first review!!!

I'm with on pretty much every point

You'll be pleased to know that if the need arises, the wiring to the glasses is very repairable - two tiny little screws and the plastic covers comes off, revealing nice solder pads. It then all goes back together just like it was meant to, with locating lugs aligning the front and back translucent plastic perfectly. Of all the glasses I've now played with, the new style MP ones are without doubt the best quality and the most comfortable.

Cheers,
Craig

[Interdimensional_Playboy]

Oh, that shouldn't be! Would you like us to send you a new manual?

I didn't look inside the Procyon box before I shipped it. Does it look like this happened at the factory or did your box look like it had been opened by customs and they shoved the manual in damaging it. I only want to know so that I know whether to check the other boxes. Either way, if you would like a new manual, we will send you one!

P.S. I'm glad that you enjoyed your first session.

M.

Hi Marisa, thanks again for everything. The shipping box didn't look like it had been opened and resealed. From past experience, customs can be really sloppy with opening parcels. They once sliced open a padded envelope from the Philipines and didn't reseal it, though they stuck their tape on it. I was lucky not to lose anything from that package. This one had no tape from customs on it. As everything seemed well packed in the product box, I think the manual got crunched at the factory.

I was hoping you would offer a replacement manual but I wasn't going to push the issue. I would appreciate one in good condition if it's not a big deal.

[Interdimensional_Playboy]

Great first review!!!

I'm with on pretty much every point

You'll be pleased to know that if the need arises, the wiring to the glasses is very repairable - two tiny little screws and the plastic covers comes off, revealing nice solder pads. It then all goes back together just like it was meant to, with locating lugs aligning the front and back translucent plastic perfectly. Of all the glasses I've now played with, the new style MP ones are without doubt the best quality and the most comfortable.

Cheers,
Craig

Thanks for the tip Craig. After my initial post, I noticed the screws and wondered if the cable was replaceable after all.

[Marisa]

Hi Marisa, thanks again for everything. The shipping box didn't look like it had been opened and resealed. From past experience, customs can be really sloppy with opening parcels. They once sliced open a padded envelope from the Philipines and didn't reseal it, though they stuck their tape on it. I was lucky not to lose anything from that package. This one had no tape from customs on it. As everything seemed well packed in the product box, I think the manual got crunched at the factory.

I was hoping you would offer a replacement manual but I wasn't going to push the issue. I would appreciate one in good condition if it's not a big deal.

I will ask Janice if she has any spare manuals and can send you one from their U.S. office. Please let me know if you do not recieve one within two weeks.

M.

[Interdimensional_Playboy]

I will ask Janice if she has any spare manuals and can send you one from their U.S. office. Please let me know if you do not recieve one within two weeks.

M.

Thanks!

[Interdimensional_Playboy]

(Spent twenty minutes typing just now and somehow a keystroke sent me to the previous page, so I lost everything I typed. I never took typing in school so it's somewhat of a chore and takes me a while to get things down. )

Day 1

For my second session yesterday evening, I listened to a hypnosis MP3 track that involved behavioral modification and fantasy situations. I used #44, Creative Visualization 45. I have a habit with both L/S machines and hypnosis tracks of blacking out after they start and waking up at the end, which may be due to sleep depravation during the work week. This session was no exception. I have little recall of the session.

At bedtime, I listened to another hypnosis track of the same sort as above. Since I was going to sleep, I tried#27, Night Voyage 60. Again, no recollection of the session once it started.

This morning, I had two sessions back to back before getting out of bed. Both were again accompanied by hypnosis MP3s that included fantasy visualization. For the first track, I tried #43, Creative Visualization 35. This session wasn't much different than I recall back in the old days with my SuperMind device. The second session was using #49, Pyromania. The patterns were fun and I did have a couple of concrete images instead of just geometric patterns, but nothing spectacular there either. It could be that back to back sessions were just too much.

This afternoon, my AudioStrobe CDs arrived. I listened to two of the three I received. The first one was "Tibetan Highlands." Again I blacked out during the session and awakened at what I thought was the end. As I started to get up to change CDs, the second track started, so I laid back down. Though I like singing bowls, which seemed to be the main instruments on that track, I got bored half way through. It may be because I wanted to move on to the drum CD.

The second CD was "Journey of the Drum." This one was really entertaining and is certainly not for relaxation and sleeping. A little after it started, I was moving my feet in time to the rythym. Towards the end, I was keeping time with the base rythym by beating on my chest and stomach with my hands. I even had a bout of "jazz hands" for a couple of minutes sometime in the middle of the CD, which ended when I realized what I was doing. I wanted to get up and dance around a bonfire.

I read a review at Amazon.com on the drum CD where the reviewer described it as drums with people making funny noises. I don't think he used a L/S machine with it but listened to the CD by itself. Though one of the musicians on the CD is named Muruga, which is an East Indian god, the rythym and chanting sounded mostly American Indian to me. (BTW, Muruga is one of my favorite Hindu dieties and there is a temple dedicated to him in my town.) But sometime in, I could pick out the words, "kundalini," "Shiva," and "Shakti," among other words I couldn't make out. So, it wasn't just funny noises the chanters were making.

In every day life, drummers annoy me. I find that they are nervous people who cant keep their hands still. But I do enjoy a good drum circle, especially with ethnic drums. I enjoyed this CD and know I will listen to it repeatedly. In fact, both CDs had me thinking about buying one of the synthesizer emulation programs that I've had my eye on in the Sweetwater catalog, or maybe an electronic drum pad, for when I try my hand at making SynchroMuse tracks. The drum CD was energizing and after listening, I got up and actually did a couple of things, instead of just sitting around, like I usually do on my days off. I know I was too alert for any more sessions right then.

I forgot to mention that I did see a couple of concrete images of people I was thinking about during the drum track instead of just geometric patterns. But it struck me funny that one of the patterns that kept reoccuring looked like soap bubbles. There was also an instance of a neat pattern of rows of stars, shaped like the stars on the American flag during one of the AudioStrobe sessions.

Close to 9PM now and another 20 minutes of typing. I had hoped to get another session in before bed but it looks like that won't be happening. So I'll probably try it again as I go to sleep. I had intended to meditate with the unit this morning but after the two back to back sessions, I neglected my meditation and started out doing errands at 9AM, forgetting the stores I needed to go to didn't open until 10:00.

So nothing profound yet. Which I didn't really expect but was hoping for. One thing I'm looking for is a session or two that will help with visualizing actual images during the guided hypnosis tracks, instead of just geometric patterns. I've gotten a couple of glimpses of that already, so I think I'm on the right track. I'd appreciate input from anyone who can suggest presets that would help with that goal. Since the MP3s I'm using involve both the fantasy visualization and behavior modification, I'm not sure whether to use the tranquility or visualization, or even the night voyage presets for this.

[Interdimensional_Playboy]

Well, it's been over a week now since I've received my device and I just have to say that I'm not disappointed with my purchase. I've been using it every day and several times a day on the weekends. So far, I've only used the "Tranquility," "Night Voyage," "Rejuvenation," and "Visualization" programs. I've also done a couple of the "Mind-Art" sessions but I listen to hypnosis or meditation tracks while using the machine and so far, I've found the Mind-Art programs I've tried don't quite work as well for that.

What I've tried so far has been influenced mainly by the time of the session. I wish there was a 35 minute or so "Meditative Mind" session. I have been using Tranquility sessions 21 and 22 or Night Voyage session 27 as I fall asleep at night. As I have some CDs with MP3 tracks that are over an hour long, if I awake before the Procyon shuts off, I'll push the start button again so I can continue listening to the tracks on my CD. I hope to dive into custom programming soon so I can make some sessions that fit better with the length of my recordings, but the instructions look a bit confusing and time consuming, at least the learning curve at first, so I'm satisfied right now with the presets.

I get up early in the morning for work and try to get a meditation session in before I leave the house. I do some "yogic breathing" and "looking up" exercises (if time permits), and then I've been doing a "Grace Light" meditation ( http://www.thegracelight.com/empowerment.html) that is about 12 to 25 minutes long, depending if you do both parts or just the first one. Again it depends on how late I'm running whether I just do the first part (Gates 1-4) or both. (Though the meditation is supposed to be done with two people, the DVD set includes a CD that one can use alone after doing the initial two person transmission.) I have found that the Rejuvenation presets, specifically numbers 36 and 37 are great for this. More so than the Tranquility presets. With the energizing frequencies, it really helps to start the day on a positive note.

I listened to my third AudioStrobe CD, "Dreams in the Mind's Eye" last Sunday afternoon but fell asleep soon after it started and awoke towards the end (common for me with L/S or hypnosis sessions), so I have nothing to report there.

I have been using some Koss clip on earphones instead of the provided headphones and cable tied them to the glasses cable to try to cut down on tangles. I also put a small piece of heat shrink tubing over the left bow of the glasses and threaded the glasses' cable through it, leaving a small loop where it connects to the glasses for strain relief, as I found that was a weak point with the glasses for my SuperMind. Even with the cable ties, there is still a bit of tangle problem and it looks kind of tacky. So I have some braided nylon sheathing on order to run the cables through. If this works out like I hope, I will post the results and source (really reasonable price) in the thread I saw on cable tangles. For storage, I clip the earphones onto the bows of the glasses and wind the cables around the center of the glasses.

There is nothing wrong with the provided headphones, I just prefer the earphones due to less bulk. I had a pair of the Koss ones for my MP3 player and bought a second pair specifically for the Procyon. They are decent phones except for one design flaw, The ear clip is made to rock at a fulcrum point to fit easier on the ear. What happens is it falls off and could get lost. So after experiencing this with my first set of earphones, I superglued the clip into position on the set I bought for the Procyon before I even tried to use them.

It could be that I'm just back in an "up" cycle, but my mood at work has been much better than it has been lately. I wouldn't quite call it manic/depressive, but I can get in a rather depressed mode at times. One reason I took the plunge and bought my Procyon was I was looking back to see what I did years ago to turn my life towards the better. Hypnosis alone wasn't the key but I realized it was the combination of hypnosis with my primitive SuperMind that was the catalyst of my first real change. After this first week with the Procyon, I think I might be right about that combination.

[Marisa]

Thanks for taking the time to write the review!

The Mind Art programs are just for entertainment and have no entrainment value, as you have found out.


M.