Entrainment vs entertainment in kasina spectra

Just to give my opinion on this:

It is true that for the best entrainment, you need to keep the sessions is basic is possible, the less distraction, the better the entrainment.

And the other hand:

the right music can also be a kind of entrainment, maybe in another way, but also with positive results in terms of relaxation, meditation... There must be a reason that music is one of the most populair art/entertainment. When I listen to for example to the 2nd andante movement from the 6th symphony from Beethoven, it can give me a feeling that no mind machine ever will give me with just entrainment sounds. I know, its a different approuch, but still...

so why not combine them? I still feel the positive results from the entrainment, wich is a positive relaxing feel that stays throughout the day, with some light thinkeling feeling, and my creativity is a level up.
The die hards will say that this will distract the entrainment, and they will be right, but in my personal experience it still works..

I hear music really more profound than ever, where the lights with there colors and different strenghts make it more visual and intens, when the spectra (or audio strobe) is programmed right and in sync.

When I make my sessions with my own music, I always try to balans the music, that it don't ask for to much attention, but gives you more a feeling to be in another world. With some exceptions, of course.

so I believe there is room for this kind of sessions. With the possibilities of the kasina, this can be a great way to explore this. And I will still use the great sessions like Craig T make :-)

what is your opinion on this?

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For me personally music has a really profound psychical power.I guess it happened to all of us. For example ,when you fell in love or the first kiss and in the background was playing a song lets say "Stairway to Heaven" now years later you hear that song and it can bring you magically in exactly that same mood you were in when you heard that piece of music the first time and it will make you feel good.I guess there is only one thing that can do this better than music and this is smell, and this would be to great a challange
to include smells into the Kasina....so music would be the first choice.
So with the Kasina and it's brainwave-entrainment plus the knowledge which music is triggering in you a certain mood you have a powerful instrument in hand to uplift you for example from depression to a more cheerful state.
For me it works if I can relax enough (brainwave-entrainment)and combine it with the right music I can can bring myself in practically
every mood I wish to.
And this is only one of so many wonders music can do.When you listen the first time to a piece of music you resonate with it
can lead you in places you've never been before and can show you your inner most secret and magical worlds............
Cheers
Esthy

Thats right, Esty. Music is a very powerfull "memory-reminder"!
And its nice to hear that you feel the befenfits of the entrainment and the music in one also :-)

The music and spectra/audi-strobe must be chosen carrefully, and that why it is a much more difficult task to choose (or make make) music.
As a musician there are other things to consider : when you play a note, it may not sound agressive.The attack is also important (attack is the time between playing a note and when it reach its topvolume,a piano has much attack, a violin less..), because less attack gives a smooth sound, make the melodie not to prominent, keep the rhythm(when use) in sync with the entrainment, eq very different than for a normal production, the mastering (final soundediting) is almost the opposite from regular CD's, because with non entrainment-music, you must get attention from the listener, and with entrainment very little.
And I like smells also.. When people come to record in my studio, they know I have some essential oils that I use to make them more relax :-)

Thanks for the reply, Esthy :-)

It is somewhat of an artificial separation IMHO as people have a very simplistic view of what entrainment is. They have only heard this term in the application of 'brainwave entrainment'. It is much broader than that. Even in WikiPedia there are several entries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrainment . Basically it is aligning to the rhythm of an external source. So tapping your foot is entrainment, swaying is entrainment... etc..

The brain happens to operate at rather fast frequencies relative to musical tempos. So we wouldn't be tapping out brain rhythms with our foot (for very long without fatigue anyway) Music does get into theta and alpha ranges with high tempo 8th notes (above bpm 120) and wide range tempo 16th notes. There is a bit of a challenge with 'meditative' feel as you create higher tempo music. However humans can also infer the implied pulses in a rhythm and entrain to 16th note pulses that aren't present in the source.

There is a human tendency to try to reduce complex ideas to simple explanations to make them understandable to find methods to work with them. If one is not careful however they end up with a very distorted viewpoint. For instance, it has been pointed out to me by a source I respect very much that some people feel that brainwave entrainment audio must be 'bitter medicine' for it to work. They think that you must have these tortuously simple blips and beeps to get any effect. Again, simple pulses may provide a better method of tracking the results in EEG readings, but what is the effect on consciousness, really?

The brain does not just take on the structure of the pulse in any simple way that people would be able to imagine. It is a transient phenomena in an isolated neural region. However, what is hoped to be achieved is an overall 'statistical' shift in the amplitude of the brainwave band that you are targeting. And with long term use a restructuring of the cumulative firing of neuron clusters in a beneficial way. Especially as pertains to accessing desirable states of consciousness like the ability to relax, destress, and meditate at will.

We must look to the long history of 'trance' technology which humans have been employing almost from the very awakening of consciousness. Fast ritual drum rhythms, drones soaked with overtones, natural environmental sounds, chants, mantras... and so on. These work on principles that we now somewhat understand, brainwave rate entrainment being one of them.

Now as stated above elegantly by Dominique and Esthy, music also has emotional content and often prompts 'internal imagery generation'. The impact varies from person to person, depending on their taste and associations. What is deeply transportive to some is unsettling to others. What is harmonious and magical to some, is boring to others. This is unavoidable and will always be the case.

However, it is best to think of brainwave audio as a food source for altering consciousness. Do you want to eat the same thing at every meal? Or do you like a variety in your diet?

Meditation, some think, is supposed to be dry and boring (almost to the point of driving you mad) I fundamentally disagree and wouldn't have done it for this many years if it was. I find meditation very entertaining and I put no constraints on my entrainment.

Scott

Quote:

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Originally Posted by neuroasis

.....some people feel that brainwave entrainment audio must be 'bitter medicine' for it to work. They think that you must have these tortuously simple blips and beeps to get any effect. Again, simple pulses may provide a better method of tracking the results in EEG readings, but what is the effect on consciousness, really?...."

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Scott - Guys - really well expressed ! I don't think these opposing camps exist so strongly as you suggest. If we are to define `entrainment' as anything from the strong ECG responses we often see as a response to simple light and sound pulses, and the often associated mental and physical effects that arise from dominant frequency following response, down to the urge to tap ones foot along with a piece of music , then I guess all bases are covered.

Once we allow into the definition of entrainment the ability to produce any kind of altered state or mood ( which of course any piece of music is capable of doing , then the discussion of what may actually be effective in introducing light pulses into the music becomes a lot more difficult, or at least the question disappears behind the Mantra of `all is good ' . Where do the boundaries of entrainment and entertainment lie - I guess this discussion is what the thread will tease out-is it sufficient to just broaden the definition of entrainment and leave it there ?. I don't think it is enough in answer to this question to say that most music is capable of entrainment and is therefore not just `entertainment'. Having spent hundreds of hours listening to `entrainment' tracks of various qualities as well as as a lot of psy - ambient music of which I have encoded AS tracks using colour organ I can definitely say that any tracks of a more `musical ' variety that have strong ability to put me in to recognizable dominant alpha and theta state is rare indeed( and I can say that I know these states well - or at least what these frequencies genuinely do to me ) .

I agree that much of the music creates a relaxed contemplative state and /or an altered reality with some aspect of entrainment , but is it good music to put me in a strong altered state - not necessarily. So much of the AS content around put out by musicians is just pleasant music with a flash track added without a lot of exploration into how something that is to be really psychoactive may be made more `musical ' to the ear . At the extreme end of psychonautica with strong classical entrainment properties would be some of the `black label ' creations I have from Craig Tice .The boundaries between sound that is this active ( the bitter pill ? ) and pure `music' have probably not been explored to date . I feel that a lot of content around proliferates because it actually does little but make you feel a bit relaxed ( cue all the hundreds of binaural beat tracks on YouTube that have the BB's almost subliminally mixed down below the music) - stuff that actually produces a strong effect which can be unsettling does not.. But then it depends on what you are after .

The ability to store audio files on the Kasina and to have the colour organ, as well as many tracks which are more of the `musical ' variety features will mean that the machine becomes used by many more people for a much larger range of uses than classical pure entrainment ' is truly a good thing - it's probably why we are having this discussion now ! :) I think the creation of light/ sound music is almost a virgin field - the tools available now - like MWS and DAWS and VST for lght sound control are only just becoming available and I see you are leading the way. Its a very interesting time to be involved in AVS and the Kasina is opening up the accessibility of many different kinds of content in one device ..

Mark

I think you have nailed some extremely important points. I tend to agree that I push at the extreme envelope of splashing cold water because of what to some measure this industry has become when you look at the full scope. (the audio as drugs really gets under my skin) We have become a bunch of numerologists. I know this may not be a popular opinion in the short term but in the long term I am asking those very questions that Mark points out so well.

Where is that resonant intersection between audio that is entertaining and audio that is entraining in a measurable, objective way? With my works I try to find that point but for factory audio especially avoid all resemblance of classical melody for the sessions have to reusable over a longer term. Music is a disposable thing usually. You hear a piece a number of times and then you want to move on to something new. Ambient soundscapes with complex layers have a bit more shelf life as it were.

But you are so correct that we are truly in an emergent realm of amazing possibility and potential. And it is so wonderful to be in this field with an amazing company and technology platform.

I do intentional make a connection between generally what is entrainment and what is brainwave entrainment because I think that is where the ability to 'learn' resides. As you have mentioned, Mark, you now know what 'alpha' and 'theta' feel like, what they mean for you. It does take time (or talent). I doubt there is such a thing as the ONE audio session that would transport everyone into magical realms. Search on Google for the Most Relaxing Song Ever to see what a British research institute came up with. They did measure blood pressure decrease, heart rate decrease, deeper breathing etc... and I believe many personally know that music can have these effects.

As you suggest, there is much, much more to learn and explore. And without hype, now we have the tools.

Thanks Mark and Scott for this input. Iam glad to read that there is no black and white thinking :-) And yes, with this fantastic device (kasina) the possibilities are endless...

And you make a good point, Mark: more music sessions will open the doors to a larger group of people. When I try to explain to people who don't now about entrainment and mind machines, I always start to say that it makes your music more visible, and more intens with colors and movement. Only when I notice they want to know more about it, I explain what entrainment is. When I start with the entrainment, a lot of people look at me if I come with a mission from Mars :-)

I hope that I can contribute with that my own sessions for this ..
With my last session (sacred moment), I try to make both worlds (music and entrainment) come together as close as I can. I even try to make the singers vibrate in the freq of the session
If Iam succeed with this misson, that's up to you to judge that :-)

Scott makes a good point about the concepts of 'entrainment' making numerologists out of us, and the charts which have floated around of 'magic frequencies' have not been very helpful. The waters have been further muddied in recent years due to all the binaural beat based audio files with all sorts of excessive claims floating around out there, the wildest of which being probably the iDoser files Scott was alluding to.

Studies have show that it's possible to induce the frequency following effect in a matter of seconds, especially in the alpha range. But hammering away at the same frequency, aside from being boring (especially when accompanied by sync'd beeps), and lead fairly quickly towards habituation and diminishing of the desire effect. Most of our products over the years have tried to avoid that by cycling slowly through a range, such as alpha over the course of the session. This also has the positive effect of periodically flickering at everyone's alpha rate, while if we used, say 11 Hz throughout that might just miss activating yours if it happens to be 9 Hz. There is also a wide range of variation in individual responses to flicker stimulation.

My own thinking about this has been influenced by my two mentors, Tom Budzynski and Harold Russell. Tom was developing his 'brain brightening' approach, mainly looking to increase 13-22 Hz activity in older clients, and hopefully improved memory and cognitive function as well. This approach involved stimulating at one of those frequencies for a short period, hopping to another, repeat. At SynchroMed we used 30 seconds per frequency, but later used shorter periods. I believe Chuck Davis was inspired by this to create his pRoshi, which hops around quite rapidly. So the goal is in part overall activation, which can have the somewhat paradoxical effect of reducing overall EEG amplitudes in that range during stimulation. Harold's EEG driven system also operated in that range, and alternatively stimulated above and below the dominant frequency in that range; the resulting flicker also hopped around quite a bit. That was the system used in two SBIR studies with children with ADHD, and the experimental group had verbal IQ changes averaging +10 points after 40 sessions. Harold's earlier study using just light and sound, stimulating alternatively at 12 and 18 Hz for a minute or two each, saw a +6 verbal IQ improvement after a similar number of sessions. So, the 'entrainment' group did not improve as much as the 'rapidly changing stimulation' group. Of course, larger studies need to be done, etc. but it's pretty clear that very differing approaches to such stimulation can be valid and useful.

We noticed that the most popular sessions in the Procyon tended to be the 'mind art' ones, at least from the feedback we received from users, which also tend to move around more, with more of an emphasis on inducing interesting patterns than any specific psychological goal, and that, plus a personal interest in experimenting more with this category, helped shape the Kasina - and the three authors of the current sessions took a sufficiently varied approach to their works that we still had 'all bases covered'. Roman Frajt wrote simpler, entrainment oriented sessions with nature sounds and other simple backgrounds, Craig Tice pushed the limits of audio modulation based sessions, while often also using simpler visual frequency changes, and Scott pulled out all the stops with variations of what he could wring out of visual stimulation, layered into his mostly ambient soundtracks. I tend to prefer these sessions myself, as they are, well, enter-training. Pretty much all sessions can help 'break' negative mental states, regardless of the frequency range. Since that's one of our key goals, what frequencies we use to get there becomes less important, in my opinion.

Robert, you are obviously working at a much higher plane of thought than myself since I could not really understand most of this. Kinda got the message that whatever works for you is great.

My personal, simplistic view, after ~15 years of avs usage is that;

- Simple avs l/s works great for entrainment. This is esp. so with Proteus sessions (not the Sirius sessions btw, a bit too harsh).
- Adding add'n colours on the Procyon does not add much but the quality of the sound does and the sessions are all very good.
- Adding Spectrastrobe into the Kasina, together with audio files has not added any entrainment value to me. Very entertaining though!
- Sometimes light or sound individually works better. For example, I find that audio-only works better for sleep sessions.

I'm not really sure where all this avs stuff is going to lead us. My view is that AVS L/S machines will ultimately go to sessions that use video (maybe 3D) together with 3D audio!

Cheers,
TomC

That is very usefull information, Robert!

The study from Harold what you have mentioned, give me new inside, what I will use in future sessions.
Is there an article or something about this? This wil open some new doors Ans hopefully greater sessions :-)

Tom, you wil be right that this technology wil grow. The use of real video can make things even more spectaculair, but for the moment iam enjoying the kasina with great pleasures :-)

Hi, Esthy--glad that was somewhat comprehendable! For some more serious information, try http://neuromedicstechnology.com/Research.htm. This is some older research we were involved in, primarily treatment of ADHD (insert usual caveat about MindPlace not making medical claims here...). The SBIR studies used the EEG-driven light and sound systems, and include a description of the hardware and its functions. I hope some of this might be useful to you!

-Robert

Hi, TomC - sounds like I need to describe these stimulation variants better, and in more detail--so I'll try that with a blog posting, hopefully soon.

Thanks for your feedback on sessions, old and new... this does help us craft better content in the future. I wrote the Proteus and Procyon sessions, though they were based on protocols we used in our earlier MasterMind and MindLab series. For example, sessions in the alpha range will ramp slowly up and down in the 9-12 Hz range, etc. The Sirius sessions were based on sessions we had licensed from an Austrian researcher who wrote his PhD using light and sound, but his approach was closer to sports physiology rather than more general use, so there tended to be some higher frequencies and more abrupt shifts than with our other systems.

We will soon be releasing 12 LED glasses (as with the Kasina) for the Procyon, which definitely increases the amount of blue and green light passing through your closed eyelids. :-)

Your suggestion that 3D video and audio could lead to the ultimate AVS system is an excellent one. Maybe an application running on the Oculus Rift? :-)

Cheers,

Robert

Thanks for your always thoughtful reply(s) Robert.

It's nice to dream about futuristic 3d video/audio AVS machines but right now the Kasina is the best out there imho. It seems to have a lot of untapped potential and I can hardly wait to see how it all unfolds in the near future!

Cheers,
TomC

Using the Rift could be very interesting.
It already lets you work with each eye and such. Wonder if it would be bright enough though.

I think it is wise to wait until they at least release Crescent Bay as a dev kit. That one sounds like it is getting really close to a useful product. http://www.howtogeek.com/206986/when...sumer-product/

Even though it was not the intended goal of the experiment I and gearing up for (classically conditioning alpha synchrony to a musical CS), in trying to determine the parameters of the unconditioned stimulus (Procyon or Kasina fixed frequency white flicker programs), we are empirically demonstrating individual differences in optimal alpha entraining frequencies. Initially, I tested each of my 22+ student lab interns with a protocol that was 10 min baseline --> 10 min 8.5 Hz flicker with a 20% duty cycle --> 10 min baseline. What we found was that only about 30% of the participants showed evidence of significant entrainment (we are keeping the EEG side simple using a Neurosky occipital electrode, OpenVibe, and a Matlab analysis routine that is posted somewhere else in these forums). I was one of the "non-responders". When using the protocol above, my alpha activity declined a bit during the stimulation interval. This got me thinking about 'person ideal frequencies' for entrainment. The first thing we tried was using a slow ramp up then down during the stimulation interval. This did not improve my alpha synch and it actually reduced the alpha output of our reliable entrainment participants. The next thing we tried is a slightly new paradigm or fixed frequency stimulation, but varying the frequencies starting at 7 Hz and moving up to 11.5 Hz in .5 Hz increments. Actually, we started at 11.5 Hz and bounced around. So far, I have found that I respond maximally to frequencies between 9.5 and 11.5 Hz. I am planing on working with the original creator of the Matlab routine to modify it so that it pitputs the frequency power spectra in 10 sec bins. When we finish that, I intend to try one 30 min session with 3 min baseline --> 3 min x frequency flicker --> 3 min baseline --> 3 min different frequency --> etc. What do any of you who have thought about this think?

John

I think that most of us respond best/easiest to the alpha freq's (7.5-12.5 hz). Also, everyone has an alpha sweet-spot that you can find yourself by playing around with freq's in this range to find one just 'feels right' to you. Easiest to do with avs machines like the Proteus and Sirius that have a manual mode, but also pretty easy to make and listen to these diff freq's by making your own sessions (with the editor or np3 software) and playing them on your kasina. My sweet-spot seems to be 9.5hz and this has not changed for many years now.

I also find it best to start off any session with at least 5-10 minutes in this alpha sweet-spot before slowly ramping to different freq's.

There are certainly strong indicators that individuals have characteristic Peak Alpha Frequencies that they respond most strongly to, likely through resonance. It is a good protocol to seek out and identify these in a methodical way. The question would become would this be considered 'entrainment' as classically understood? Or it is more so a reinforcement of ongoing brainwave activity? To demonstrate entrainment you would need to move a relative degree from baseline.

Your 30 minute study sounds well-formed. 10 minutes is short session especially under observational pressures.

In your follow up questions are you determining the subjective level of inner calm or 'chatter' that the participants experienced. In short sessions for many this is the first impediment to overcome to begin to respond to the stimulus.

Your research is fascinating and I thank you for the reports. I am very much interested to hear more of your progress.

Best,
Scott

Thanks for all the great info!!

My personal experience about the sweetspot freq:

For years I have tried different freq and my best respons freq is 10 hz. When I use this freq for a while, everything becomes more clear, more relaxed focus..
Iam a musician and when I have a gig, I like to do a session for about 20-30 minutes (if I have the time) in that 10 hz range. It makes playing music more easy, gives me
more freedom, more creativity and can play some hours straight without feeling tired.
The most of my own sessions are based around that freq, some a little bit lower.

Greetings,

Dominique

Having sessions that sweep for PAF are most effective for the broad range of people. That is why many onboard sessions explore wide swaths of the alpha band. It is generally considered very beneficial to experience increased alpha activity with relaxation and stress relief being widely reported.

One interesting thing, somewhere, I believe on his blog, CraigT noted that a characteristic of stimulating the PAF was that the eyelids 'trembled' and vibrated along with the frequency. That is more strongly than at other frequencies (if one is inclined to experience this phenomena across a range of frequencies as some have reported to me) I notice this too in EEG driving sessions. I couldn't say whether this feature was widespread and is a reliable indicator in lieu of taking EEG readings. Still interesting and seems reasonable due to resonance effects.

John, have you explored this in research?