How it works

[punchm]

Okay, the fact that these guys are marketing the software as "drug replacement" is pure sensationalism. This will not affect you the way drugs will. However, there is valid scientific basis to the process that's being applied here. If you play a low, oscillating tone to your brain for a long enough period, your brain begins to synchronise electrically with what it's hearing. By studying the frequencies your brain works at when performing different tasks, various researchers have been able to postulate that certain frequencies correspond to certain brain states. So you get products like this that do a good job of sending you to sleep or helping you study better, stuff like that.

The process takes time, so typically you require a session of no less than 40 minutes with absolutely no disruptions, and preferably with your eyes closed.

<super nerd mode engage>
For fellow audio nerds like wagaboo, this is how it works: Most of the tones that have an effect are in the ultra-low frequencies, around 2-18Hz. These frequencies are so low that we can't hear them as audio, and any speaker that tried to play them back would probably explode quite quickly. So instead, the effect is created by offset.

Say you wanted a 4Hz tone. You play a 100Hz tone into the left ear, and a 104hz tone into the right ear. This creates a 4Hz offset, which is what you're after. Since the sounds are coming in separate ears, your brain perceives the difference as a kind of swirling, rotating sound, a bit like a helicopter. This is also why it won't work on speakers - you have to have the tones coming in separate ears for your brain to be able to set up the perceived oscillation.

That's the science bit.

Now, the hippies have been quicker to embrace this technology than the rest of the community. Products like this one stem from a new age belief that class A drugs put your brain into different states of oscillation, so this is an attempt to recreate those states. However, the assumption is fundamentally flawed. Drugs don't affect you electrically, they affect you chemically. What you experience on drugs comes from heavy toxins in your system which your body then overcompensates against by releasing floods of endorphines or dopamine or serotonin or whatever.

Point is, you could wire someone up to monitor their brains and then spike them full of heroin, but you wouldn't get any meaningful data that could be applied to software like this because the euphoria you feel isn't because of the electrical activity in your brain, it's because of chemical activity.

So, in short, Brainwave Synchronisation is a valid science, but it's fairly pointless to apply it in this manner. In fact, it's quite likely to be dangerous, because all you're doing is attempting to duplicate the electrical brain state of someone who was tripping off their heads. NOT the euphoria but rather the state of mind.

[Blue_Crayon]

so are you saying it works??

I personally dont believe this anymore...i did at first, but now it doesnt work and i have reason to believe its all in the head..

If you go in thinking its gonna work, it does, if you think its gonna have this effect, it does....but now i go into it saying its not gonna work, and it never does... Its all in the head..

Plus i remember when it did work for me, i do remember exaggerating things in my mind..i remember being able to do everything normal, but i would choose to be all slow and stuff just to convince myself it was working..

This is the same exact thing as being hypnotised in my opinion...and i say for the ones that relax you, like morphine...the only reason you feel relaxed after it is because you have been sitting in dark silence for half an hour...if could sit in the dark silence not having any thoughts for half an hour i would definatly feel relaxed, with or without the sound...

[Unnamed]

So you're saying chemical energy and electrical energy are different then each other instead of dependant on each other? Do chemicals remain exactly the same throughout the day even when completely sober?

What you experience on drugs comes from heavy toxins in your system which your body then overcompensates against by releasing floods of endorphines or dopamine or serotonin or whatever.

This is false, as even with the drugs that are toxic to the body(and very few of the class A drugs are toxic, most of the toxic ones are classified lower and still legal to prescribe) thier effects usually come from reactions to the actual chemicals(MDMA releasing serotonin/dopamine, opiates releasing/connecting to natural opiods receptors, marijuana's active ingrediants binding to natural cannabinoid receptors, uppers tweaking dopamine, ect ect ect) not your body overcompensating. If the body did overcompensate it would be with the enzymes that absorb/break down the "toxins", which would only make drugs less effective(tolerance).

Maybe us hippies embrace this technology because we've already embraced the practice of working with the mind(and possibly drugs) to have these intense experiences instead of the others(no real good name for people who just wanna get fucked up)who rely soley and completely on the drugs(and consequently lose the "magic" through mental tolerance of the mind becoming used to functioning in different mindstates, even if the drug still effects a person just as much as thier first time) or binaural beats.

Personally I have had my mindstate changed with this program, and other binaural programs. While I dont think they can bring the same intensity of drugs(obviously) i think with them you can bring about intensity that rivals it, for sure. It took me 3 bowls of pot to get out of the speedy mindstate after using the upper doses, and using the trip dose definately helped put me in that same mindstate that I'm in during a trip(though obviously I wasn't as fucked up). And all three opiate doses each made me feel like I was really on opiates, full with numbness and euphoria and heavy limbs(as opposed to the light limbs of the uppers).

Drugs do get u to differend mindstates, but they really aren't needed(and aren't the sole cause in most cases). Placebo does work both ways, and there are plenty of double blind studies out there with placebos working just as well as actual drugs(at lower percentages of course, but people have gotten effects from nothing), up to and including marijuana.