This article started out as a treatise on eustress which is a positive form of stress and I treated it in such a scientific fashion that I wanted to jab a pencil in my left eye socket out of boredom. Not wanting to be counter-productive (and a cyclops who wears glasses) I ripped out the good stuff on Brainwave Entrainment and put it here since I’ve been wanting to write about this subject for awhile. If I can find a way to make eustress entertaining without resorting to low-brow jokes about eunuchs (no offense to my lovely eunuch readers…whoever you are) I’ll post that article at another time.
So, I’ve used a number of meditation audios over the years, most of them use the concept of Brainwave Entrainment, whether via Binaural beats or some other cool technology that you can look up in Wikipedia. I prefer Brainwave Entrainment over straight meditation because I sometimes (read= often) get bored sitting their quietly trying to ignore (read = listening) to my thoughts about how awesome I am (not).
The 99 Cent Description of Brainwave Entrainment
Brainwave entrainment products are typically sound recordings of music or background noise but with different frequencies projected into the right and left ears (thus, binaural beats). The different frequencies, can influence the electrical activity of your brain to generate the following frequencies below and thus affect your state of being.
Basically, there are four types of Brainwave frequency as follows:
Alpha Waves – For light relaxation.
Beta Waves – For keeping you alert and awake for study and learning.
Theta Waves – Have you ever driven home from work and not remembered any part of the commute? Your brain was likely in Theta frequency state.
Delta Waves – For Deep relaxation. Think a Shaman or Yogi trained in deep meditation.
The rest of this delicious post contains links and comments about brainwave entrainment products I’ve used over the past decade plus. I am NOT an affiliate for any of these so I have no interest in whether you purchase one over the other but I will give you my preferences. As usual I put things in no discernable logical order except for whatever came to mind first:
Holosync – This was my first taste of binaural beats over a decade ago. There are upwards of 13 levels for this program. It is, in my mind, entirely too expensive. When I went thru this in 1998, Level 2 cost me $279 and unless you had recording equipment (which was rarer back then) you couldn’t take advantage of the audio subliminals for the subsequent levels. This, and the fact that you had to spend an hour a day listening to tracks with rain falling (causing my bladder to weap in the fetal position), was enough reason for me to walk away after level 2.
Hemi Sync – These discs are a fair bit more affordable. Most programs run about $20 a piece. I’ve used several over the years and they have been around long enough, and are popular enough, that I’ve even been able to find them at my library.
Vantage Quest VI – When you have a product with VI in it, you assume that there is a V, and IV, maybe a III an II or an I preceding it, but alas I’ve never been able to find anything other than VI. This is a GEM! It costs about $19 now and it’s a sound recording that lasts about 30 minutes. It’s supposed to be used for creativity and I can very strongly feel the effects during and after listening to it. I’ve had this disc for about eight years and it’s awesome.
Harmonic Ascension which subsequently spun off into Mystic Mindpower – I liked Harmonic Ascension because you could get a lifetime membership (lifetime = for however long the website owner continues to pay for hosting services) for $47 and there were over twenty audios on the site. Good bang for the buck. My favorite that I still use is called Vibronics.
Mystic Mindpower offers a couple next generation meditation audios on their site for $4.99. Then they upsold me later with a group of 25 audios for around $50, the best of the bunch being called Zen. These are pretty good all around, but I can’t seem to find a consistent and active website for the company. The great thing is that these come as audio downloads for immediate access.
The rest of the products below in this category also come as audio downloads.
Xtreme Mind – Okay if you’re ever bored, spend a few hours on the discussion boards at this site. There is definitely some next level shyt going on there, and if you’re easily offended by the esoteric, perhaps you should stay away. I come for the audios, and stay for the entertainment. I won’t apologize for that. I’m a happy user of their EP3 meditations including Chakra Activator which I’ve listened to every night for the past week and a half. I’ve owned these since 2006. I also love their Kundalini Activator and Kundalini Activator expansion pack. They have generous coupons for returning customers. Go get yer weird on!
Binaural Zen – Steve Aitchison is a blogging friend of mine who runs a great Personal Development site called, Change Your Thoughts, and he also put together some nice, affordable binaural audios. I’ve used Binaural Zen (Awakenings) during periods of writing my book recently and I found it helped me stay alert and focused. Also, I seem to get some nice offers from him by email on other audios he produces.
DNA Activation Level 1 – I gave this disc a workout about four years ago but don’t bother with it much anymore. First of all, it’s produced by a person called Shapeshifter. I don’t like that kind of anonymity with my products. I didn’t get too much from it but my cats seemed to like it. This is the first set in the group that doesn’t require ear phones, though some of the Harmonic Ascension audios come in an earphone and non-earphone version. It looks like they now have a subscription service that seems reasonable at about $25 a year that gives you a bunch of downloads. If you’re interested in multi-dimensional music then have at it. I may try it again in the future but I have enough audios that I’m happy with.
Unexplainable Store – This is more of a recent find for me. I’ve used their Shaman Consciousness audio as well as their audios on Manifestation. The audios I typically like are thirty minutes or less and the one’s that I gave rave reviews on above are also mostly in that thirty minutes or less category. These audios seem pretty powerful, I definitely have some vivid dreams when I listen to them but overall they are not my favorites.
Quantum Mind Power – Hmmm…this one was developed by Morry Zelcovitch who seems to be a pretty popular web search if you google The Morry Method. I picked this up several years ago, it was my first audio download set and it exposed me to some different audio technologies like monaural beats and isochronic tones. Monaural beats allow you to listen to the session without earphones as it comes across as one wave. Isochronic tones are like monaural beats but the stimulus is supposed to be stronger.
I gotta be honest, didn’t get much out of this program and they’re kinda’ expensive at $97 when I bought it a few years ago. I abandoned it after a couple months but some folks might do better with it. I used the isochronic tones mostly but I think the Morry Method might be a bunch of hype (my personal experience). They claim the isochronic tones are more effective than binaural beats but my experience is the opposite.
Good Audios but not Brainwave Entrainment Category
Think Right Now! – DO IT! Just kidding. These are pretty darn effective, despite the simple concept. Based on accelerated learning studies of using Baroque style music at 60 beats per minute, these are audible (meaning you can hear ‘em) affirmations played over the top of the music.
Each affirmation phrase is repeated with different inflections three times per ten seconds of music. To demonstrate, by using my own affirmations so that I don’t get sued for copyright infringement:
Nails wish they were as tough as me
Nails wish they were as tough as me
Nails wish they were as tough as me
I frequently use I Am Organized Now! and it never fails to kick me in the ass and get me cleaning up. My wife likes Dissolving Panic and Anxiety and I also really like Supreme Self Confidence. What prevents me from using them more often is that the programs run an hour a piece and they come on CD.
I’ve digitized a few of them but the I Am Organized one doesn’t seem to digitize…perhaps some kind of anti-pirating coating that makes the tracks skip. I even had them send me another one and it did the same thing. I wasn’t trying to pirate (Aaarrrrrgghhh!), just trying to put them on my IPOD since portable CD players were cool in 1990 but not so much in 2010.
Bonus - you can play them all day in the background and you don’t need earphones.
Paraliminals – Some people are pretty hot on these, including Steve Pavlina but I’m a bit indifferent. First of all, they were still only producing these on Audio cassette in the middle part of last decade. Their reasoning was that they were afraid of piracy (Aaarrrrrgghhh!) but that didn’t stop it. Now, I believe they are doing audio downloads and CD’s.
I also really can’t stand the narrator’s voice. I think it’s Pete Bissonette (or it might be Paul Scheele), no offense, but I’d rather relax to a woman whispering in my ear phones then some dude with a high-pitched voice. The technology is cool though. Basically one voice speaks to your left brain in a very analytical way, while another voice speaks to your right brain in a more artistic, abstract way, thus facilitating whole brain learning.
They have some good products like Get Around To It and New Behavior Generator and they are pretty cheap (usually $20 or so) but I just dumped my tapes recently given that I haven’t had a working walkman in many years. Not worth it to me right now to purchase them again.
Of all these audios, I consistently return to the ones put out by Xtreme Mind. The EP3 pack comes with an MP3 for Accelerated Learning, Aura Explosion, Brain Fire, Instant Charisma, Power Assertiveness and Soul Launcher. Use any or all, but not one after the other. Definitely space them out to one per day or fewer. I seem to have a lot more energy and require less sleep (which is important since I don’t get any with triplets) when I listen to one of these tracks while drifting off each night.
Again, to each their own in regards to preferences but feel free to browse the sites and get a sense of what they offer.
What I’d like to see, and I’m sure it’s out there in development, is something that combines Binaural Beats with paraliminals, subliminals, and visual affirmations. Somebody get to it!
I’d be pleased as punch if you shared some of your experiences and favorite brainwave entrainment products in the comments below.
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Good stuff, I’ve experimented with binaural beats and got some pretty good effects. I’m surprised you didn’t mention iDoser – the one that is supposed to mimic the effects of certain drugs like marijuana, LSD, and peyote. My friend tried one and said he got some pretty cool closed-eyed visuals.
I think these brainwave entrainment techniques are good but they should be seen as training wheels. Once you get more familiar with states of bright alertness or sleep/wake then you should practice cultivating these states without auditory aid. Just my opinion – I think it would also help when you want to apply these states of consciousness to your everyday world.
Another kinda-related thing worth mentioning is minimalism/drone/noise music. There are a lot of good music artists and bands out there that create really incredible layers of mind-warping textures. I recommend guys like Steve Reich, La Monte Young, John Cage’s prepared piano pieces, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Tony Conrad.
La Monte Young actually used to have these “dream houses,” one of them being in NYC. They were just a single room with psychedelic lighting and a big speaker in each corner of the room letting out a different frequency. As you walk through the room you can notice subtle changes in the pulsating of the sound. They had pillows too, so you could just lay down, relax, and become one with the whole experience.
Great article!
You certainly are an eclectic dude, Steven. I couldn’t find La Monte Young on ITunes, but there was a song by Sound Lab called Lamonte Young which was kinda cool.
Steve Reich has a few experimental things on iTunes. Early Works is pretty cool.
John Cage – I saw something by Markus Hinterhauser that was cool where he did Cage’s stuff as prepared piano pieces.
Hmmm i-Doser….Being in my late 30’s I’m not much into recreational drugs or simulating recreational drug experiences but since I’m only a couple years away from “dirty old man” stage, I think I’ll pick up the Sexual Simulations MP3’s.
Thanks for sharing…
- Charley
I should add that my research into the i-Doser stuff shows that the Pure Simulations have a track that simulates Gamma waves. Gamma waves are the highest frequency and are associated with more intense forms of concentration.
I was remiss in my article in mentioning that the Mystic Mindpower audios (25 for about $50) contained a number of Gamma-inducing audios as well.
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