Brainwaves Overview
 What
are Brainwaves?
When a
neuron is fired in the brain it emits a charge of electricity
for about a millisecond. Since billions of neurons are constantly
firing on and off in the brain, this tends to produce a "wave" effect
that has been popularly referred to as brainwaves. Sensitive
medical equipment (EEG, electroencephalography), is used
to detect brainwaves by measuring the electricity levels
over areas of the scalp.
With the
discovery of brainwaves came the discovery of various bands
and subcategories of brainwaves (measured in hertz or "frequencies" ranging
from .3 - 40). Depending on what is going on in a person's
head, the brain emits a large variety of brainwaves. For
instance, the brainwaves of a sleeping person are vastly
different than the brainwaves of someone wide awake.
Over the
years, more sensitive equipment has brought us closer to
figuring out exactly what various brainwaves represent and
with that, what they mean about a person's health and state
of mind.
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| Auditory Evoked Response |
How
does Beyond Being stimulate brainwaves?
Beyond Being was made using our famous Brain
Sound Studio software, which stimulates brainwaves in a variety
of ways through a well-understood scientific
process
known as Brainwave Entrainment (or BWE).
What is brainwave entrainment?
Brainwave entrainment is
a specific neural response to a repeating stimulus. When
a stimulus is presented to the brain it causes neurons
to fire a response. When a repeating stimulus is presented
consistently
at a rate faster than 4 times a second,
for a period longer than 6 minutes, the brain starts
to reproduce the rhythm by itself. This is called the
Frequency
Following
Response, or brainwave entrainment. In order for a stimulus
to successfully induce entrainment, every "beat" must
leave a separate, individual imprint on the brain in
the form of what is called a cortical evoked response, which
is the brain's response to a stimulus arising from the
sensory cortex.
The stimulus itself can be nearly anything
- such as flashing lights, pulsing sounds, vibrations or
electrical charges. Audio or visual stimuli are usually preferred,
however.
How does brainwave entrainment affect
the mental state of the listener?
By stimulating the brain to produce
or decrease certain brainwaves bands, we can induce
a huge variety types of mental states and emotional
reactions, including meditation, excitation, motivation,
anxiety, irritation, sexual excitement, relaxation,
spiritualism and more. For instance, if we were to embed Alpha
waves into music, listening to it would be very relaxing,
even causing your body to physically relax. If we
embedded Theta waves into music, people might even
fall asleep!
OK, so how does Beyond Being
use brainwave entrainment?
Fig. 1
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| EEG Recording. Spectrogram View (4-30), ~1.2 minute time
lapse, middle of an Alpha-focused session |
Beyond Being stimulates the brain through frequencies
embedded in ambient sounds and deep resonant
tones. The ambient sounds of these CDs have been carefully
layered, filtered and resampled in order to present the repeating
stimuli required for brainwave entrainment to occur. When
you listen to any of the Beyond Being volumes, you may be
able to hear subtle pulsations. This is the sound of the
pitch, higher frequencies, volume and other aspects all being
modulated at once.
In addition to this, we include deep, resonant
monaural frequencies which will sound to you like a deep,
soothing rumble in the background.
How can Beyond Being be used without
headphones?
Brainwave entrainment
techniques used in Beyond Being are revolutionary in that
they do
not require headphones or even stereo speakers. Veterans
of brainwave entrainment may find this strange, since headphones
are
such a traditional
part of the brainwave entrainment experience. The reality
of the matter is, however, that headphones have never been
required for use with anything except Binaural beats, which
present a slightly different tone to each ear. Monaural
beats can be used very effectively without headphones,
for example. So can pulses, clicks, light stimulation and
more.
Beyond Being also uses techniques that
don't rely on left-right speaker assignments. In doing so,
not only do headphones become unnecessary, but also stereo
speakers! Neurons in the brain will fire a response to any
stimulus, whether
you
have
headphones
on or not. By presenting a subtly repeating stimulus to the
brain, with or without headphones, the brain will start to
entrain. What we have done with Being Being is perfect this
process through extensive testing and optimization. The results
so
far have been very exciting and are causing quite a stir
in the brainwave entrainment community.
See References for
further reading.
Buy
Beyond Being Today!
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