It must be something about the way my brain came wired.
As a child, I lucid dreamed chronically. And at will. I could drop myself into a 'day'-dream if I chose. And through early teen years, I would constantly just find myself 'somewhere', know I was dreaming, and wait to see where I was and what was going on.
As my teen years progressed, my lucid dreaming (and what I later understood were called "out of body" experiences) were still chronic but the "invoke at will "capacity seemed to fade.
When I was 18, I read a book about both lucid dreaming and out of body experiences. It was a disaster. It might have been reverse psychology; the authors spent so much effort telling everybody how it was possible it had almost the reverse effect; it was clear they did not truly expect people to believe that, fundamentally.
It might be that it moved it from something I never thought about -- "a given" I thought was normal to everybody -- to something kind of "woo woo". I was something of an official skeptic, left-brain snotty intellectual around that era of life, and it threw it into "that side" of my mental models which it had never faced before.
It might be that it invoked some hidden fears I didn't know I had. For example, all my life, I could sleep in any position except my right side. No idea why. Just couldn't do it. The day I read the OBE book, it mentioned something like that this was less common if people were sleeping on their right. I was unable to sleep in any position but on my right side for years after that point!
After that time, I still had lucid dreams and out of body experiences -- I was glad to have names for these experiences -- but they were more 'common-occasional' than chronic. As I got older, they became more occasional than chronic. And gradually they started getting fairly rare.
By now, at age 43, it's something unusual when I actually have either one.
Remote Viewing when sleep deprived brought on a spate of "nested" lucid dreams a couple years ago. I had a crazy number of sessions I never even begun. I would sit down with my lab book to view and the minute I relaxed, I'd be deeply asleep. I'd wake up the next morning in the exact position I went to sleep in -- sitting up with the light on and my lab book in my lap. I wanted to view desperately, but I also wanted to accomplish something online. I worked more than full time and I had a full time job worth of hours for 'online RV hobby projects' (programming, communicating, design), and I have a pre-teen who wants pretty much every minute I am willing to give her. If I wanted to do even a tiny fraction of the programming work I had to deduct those hours out of my sleep. Then when I'd finally pull off the miracle of making time to view, I couldn't do it.
I started feeling like a poser just talking about RV. The number of unfinished and usually unstarted sessions built up until I had nearly a few hundred, over the course of over a year when I tried almost daily and sometimes more than once. I'd cry about it in frustration sometimes when I woke up. I realized that I had simply trained myself to sit down with a lab book and go to sleep, eventually. It was probably my angst about this and my wish to stay awake despite my body's demands that brought them on.
I would sit down to view, and do a whole session. It felt good. I couldn't wait to see feedback. So I start opening the envelope -- and wake up. And realize I dreamed all of it -- session included. But a session inside a lucid dream might still work. So I decided I would write it all down. I didn't remember it quite as well of course, but still pretty good. So I would write down everything that I recalled, including that it was a lucid dream, and then I would open feedback. Or try. Then I would wake up again, and realize that, too, had been in another layer of dream.
By now I would remember maybe half of the data. And be a little upset because it had all seemed so real. It makes you question reality, frankly. But grim and annoyed, I would determine to capture as much of that data as possible and write it down THIS time, now that I was finally awake. So I would write it down, frustrated that I couldn't recall it all, and in some sad disappointment, go to open feedback -- and wake up. Was it real?
Was this life, or Memorex? I would have no idea. It didn't feel any more or less real than any of the others. What about the session? I didn't remember any of the data at all. I'd be seriously pissed off about that, and very weirded out by the "layers of reality" experience. That went on for a few months, until I realized it was probably a side effect of my so adamantly wanting to view that I was dragging it into the sleep that was happening whether I wanted it to or not. I decided I would not do that anymore and it stopped.
I haven't had a lucid dream since, probably for a year, I think the longest time in my life I've ever gone without lucid dreaming. Usually a "degree" of it is often present even when full blown lucidity isn't, but not the last year.
Today I fell asleep in the daytime. I was sleep deprived and had a blood sugar crash (knew I shouldn't have eaten that chicken pot-pie!) and there I went. I woke up in the normal position -- sitting up with my laptop computer and the light on.
But I had lucid dreamed. The novelty of it was great. I wonder if the brain-stim stuff has something to do with this? I'm embarrassed to admit it wasn't even a great dream. Usually when I'm lucid it has some feeling you might call 'grander' than a normal dream.
This was as proletarian as they come. I was in a dream and this woman was being a total bitch to me for some reason I can't recall. Real snotty. She'd done something bad like kill someone and was implying she was going to blame it on me. (My pathological artificial guilt complex, if it doesn't have enough complete BS to project it on, will drag it into dreams. It's a childhood blame/shame side-effect I've learned to recognize.) I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911 -- but messed up the dialing.
Focus!, I told myself sternly. Go slow, get it right. I was very careful, and I got it right, but when I looked at the number on the cell phone screen, it was all messed up again -- not even all numbers.
I'm dreaming!, I realized out loud. Well, that seemed to solve everything. I put my cellphone in my pocket and walked toward her, said, "Hey!" and when she turned around, I punched her in the head as hard as I could. Then I just punched her repeatedly until she wasn't getting up again soon.
I turned around and stomped over to find the person she had allegedly killed, but I didn't find any body. I went outside and some guy started harrassing me about how I couldn't go outside. "But I'm dreaming!," I explained to him so reasonably, and then punched him in the head.
And here most people think lucid dreaming is some kind of spiritual evolution. LOL.
That's all I remember! After a whole life of LD I don't think I ever remember using getting lucid as an excuse to beat people up. That's kind of novel!
Anyway, I wondered if going to sleep with these delta programs that have all the lights on the eyes could be resulting in these. I'm an exceptional hypnotic subject and I have a high tendency to lucidity even when in impossibly deep trance or sleep -- I had years of problems once I attribute now to some kind of "delta activity while waking" (among other things) -- maybe light that seems to keep me awake a bit and sound that helps put me asleep contributed. I had listened to that last night -- but not this afternoon when I fell asleep spontaneously about 40 minutes after eating.
PJ
.
Showing posts with label brainstim journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brainstim journal. Show all posts
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Day 6 and 7.
OK this is the last of the named-dailies. Yesterday and today I've used the presets on the Procyon for a couple sessions a day. #5 and #2 for alertness. The sudden abrupt shifts in light/sound in those programs startle me but the 'alert' sessions do seem to result in more alertness.
They don't have the slightest effect on making the body more alert though which really is odd. I mean normally when anything makes you 'feel more alert' in some fashion, your body is going there too (like with caffeine). It's just "odd" to have the mind increase alertness when the body doesn't change at all. I feel some lack of "sync" between body and mind in this area at those time.
I missed a couple nights this week but I've tried to go to sleep while listening to some delta program, lying on my back. When I have done this, I have to admit that I seem to feel better after 3-4 hours sleep than I would have at that little sleep without the tech. On the other hand, falling asleep with anything but delta, such as an alpha-theta, seems to result in me feeling more groggy the next morning or day.
Actually, listening to that stuff seems to result in my feeling a little groggy after the session no matter what. Not right after, but awhile after. I think most people are expected to feel "relaxed and peaceful" or something. I just feel woozy. But maybe this is because I am sleep deprived or something.
I received my "thought-sounds" product from Transparent Corp. (Humor: so you know that mind control is infamously linked to all forms of 'braintech', right. Well, the ultimate black ops groups are out in the open working in what is called, in the intelligence industry, a 'transparent corporation'. Funny naming on that one.) The TS is a collection of audio files designed to be seamless, loop-able, quality soundtracks for use in anything from videos to hypnosis sessions. They have a variety of different 'kinds' (spacey, naturey, ethnic, etc.), plus 'variations' on them, and some software that helps loop them seamlessly if your session is longer than the clip.
So I think I have everything I need now. My intent was to create sessions that combined:
1 - Audio track using various tone-pulse-technologies for brainstim at certain frequencies
2 - The above would be intermittant, with periods of hypnosis spoken script
3 - At beginning, end, and during the speaking portions, there would be some nice subtle background music (to go with binaural beats which I wouldn't use for the main stim parts but could use along with the spoken parts)
4 - There might actually be scripted parts for using the glasses -- literally on and off depending on the session -- in any case, the RGB photic is planned to be a big part of it, but not the only part.
I'm going to start simple, with some short sessions, perhaps some kind of generic ones. When I was doing major self hypnosis for years, using pretty deep trance and self-made cassette tapes (this was the 80s), I found it interesting that some of the most influential tapes seemed to be the ones where I just said nice things to myself, vs. the ones where I outlined some specific thing. I'd like to do another chakra exercise script since if I'm going to meditate I may as well do something useful during it, and one or two shamanic-archetype meditation and prayer scripts just to encourage myself to do more of these and do it in deep trance without falling asleep. Brief stuff. After that I'll consider longer more complex stuff.
I hope to have time this weekend -- despite I am totally swamped with stuff for a project having a July party -- to design at least one simple brief custom session in Neuroprogrammer, and one photic session in the Procyon, designed to be used at the same time. The presets are ok but the sound is kinda thin, and I'd like to have something I could use without the goggles sometimes.
PJ
.
They don't have the slightest effect on making the body more alert though which really is odd. I mean normally when anything makes you 'feel more alert' in some fashion, your body is going there too (like with caffeine). It's just "odd" to have the mind increase alertness when the body doesn't change at all. I feel some lack of "sync" between body and mind in this area at those time.
I missed a couple nights this week but I've tried to go to sleep while listening to some delta program, lying on my back. When I have done this, I have to admit that I seem to feel better after 3-4 hours sleep than I would have at that little sleep without the tech. On the other hand, falling asleep with anything but delta, such as an alpha-theta, seems to result in me feeling more groggy the next morning or day.
Actually, listening to that stuff seems to result in my feeling a little groggy after the session no matter what. Not right after, but awhile after. I think most people are expected to feel "relaxed and peaceful" or something. I just feel woozy. But maybe this is because I am sleep deprived or something.
I received my "thought-sounds" product from Transparent Corp. (Humor: so you know that mind control is infamously linked to all forms of 'braintech', right. Well, the ultimate black ops groups are out in the open working in what is called, in the intelligence industry, a 'transparent corporation'. Funny naming on that one.) The TS is a collection of audio files designed to be seamless, loop-able, quality soundtracks for use in anything from videos to hypnosis sessions. They have a variety of different 'kinds' (spacey, naturey, ethnic, etc.), plus 'variations' on them, and some software that helps loop them seamlessly if your session is longer than the clip.
So I think I have everything I need now. My intent was to create sessions that combined:
1 - Audio track using various tone-pulse-technologies for brainstim at certain frequencies
2 - The above would be intermittant, with periods of hypnosis spoken script
3 - At beginning, end, and during the speaking portions, there would be some nice subtle background music (to go with binaural beats which I wouldn't use for the main stim parts but could use along with the spoken parts)
4 - There might actually be scripted parts for using the glasses -- literally on and off depending on the session -- in any case, the RGB photic is planned to be a big part of it, but not the only part.
I'm going to start simple, with some short sessions, perhaps some kind of generic ones. When I was doing major self hypnosis for years, using pretty deep trance and self-made cassette tapes (this was the 80s), I found it interesting that some of the most influential tapes seemed to be the ones where I just said nice things to myself, vs. the ones where I outlined some specific thing. I'd like to do another chakra exercise script since if I'm going to meditate I may as well do something useful during it, and one or two shamanic-archetype meditation and prayer scripts just to encourage myself to do more of these and do it in deep trance without falling asleep. Brief stuff. After that I'll consider longer more complex stuff.
I hope to have time this weekend -- despite I am totally swamped with stuff for a project having a July party -- to design at least one simple brief custom session in Neuroprogrammer, and one photic session in the Procyon, designed to be used at the same time. The presets are ok but the sound is kinda thin, and I'd like to have something I could use without the goggles sometimes.
PJ
.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Day 4
So I went to bed way too late. Went to sleep with some program I cannot recall, delta hopefully, my intent to be to sleep deeply more quickly than normal. Woke up this morning understandably sleepy, but feeling better than I would have otherwise.
Decided before work to try an upper-session so I used Procyon Preset #5, a 10 minute session called 'Quick Alertness', description: 7-28 Hz, concentration of Alpha/SMR (7 to 16 Hz), Bb 7-16 Hz. That was ok. The changes were fairly abrupt in light and sound and startled me several times, I didn't like that part much. The result reminded me of that funny quip about how drinking coffee does not sober you up, it just makes for a wide-awake drunk. I did not feel even slightly less tired in body after this but did feel alert.
Later when I had a brief break at work I decided to try Procyon Preset #13, an 18 minute session called 'Performance Intensive', description: 16-30 Hz, Bb2, Focus 16 Hz. That was fine, nearly fell asleep a couple times in that but felt fine when it was over. Once I got off work I thought about the 'rumor' that 'half an hour of a delta session equates to 3 hours of sleep' (I guess because the serious part of sleep is the delta), but I couldn't find a delta session of interest as there only seems a few, mostly the same just different lengths, and I'd done those. So I put on Procyon Preset #39, a 60 minute session called 'Middle Mind Centering', description: 9-24 Hz, Bb 1-2, Segs:22-14, 14-9, 9,10,11,12,13,13-9,9,9-14,14-24, Focus 9Hz. I liked that fine but ended up falling asleep in the middle.
I woke up late for something I was supposed to be to at 8:30pm darn it. After that, the kid and I watched "Troy". Basically that's a movie where you spend about 2 hours and 45 minutes learning to love and respect and admire the city of Troy and its royal family so that the last 20 minutes you can watch them all get slaughtered. I was pissed. Not my kind of movie. Yes, I prefer happy endings or at least not horrible endings. (The recent movie 'Knowing' was like that. I know people who really liked the ending. In the ending, the ENTIRE PLANET was annihilated. Who likes this kind of ending? Isn't that psychologically akin to liking slasher movies where your own species gets butchered? I mean come on! That's just sick!) So it made us a bit grouchy.
After the boyfriend call it's now nearly 4am and I have to get up in 3.5 hours yet again. I hate this schedule. I'm going to choose an hour delta and put that on lying on my pillow on my back and just fall asleep to it and hope it helps.
I do have to say that the alert ones don't make me feel as strongly "affected" as some of the others. In self-hypnosis I learned that it was really important to do it a LOT and to bring yourself deep down and then out again so you became able to radically shift states at will. It did more for keeping me out of natural hypnosis than putting me into it which really kinda saved me. I think for now, until I have time to focus on custom programs, I'm going to focus on doing some low theta or delta before sleep, some energy in the morning, some relaxation but upbeat in midday, and maybe a meditational in the late afternoon. In theory I'd like it if my brain kept that schedule anyway just for the sake of me getting things done and feeling good about it.
PJ
.
Decided before work to try an upper-session so I used Procyon Preset #5, a 10 minute session called 'Quick Alertness', description: 7-28 Hz, concentration of Alpha/SMR (7 to 16 Hz), Bb 7-16 Hz. That was ok. The changes were fairly abrupt in light and sound and startled me several times, I didn't like that part much. The result reminded me of that funny quip about how drinking coffee does not sober you up, it just makes for a wide-awake drunk. I did not feel even slightly less tired in body after this but did feel alert.
Later when I had a brief break at work I decided to try Procyon Preset #13, an 18 minute session called 'Performance Intensive', description: 16-30 Hz, Bb2, Focus 16 Hz. That was fine, nearly fell asleep a couple times in that but felt fine when it was over. Once I got off work I thought about the 'rumor' that 'half an hour of a delta session equates to 3 hours of sleep' (I guess because the serious part of sleep is the delta), but I couldn't find a delta session of interest as there only seems a few, mostly the same just different lengths, and I'd done those. So I put on Procyon Preset #39, a 60 minute session called 'Middle Mind Centering', description: 9-24 Hz, Bb 1-2, Segs:22-14, 14-9, 9,10,11,12,13,13-9,9,9-14,14-24, Focus 9Hz. I liked that fine but ended up falling asleep in the middle.
I woke up late for something I was supposed to be to at 8:30pm darn it. After that, the kid and I watched "Troy". Basically that's a movie where you spend about 2 hours and 45 minutes learning to love and respect and admire the city of Troy and its royal family so that the last 20 minutes you can watch them all get slaughtered. I was pissed. Not my kind of movie. Yes, I prefer happy endings or at least not horrible endings. (The recent movie 'Knowing' was like that. I know people who really liked the ending. In the ending, the ENTIRE PLANET was annihilated. Who likes this kind of ending? Isn't that psychologically akin to liking slasher movies where your own species gets butchered? I mean come on! That's just sick!) So it made us a bit grouchy.
After the boyfriend call it's now nearly 4am and I have to get up in 3.5 hours yet again. I hate this schedule. I'm going to choose an hour delta and put that on lying on my pillow on my back and just fall asleep to it and hope it helps.
I do have to say that the alert ones don't make me feel as strongly "affected" as some of the others. In self-hypnosis I learned that it was really important to do it a LOT and to bring yourself deep down and then out again so you became able to radically shift states at will. It did more for keeping me out of natural hypnosis than putting me into it which really kinda saved me. I think for now, until I have time to focus on custom programs, I'm going to focus on doing some low theta or delta before sleep, some energy in the morning, some relaxation but upbeat in midday, and maybe a meditational in the late afternoon. In theory I'd like it if my brain kept that schedule anyway just for the sake of me getting things done and feeling good about it.
PJ
.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Day 3
Alrighty then let's see.
Last night was Summer Solstice (12:36AM my time Sunday). I wanted to be meditating positively during that moment and I wanted to try my normal meditation style using the Procyon and see how the visual element might affect it.
I tried Procyon preset #22 'Deep Tranquility', a 60 minute session with the description: An hour's visit to the land of Hypnogogia -- mostly slow, deeply peaceful frequencies interspersed with unflickering baths of color.
In my first visualization, the photic visual did seem sort of interruptive. Then again if it felt hard to connect, I have to consider that (a) I'd only just begun the session and (b) I have not meditated with that approach for awhile so it likely would be a mild effect no matter what. Then I went to a different more common active meditation area. I was somewhere in the midst of requesting the positive things I wanted when I passed out. I had wanted to stay alert. However, since I was sleepy, and I was lying down, it's not surprising I fell asleep. I should have been sitting up.
And although you're supposed to be awake enough to 'perceive' whatever is going on for it to do you any good, the fact is I slept soundly for about 8.5 hours. This is a big deal. I have not sleep for that amount of time without waking in longer than I can even remember. It was so shocking that I was disoriented about time when I woke up; normally if I fell asleep around midnight I would be awake between 2 and 5 at the latest.
I consider that a good thing. If I had to boil down all my problems in life I think the #1 issue would be that I don't hardly sleep. The thing is, maybe most people would lie in bed trying and so they would say they were insomnic. Me, if I'm more than half awake, I'm DOing something and I'm happy to be alert enough to "get something accomplished." So I don't perceive profound and chronic insomnia as a problem, I perceive it as "I get a lot accomplished but I have to sacrifice sleep for it." However when I am objective and I look at my health and more, I see that this lack of sleep has got to be the cornerstone of a lot of not-good stuff. If AV-stim results in me actually sleeping like a normal human being, that alone will probably have been worth the money. Even though that is not actually my goal with it at all.
About an hour after waking I realized I had to do a remote viewing session for a deadline so I decided I would try my first AV-stim-as-remote-viewing-prep experiment. I wasn't worried about falling asleep given all the sleep I'd just had and that I was wide awake.
I used Procyon Preset #24 'Night Voyage', a 25-minute session with the description: A decent into slow washes of color, with emphasis on blues and greens; a somewhat longer version of the #23 with slower changes.
I liked this one, experientially. I like the slower beats. At one point there was a real low tone which I liked the feel of and I remember recently reading that some people respond badly to very low tones--no detail, just like some people maybe it frightens them or something else, will have to look into that. My body did reach the stage of feeling verrry relaxed to the point of being very still and my limbs feeling mostly asleep. I did have more interrupt than most people likely do because I am apnic -- even when awake I breathe too shallowly and too high -- so I several times had to force myself to take a deep low breath, and I expect that sort of thing interrupts the body falling asleep part. Anyway I had no real issue with my mind staying alert despite all that.
The session ended abruptly, as did the other sessions I have done on preset. Perhaps they are really ramping but still at the end of the ramp it seems abrupt. So far I've had the very very mild -- almost a 'sense of' rather than a feel of -- nausea after these waking sessions and I'm wondering if it's a somnatic shock thing and why they don't make those a lot more gradual.
There was some white noise (not session just the Procyon itself) still in the headphones a little plus I have a fan on next to me so I sat happily for a short time. That is around the levels where in hypnosis for example a subject could just sit there entranced with no desire to do anything. I used to drop to those levels so fast I always had to use taped instructions because I lost all volition very fast.
Then I did the session. My bleeping computer had shut down so going directly into it didn't work, took awhile a lot of light flashes and beta effort which was annoying and felt like it defeated some of the purpose of that as warmup. Anyway, the results were odd. I wasn't sure there would be any difference whatever, but I hope 'altered state' might actually help. I didn't feel very AS actually, once I got to the session.
But I did feel different. The only way I can describe this -- excuse me if it sounds retarded but we lack shared vocabulary here -- is that apparently, normally, I feel sort of "varied and variable and large and loose". Like my overall head and effort is a large very loose mass of soft tangled threads. I have never felt that; I only felt that this time, compared to previous times, that is how I must have felt 'comparatively'. But this time I felt "smaller and more condensed and more uniform." Since I have never felt that way before, I recorded it as session data as sometimes it comes through as a personal feeling, but I expect that to be wrong and this probably just to be an AV-stim effect.
The session experience didn't go well. I didn't really feel I could collect much of any data at all and nothing felt decent and even if everything I got was right it was still trivially irrelevant probably. I don't think that particular program worked well for the RV so next time I'll try something more theta and less delta. Feedback is in a couple hours but I don't have much hope.
Am planning to try another pre-set session later if I have time.
I feel this is making my eyes very tired. I have eye drops, when I had LASIK my doctor told me he felt the "GenTeal" brand especially the 'mild' was best for eyedrops (they certainly cost enough). I am going to keep a bottle of eyedrops with my Procyon and use these a few minutes before, and after, each session. LASIK really made me understand how profoundly the eyes are impacted by dehydration (it worsens that greatly) and I've already lost a lot of vision quality by not keeping my eyes and body hydrated enough, don't want to make that worse.
Updated 8pm: had a period today where it seemed like my body sort of fell asleep. My mind wasn't really but my body was slouching and I finally realized it was heavy and/or not-there in the same way as when it starts seriously falling asleep but you're still alert. I am not tired at all in my head but it's like it's trying to pull me down to that. I wonder if this is a side-effect.
PJ
.
Last night was Summer Solstice (12:36AM my time Sunday). I wanted to be meditating positively during that moment and I wanted to try my normal meditation style using the Procyon and see how the visual element might affect it.
I tried Procyon preset #22 'Deep Tranquility', a 60 minute session with the description: An hour's visit to the land of Hypnogogia -- mostly slow, deeply peaceful frequencies interspersed with unflickering baths of color.
In my first visualization, the photic visual did seem sort of interruptive. Then again if it felt hard to connect, I have to consider that (a) I'd only just begun the session and (b) I have not meditated with that approach for awhile so it likely would be a mild effect no matter what. Then I went to a different more common active meditation area. I was somewhere in the midst of requesting the positive things I wanted when I passed out. I had wanted to stay alert. However, since I was sleepy, and I was lying down, it's not surprising I fell asleep. I should have been sitting up.
And although you're supposed to be awake enough to 'perceive' whatever is going on for it to do you any good, the fact is I slept soundly for about 8.5 hours. This is a big deal. I have not sleep for that amount of time without waking in longer than I can even remember. It was so shocking that I was disoriented about time when I woke up; normally if I fell asleep around midnight I would be awake between 2 and 5 at the latest.
I consider that a good thing. If I had to boil down all my problems in life I think the #1 issue would be that I don't hardly sleep. The thing is, maybe most people would lie in bed trying and so they would say they were insomnic. Me, if I'm more than half awake, I'm DOing something and I'm happy to be alert enough to "get something accomplished." So I don't perceive profound and chronic insomnia as a problem, I perceive it as "I get a lot accomplished but I have to sacrifice sleep for it." However when I am objective and I look at my health and more, I see that this lack of sleep has got to be the cornerstone of a lot of not-good stuff. If AV-stim results in me actually sleeping like a normal human being, that alone will probably have been worth the money. Even though that is not actually my goal with it at all.
About an hour after waking I realized I had to do a remote viewing session for a deadline so I decided I would try my first AV-stim-as-remote-viewing-prep experiment. I wasn't worried about falling asleep given all the sleep I'd just had and that I was wide awake.
I used Procyon Preset #24 'Night Voyage', a 25-minute session with the description: A decent into slow washes of color, with emphasis on blues and greens; a somewhat longer version of the #23 with slower changes.
I liked this one, experientially. I like the slower beats. At one point there was a real low tone which I liked the feel of and I remember recently reading that some people respond badly to very low tones--no detail, just like some people maybe it frightens them or something else, will have to look into that. My body did reach the stage of feeling verrry relaxed to the point of being very still and my limbs feeling mostly asleep. I did have more interrupt than most people likely do because I am apnic -- even when awake I breathe too shallowly and too high -- so I several times had to force myself to take a deep low breath, and I expect that sort of thing interrupts the body falling asleep part. Anyway I had no real issue with my mind staying alert despite all that.
The session ended abruptly, as did the other sessions I have done on preset. Perhaps they are really ramping but still at the end of the ramp it seems abrupt. So far I've had the very very mild -- almost a 'sense of' rather than a feel of -- nausea after these waking sessions and I'm wondering if it's a somnatic shock thing and why they don't make those a lot more gradual.
There was some white noise (not session just the Procyon itself) still in the headphones a little plus I have a fan on next to me so I sat happily for a short time. That is around the levels where in hypnosis for example a subject could just sit there entranced with no desire to do anything. I used to drop to those levels so fast I always had to use taped instructions because I lost all volition very fast.
Then I did the session. My bleeping computer had shut down so going directly into it didn't work, took awhile a lot of light flashes and beta effort which was annoying and felt like it defeated some of the purpose of that as warmup. Anyway, the results were odd. I wasn't sure there would be any difference whatever, but I hope 'altered state' might actually help. I didn't feel very AS actually, once I got to the session.
But I did feel different. The only way I can describe this -- excuse me if it sounds retarded but we lack shared vocabulary here -- is that apparently, normally, I feel sort of "varied and variable and large and loose". Like my overall head and effort is a large very loose mass of soft tangled threads. I have never felt that; I only felt that this time, compared to previous times, that is how I must have felt 'comparatively'. But this time I felt "smaller and more condensed and more uniform." Since I have never felt that way before, I recorded it as session data as sometimes it comes through as a personal feeling, but I expect that to be wrong and this probably just to be an AV-stim effect.
The session experience didn't go well. I didn't really feel I could collect much of any data at all and nothing felt decent and even if everything I got was right it was still trivially irrelevant probably. I don't think that particular program worked well for the RV so next time I'll try something more theta and less delta. Feedback is in a couple hours but I don't have much hope.
Am planning to try another pre-set session later if I have time.
I feel this is making my eyes very tired. I have eye drops, when I had LASIK my doctor told me he felt the "GenTeal" brand especially the 'mild' was best for eyedrops (they certainly cost enough). I am going to keep a bottle of eyedrops with my Procyon and use these a few minutes before, and after, each session. LASIK really made me understand how profoundly the eyes are impacted by dehydration (it worsens that greatly) and I've already lost a lot of vision quality by not keeping my eyes and body hydrated enough, don't want to make that worse.
Updated 8pm: had a period today where it seemed like my body sort of fell asleep. My mind wasn't really but my body was slouching and I finally realized it was heavy and/or not-there in the same way as when it starts seriously falling asleep but you're still alert. I am not tired at all in my head but it's like it's trying to pull me down to that. I wonder if this is a side-effect.
PJ
.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Day 2.
OK so let's say that yesterday and my first experiment constitutes Day 1. Since a lot of the alleged effects of brain stimulation are gradual and ongoing, not just at the moment of stim, I guess I should have a sort of journal, of sorts. I'll make a journal category for these. Oh wait I forgot the free blogs here at blogger don't have that option, only tags! OK fine a tag then.
Day 2
I barely slept last night, woke up and stayed up for an appointment early today. I finally went to do my night-sleeping, in the early afternoon. I wanted to do another session with the Procyon but I felt interestingly different as if I were in such a deep brain-state (not just tiredness) already I didn't even have the will to reach over and get it to put on. So I just fell asleep.
I had a terrible nightmare. Set in real life though maybe the past. Let's just say maybe increased blood flow was making me see blood haha. I woke up abruptly in it because my lawn guy was outside the window with the weedeater, so super loud. I was at a point in sleep where I'd expect to be in delta though, not REM, but I guess not.
I woke up with a headache. I almost never get them. It literally felt as if this tiny little spherical area inside the front middle of my brain was "slightly shrinking from dryness". Since they clearly SAY that it increases blood flow (etc.) which increases dehydration noticeably and you should drink water (I did!), maybe I just imagined that, expected it or something. But frankly I don't often imagine I can 'feel' my brain AT ALL, let alone some certain shape in some certain place inside it! I went and got more water to keep next to me.
Hoping tonight to do the 'deepest' one, I guess it's Delta stuff. I'd like to try and stay alert for that even if it keeps me out of much entrainment, but I used to be able to maintain lucidity even in the deepest states and I'm kind of interested to see if I can recreate that ability.
PJ
.
Day 2
I barely slept last night, woke up and stayed up for an appointment early today. I finally went to do my night-sleeping, in the early afternoon. I wanted to do another session with the Procyon but I felt interestingly different as if I were in such a deep brain-state (not just tiredness) already I didn't even have the will to reach over and get it to put on. So I just fell asleep.
I had a terrible nightmare. Set in real life though maybe the past. Let's just say maybe increased blood flow was making me see blood haha. I woke up abruptly in it because my lawn guy was outside the window with the weedeater, so super loud. I was at a point in sleep where I'd expect to be in delta though, not REM, but I guess not.
I woke up with a headache. I almost never get them. It literally felt as if this tiny little spherical area inside the front middle of my brain was "slightly shrinking from dryness". Since they clearly SAY that it increases blood flow (etc.) which increases dehydration noticeably and you should drink water (I did!), maybe I just imagined that, expected it or something. But frankly I don't often imagine I can 'feel' my brain AT ALL, let alone some certain shape in some certain place inside it! I went and got more water to keep next to me.
Hoping tonight to do the 'deepest' one, I guess it's Delta stuff. I'd like to try and stay alert for that even if it keeps me out of much entrainment, but I used to be able to maintain lucidity even in the deepest states and I'm kind of interested to see if I can recreate that ability.
PJ
.
Friday, June 19, 2009
First Experience With Brainwave Stimulation Procyon
I got my Procyon! I decided I would use a couple of the pre-set sessions for fun.
It figures, given this is me we are talking about, that I skipped the first 45 useful, targeted, therapeutic options and started with the 'experimental' section. First I chose #48, "Kaleidascopic Mind", a 20 minute 'Mind-Art' session. The description reads: Complex imagery, with an emphasis on Mandalas, vortexes, and spin-spaces.
The first thing I realized is something I knew already but the experience brought home: the only audio that the Procyon does on its own is a simple 'tone' that can be programmed for its Hz level. This level can change, will automatically ramp, can be synchronized with the lights, can be simply set to be controlled by one of the light channels for synchronization and ease. But it's just a single simple tone.
If you want rich complex audio, music, noise, etc. you need to either feed your audio file into the your computer and using what they call SynchroMuse, combine this with Procyon visual settings, then download to your hand-held unit. That's a little complicated and I'll cover it in a separate post. Or, run the include patch-cord from your MP3 player to your Procyon.
The second thing, which took about 10 seconds if that, was realizing what an odd effect the video had on my mind. This continued through the whole session although it was constantly changing with the lights.
It's like the visual part of my brain was creating "a real-time half-memory-in-the-present not-visual visual-impression," Not a real memory and not a real visual image but some bizarre place between them.
For example, even though visually, through my eyelids I could 'see' that it was just flashing color X or something, in my brain, I perceived a variety of pictures drawn that moved a bit -- like rotoscoping.
That's the name of a tech that is sketch-over-video animation. It was featured famously in that 80's video 'Take On Me' by Aha, but way more infamously by a satire-spoof in 2008 by Dustin McLean, which I wish I could link to but the bitchy record company forced it off youtube for copyright. (He'd replaced the vocals with a very literal description of what was going on in the kind of abstract video, which is so "mad stupid" in the words of one reviewer it was just can't-breathe-funny.)
The initial visuals and once-in-awhile visuals reminded me of some kind of mental rotoscoping. Entire settings and landscapes and visual situations, things that I couldn't figure out any memory related to or any reason for not-seeing, not-remembering, but something-halfway-between-those. For example, a man and woman are taking something like groceries out of the back of a car in the driveway in a suburban neighborhood. My perspective is about 10' above them to their left from about 10 feet away. Shift to some completely different scene which may or may not involve one or more of the first conceptual or visual elements. Shift again.
Some of them may move dynamically (fluidly), or move with visual slow staccato like a low-frame time-lapse-video effect, or are just like comic book 'stills', multiple related squared pictures where some movement/change has occurred between them, or they get larger or more focused as one element in them changes. When I first got it, it was the comic book fashion, that yielded to the slow visual staccato effect, finally into dynamic, but all with the sort of 'sketch-effect', which is what made me associate the experience to that video which is very much the same thing in the same sequence.
Except, just to make this really confusing, I really didn't see anything like that at all; I didn't "see" anything except some color flashing. And none of it was 'clear'. It was a lot like a lot of remote viewing (psychic) data, especially when I've not viewed in eons and am rather disconnected: some kind of super-intangible internal-impression that 'translates to' a visual impression inside me if I had to use words or categorize it, except not-quite. Humans don't even have a word anywhere near describing this, it's not a shared-experience we talk about.
That was just one initial and occasional form. More often through the session I got something I suspect was related to that but a bit different in effect. Imagine there is some sketch over photo (animated in some cases, like the above variations) and you've run it through some graphics filters so the only thing you actually 'see' of it are these teeeeeeeeny tiny 'sparks' of color (all the same color), like a barely-there short-stroke crosshatching effect on a high contrast mostly white image, except each of the tiny strokes is brighter at one side than the other, that creates a sort of "impressionist-almost-outline" which is set against something so 'subtle' you could call it not-white-on-not-white, which has an ineffable sense of slight-variable-depth, so that this combined with the limited micro-sparky color visuals, almost make sense, and seem to reveal (or barely not quite reveal, depending on how you look at it) the visual detail.
The reason I find this fascinating is because I thought I was going to see colors that then turned themselves into mandalas and geometry.
I haven't got a freaking clue why 3 LEDs would instead create--no matter how subtly, abstractedly, ineffably--quite detailed pictures, video-style scenes, and more. Well they didn't create that. It's more like something inside me "almost" created that but not quite -- almost like a "tip of the tongue can't quite remember" experience but just slightly more.
Philosophically just a little as I experienced it, it felt a tad like "I" as a larger entity, had this entire kaleidascope of combined lives/realities/etc., and the photic flashing was... almost-illuminating something inside-me, from that huge conglomerate of geometric physics-energy potential, and I was seeing just the traces of it with 'hints of context', reflected outside me, like the shadows on Plato's cave walls.
OK, and the rest of it was just neat-o colors and shapes and stuff. Heh.
I did work to relax first, and drink some water first, but when I was done I was kind of tired. Of course I was really sleep deprived so that made sense. But it felt like the tech had something to do with that too though. I wondered if it could cause eye strain. Or if changes in neural blood flow could matter. But I thought I should choose a session that was brief and would leave me feeling more mentally attentive.
So I chose preset #8, 'Attention Booster', a 20 minute session with the description: Alternates between 12 and 18 Hz, with pauses between each. Good for mental activation applications.
I would like to tell you what that experience was like, but apparently about 20 seconds into it I passed out. I woke up hours later. My impression is that I had some "tolerance threshold" that is not so much a gradual thing and I blew past it way too hard and fast. That combined with serious need for sleep, anyway.
I'll try another couple tonight when I'm off work.
PJ
It figures, given this is me we are talking about, that I skipped the first 45 useful, targeted, therapeutic options and started with the 'experimental' section. First I chose #48, "Kaleidascopic Mind", a 20 minute 'Mind-Art' session. The description reads: Complex imagery, with an emphasis on Mandalas, vortexes, and spin-spaces.
The first thing I realized is something I knew already but the experience brought home: the only audio that the Procyon does on its own is a simple 'tone' that can be programmed for its Hz level. This level can change, will automatically ramp, can be synchronized with the lights, can be simply set to be controlled by one of the light channels for synchronization and ease. But it's just a single simple tone.
If you want rich complex audio, music, noise, etc. you need to either feed your audio file into the your computer and using what they call SynchroMuse, combine this with Procyon visual settings, then download to your hand-held unit. That's a little complicated and I'll cover it in a separate post. Or, run the include patch-cord from your MP3 player to your Procyon.
The second thing, which took about 10 seconds if that, was realizing what an odd effect the video had on my mind. This continued through the whole session although it was constantly changing with the lights.
It's like the visual part of my brain was creating "a real-time half-memory-in-the-present not-visual visual-impression," Not a real memory and not a real visual image but some bizarre place between them.
For example, even though visually, through my eyelids I could 'see' that it was just flashing color X or something, in my brain, I perceived a variety of pictures drawn that moved a bit -- like rotoscoping.
That's the name of a tech that is sketch-over-video animation. It was featured famously in that 80's video 'Take On Me' by Aha, but way more infamously by a satire-spoof in 2008 by Dustin McLean, which I wish I could link to but the bitchy record company forced it off youtube for copyright. (He'd replaced the vocals with a very literal description of what was going on in the kind of abstract video, which is so "mad stupid" in the words of one reviewer it was just can't-breathe-funny.)
The initial visuals and once-in-awhile visuals reminded me of some kind of mental rotoscoping. Entire settings and landscapes and visual situations, things that I couldn't figure out any memory related to or any reason for not-seeing, not-remembering, but something-halfway-between-those. For example, a man and woman are taking something like groceries out of the back of a car in the driveway in a suburban neighborhood. My perspective is about 10' above them to their left from about 10 feet away. Shift to some completely different scene which may or may not involve one or more of the first conceptual or visual elements. Shift again.
Some of them may move dynamically (fluidly), or move with visual slow staccato like a low-frame time-lapse-video effect, or are just like comic book 'stills', multiple related squared pictures where some movement/change has occurred between them, or they get larger or more focused as one element in them changes. When I first got it, it was the comic book fashion, that yielded to the slow visual staccato effect, finally into dynamic, but all with the sort of 'sketch-effect', which is what made me associate the experience to that video which is very much the same thing in the same sequence.
Except, just to make this really confusing, I really didn't see anything like that at all; I didn't "see" anything except some color flashing. And none of it was 'clear'. It was a lot like a lot of remote viewing (psychic) data, especially when I've not viewed in eons and am rather disconnected: some kind of super-intangible internal-impression that 'translates to' a visual impression inside me if I had to use words or categorize it, except not-quite. Humans don't even have a word anywhere near describing this, it's not a shared-experience we talk about.
That was just one initial and occasional form. More often through the session I got something I suspect was related to that but a bit different in effect. Imagine there is some sketch over photo (animated in some cases, like the above variations) and you've run it through some graphics filters so the only thing you actually 'see' of it are these teeeeeeeeny tiny 'sparks' of color (all the same color), like a barely-there short-stroke crosshatching effect on a high contrast mostly white image, except each of the tiny strokes is brighter at one side than the other, that creates a sort of "impressionist-almost-outline" which is set against something so 'subtle' you could call it not-white-on-not-white, which has an ineffable sense of slight-variable-depth, so that this combined with the limited micro-sparky color visuals, almost make sense, and seem to reveal (or barely not quite reveal, depending on how you look at it) the visual detail.
The reason I find this fascinating is because I thought I was going to see colors that then turned themselves into mandalas and geometry.
I haven't got a freaking clue why 3 LEDs would instead create--no matter how subtly, abstractedly, ineffably--quite detailed pictures, video-style scenes, and more. Well they didn't create that. It's more like something inside me "almost" created that but not quite -- almost like a "tip of the tongue can't quite remember" experience but just slightly more.
Philosophically just a little as I experienced it, it felt a tad like "I" as a larger entity, had this entire kaleidascope of combined lives/realities/etc., and the photic flashing was... almost-illuminating something inside-me, from that huge conglomerate of geometric physics-energy potential, and I was seeing just the traces of it with 'hints of context', reflected outside me, like the shadows on Plato's cave walls.
OK, and the rest of it was just neat-o colors and shapes and stuff. Heh.
I did work to relax first, and drink some water first, but when I was done I was kind of tired. Of course I was really sleep deprived so that made sense. But it felt like the tech had something to do with that too though. I wondered if it could cause eye strain. Or if changes in neural blood flow could matter. But I thought I should choose a session that was brief and would leave me feeling more mentally attentive.
So I chose preset #8, 'Attention Booster', a 20 minute session with the description: Alternates between 12 and 18 Hz, with pauses between each. Good for mental activation applications.
I would like to tell you what that experience was like, but apparently about 20 seconds into it I passed out. I woke up hours later. My impression is that I had some "tolerance threshold" that is not so much a gradual thing and I blew past it way too hard and fast. That combined with serious need for sleep, anyway.
I'll try another couple tonight when I'm off work.
PJ
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