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Details, History, ResearchLightThe knowledge that a flickering light can cause mysterious visual hallucinations and alterations in consciousness is something humans have known since the discovery of fire. It must have been knowledge of great value to the ancient shamans and poets, who learned how to use the images in the flames to enhance their magic. Ancient scientists were also intrigued by this phenomenon, and explored its practical applications. In 125 AD Apuleius experimented with a flickering light stimulus produced by the rotation of a potter's wheel, and found it could be used to reveal a type of epilepsy. Around 200 AD Ptolemy noted that when he placed a spinning spoked wheel between an observer and the sun, the flickering of the sunlight though the spokes of the spinning wheel could cause patterns and colors to appear before the eyes of the observer and could produce a feeling of euphoria. SoundSimilarly, humans had always been enthralled by the effects of rhythmic sounds, and aware of the mind altering and brain wave entrainment effects rhythmic noises, as evidenced for example by the sophisticated auditory-driving techniques developed over thousands of years by shamans and priests. As anthropologist and shamanism authority Michael Harner, points out, “Basic tools for entering the SSC (Shamanic State of Consciousness) are the drum and rattle. The shaman generally restricts use of his drum and rattle to evoking and maintaining the SSC. The repetitive sound of the drum is usually fundamental to undertaking shamanic tasks in the SSC. With good reason, Siberian and other shamans sometimes refer to their drums as the “horse” or “canoe” that transports them into the Lower world or Upper world. The steady, monotonous beat of the drum acts like a carrier wave, first to help the shaman enter the SSC, and then to sustain him on his journey.” Researcher Andrew Neher investigated the effects of drumming on EEG patterns in the early 1960s and found the rhythmic pounding dramatically altered brain wave activity. Other researchers of shamanistic rituals have found that drums at frequencies in the theta wave EEG frequency range, (3 to 7cycles per second), predominated during initiation procedures. Music Humans have always been keenly appreciative of the consciousness-heightening powers of music, which is of course, among other things, a succession of rhythmic auditory signals. For thousands of years musicians and composers have consciously and intentionally influenced the brain states of listeners by manipulating the frequency of the rhythms and tone of their music. Sound and Light TogetherHumans have also long been intrigued by the possibilities for influencing mental functioning that emerge from combining both rhythmic light and rhythmic sound stimulation. Ancient rituals for entering trance states often involved both rhythmic sounds in the form of drumbeats, clapping or chanting, and flickering lights produced by candles, torches, bonfires or long lines of human bodies rhythmically dancing, their forms passing before the fire and chopping the light into mesmerizing rhythmic flashes. Some composers of the past, such as the visionary Scriabin, actually created music intended to be experienced in combination with rhythmic light displays. Modern TechnologyTechnological advances made possible even more powerful combinations of sound and light. Moving pictures developed soundtracks, and moviemakers quickly exploited the potentials of sound to enhance the power of the flickering images on screen, so that movies like “Gone With the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz” and others that followed became true audio-visual experiences in which the rhythmic soundtrack was fused with the flickering light and the rhythmic flickering of montage editing techniques to create alterations in the consciousness of the audience that would have been impossible using only sound or only light. The interplay of electronic musical instruments and amplified sound with stroboscopic “psychedelic light shows” that took place in the rock concerts of the 1960s could produce rapid and profound alterations in consciousness. Modern scientific research into the effects of rhythmic light and sound began in the mid 1930s when scientists discovered that the electrical rhythms of the brain tended to assume the rhythm of a flashing light stimulus, a process called entrainment. Research shifted into high gear in the late 1940s when the great British neuroscientist W. Gray Walter used an electronic strobe and advanced EEG equipment to investigate what he called the “flicker phenomenon.” He found that rhythmic flashing lights quickly altered brainwave activity, producing trance like states of profound relaxation and vivid mental imagery. He was also startled to find that the flickering seemed to alter the brain wave activity of the whole cortex instead of just the areas associated with vision. Walter wrote: “The rhythmic series of flashes appear to be breaking down some of the physiologic barriers between different regions of the brain. This means the stimulus of flicker received by the visual projection area of the cortex was breaking bounds its ripples were overflowing into other areas.” The subjective experiences of those receiving the flashes were even more intriguing: Subjects reported lights like comets, ultra- unearthly colors, mental colors, and not deep visual ones. We now know we see and hear with our brain not with our eyes and ears. A flood of subsequent scientific research in the 1960s and 70s revealed that such flicker effects at certain frequencies seemed to have amazing powers. Various scientists discovered that such photic stimulation could have a variety of beneficial effects, such as increasing IQ scores, enhancing intellectual functioning and producing greater synchronization between the two hemispheres of the brain. Other researchers found that the addition of rhythmic auditory signals dramatically increased the mind enhancing effects. Throughout history technological advances, such as those in cinema, have quickly been seized upon to stimulate the human fascination with rhythmic sound and light. Throughout the 1970's and early 1980s, technological advances also made it possible for scientists to understand more fully how sounds and lights influenced the electrochemical activity of the brain. The result was the flood of studies mentioned above, dealing with photic and auditory entrainment, and hemispheric synchronization.
The revolution in microelectronics has allowed the development of astonishingly sophisticated and complexes devices for producing and combining sound and light-devices that can produce a rich assortment of tones, chords and even beat frequencies; that permit the selection of a variety of light-flash patterns and intensities; that enable solution of the mode of interplay between lights and sound; that contain a number of preset “programs” designed to produce specific states of consciousness, ranging from sleep to meditation to extreme alertness, at the push of a button; and that permit a variety of programs to be designed and stored in the device's computerized memory. Before the breakthroughs in microelectronics, such complex computerized devices would have been enormously expensive to build, and like the old UNIVAC vacuum-tube computers, their circuitry and components would have been huge and unwieldy. But these new sound and light stimulators were relatively small, some of the first models were about the size of a portable typewriter, and soon models were being made with consoles not much larger than a pack of cards. Sound and Light ResearchIt has been well established that these devices can rapidly produce states of deep relaxation, and may increase suggestibility, receptivity of new information, and enhance access to subconscious material. New work into the effects of these devices is being undertaken around the world, and preliminary results suggest that the machines may be beneficial in the treatment of migraine headaches and learning disorders, alleviation of pain, enhancement of immune function and much more. Here's a summary of some of the most interesting work done in the last decade. In one preliminary 1980 study of one of the sound and light machines, Dr. Thomas Budzynski, biofeedback researcher and clinician, found the “Results rendered from production of drowsy, hypnagogic-like states (with theta frequency used), to vivid, holograph-like images. At times, images from childhood were experienced.” This led Budzynski to speak of the device as a “Hypnotic Facilitator,” and a “Facilitator of Unconscious Retrieval,” that could have therapeutic value, since the device seemed “to allow the subject to recall past childhood events with a high degree of being there quality.” He also suggested that the device could be effective for accelerated learning, since it seemed capable of putting users in the theta or, twilight state, of hyper suggestibility and heightened receptivity to new information. Medical researcher Dr. Gene W. Brockopp of Buffalo, New York, speculated that sound and light stimulation could perhaps “actively induce a state of deactivation in which the brain is passive, but not asleep; awake, but not involved with the clutter of an ongoing existence. If this is true, then it may be a state in which new cognitive strategies could be designed and developed.” Brockopp also suggested “If we can help a person to experience different brain-wave states consciously through driving them with external stimulation, we may facilitate the individuals ability to allow more variations in their functioning through the breakup up of patterns at the neural level. This may help them develop the ability to shift gears or “shuttle” and move them away from habit patterns of behavior to become more flexible and creative, and to develop more elegant strategies of functioning.” In a study of “The Effect of Repetitive Audio/Visual Stimulation on Skeletomotor and Vasomotor Activity,” performed by Dr. Norman Thomas and his associate David Siever, at the University of Alberta, a group of experimental subjects were given audio/visual stimulation at a frequency of 10 Hz (in the alpha range) for 15 minutes, while being monitored for muscle tension, using an EMG, and forefinger temperature. A control group, similarly monitored, was simply asked to relax and to visualize a tranquil scene, without audio-visual stimulation, for the same 15-minute period. Significantly, both the experimental group and the control group were what the researchers called “resistant” or “non-hypnotizable” subjects. While the control subjects expressed a sense of relaxation, the EMG and finger temperature monitors showed that, quite to the contrary, they were actually experiencing increased amounts of muscle tension and decreases in finger temperature (associated with tension or stress). On the other hand, the group using the sound and light machine showed dramatic increases in relaxation, reaching profound relaxation states that continued for long periods after the 15 minutes of audio-visual stimulation. The researchers wrote: “It is concluded that autosuggestion relaxation is not as effective as audio-visually produced relaxation. Electroencephalography shows that a frequency following cortical response is evoked in the audio-visually stimulated subjects. It appears that audio-visual stimulation offers a simply hypnotic device in otherwise resistant subjects.”
In 1989, another researcher, D.J. Anderson used photic stimulation using red LED goggles to treat seven sufferers of migraine headaches none of whom had been able to relieve their migraines with drug treatments. He found that out of 50 migraines noted, 49 were rated by subjects as being “helped,” and 36 stopped by the photic stimulation. Significantly, brighter lights were found to be more effective.
Further evidence of the potential therapeutic value of photic stimulation has come from researcher Jill Ammon-Wexler, Ph.D., of the lnnerspace Biofeedback and Therapy Center in Los Gatos, CA, using a device that uses a flickering light stimulus without an accompanying sound stimulus. The device uses a strobe light with color filters to provide rhythmic photic stimulation in, variable frequencies and in selected wavelength or color bands. Ammon-Wexler did a controlled study of twenty subjects suffering from phobias and found that “remarkable resolution of the subjects phobic systems had occurred over the process of the 20 experimental sessions. There was also “across the board” evidence for enhanced self-concept, and clinically-significant reductions in both anxiety and depression.”
Research continues to show remarkable results with the use of Light and Sound Machines for changing parts of our lives we assume are not within our control. There is nothing quite like the L/S experience, please contact Lyle Tautfest at Answers to schedule your own journey, or for more information.
Answers Hypnotherapy Lyle Tautfest Doctor of Divinity, Master Clinical Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist Pilgrim on my never ending sacred path of awakening 303-789-0646 |
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