The Principle of the Mind Machine
Understanding the principle behind the Mind Machine is essential. This article is to help you with this.
What the Mind Machine can do: It has 2 LEDs at each eye, which can blink at any frequency. Sounds are added by our software via the sound card and headphones.
With our Mind Machine, we offer optic and acoustic stimulation.
In our current software version 5, we offer two different principles for optic stimulation and a tried and tested one for acoustic stimulation:
The Optic Principle:
As you read this, your brain is resting in beta state, meaning your brainwaves are predominantly between 13 and 30 Hz, depending on how calm you are. Your brainwaves oscillate at a certain frequency.
The first optical principle, called "synchronized mode" in our software, works easily.
If we let the Mind Machine blink before your eyes with, say, 15 HZ, we stimulate your brainwaves with 15 Hz. Put simply, after a while we measure a predominance of 15 Hz in your brainwaves.
The blinking frequency of Mind Machine, the same at both eyes (synchronized mode), corresponds with the stimulated brainwave frequency.
So if we want to slow down your brainwaves from 20 Hz to 10 Hz, we give you a session that slows the Mind Machine's blinking from 20 Hz down to 10 Hz.
You feel deep relaxation, increased learn ability and higher concentration.
The second optical principle of our software is called, "Alternating Mode". The LEDs will blink out of phase.
This means, if the left LEDs blink the right LEDs are switched off and contrary. This mode has been developed with the University of Hamburg, Psychological Institut. The mode is explained more detailed in the software.
The Acoustic Principle:
The acoustic principle is a little different from the optic one. If the optic principle is used in synchronized mode, the LEDs blink simultaneously in front of both eyes and in the exact frequency we wish to stimulate our brainwaves with.
The acoustic principle uses the long established fact of hemispheric synchronization with two different tones.
This is called creating a frequency beat - a meta beat.
If we wish to stimulate our brainwaves at 15 Hz, we use two tones which differ by exactly 15 Hz.
For example, the left ear receives a 300 Hz tone and the right ear a 315 Hz tone. For separating both tones clearly, headphones are essential.
After a few minutes of listening, we no longer hear two tones, but only a deep humming sound. This is the meta beat, the 15 Hz. Our brain responds in a particular way by coalescing both sounds.
How can we explain this? We don't know exactly, but we might say that the brain uses a similar principle to find out which direction a sound is coming from. How do we know if a sound comes from our right or our left? Easy - the sound arrives sooner at the closer ear. The brain must be able to register when the sound arrives and to calculate where it comes from from this information. The right and left ear must be able to coordinate.
Our brainwaves react in a similar way to the optic principle when we hear these different sounds called binaural beats. They settle down around the difference.
If both optic and acoustic stimulation at the same frequency are used at the same time, the stimulation is increased. Measurements were better when the test person both saw the blinking and heard the sounds, than when only one stimulus was active.
A word on conversion: Optically, we have an area from 0 to 25 Hz. At 25 Hz the LEDs are continually alight. Acoustically, due to the difference created, a larger area of frequencies is at our disposal but they are not necessary. This is because we don't want to stimulate the brainwaves above 25 Hz. That would create "stress". The software generates the binaural beats automatically according to the optical frequencies.
If the Mind Machine blinks at 25 Hz, the difference of 25 Hz is created with two tones at 225 Hz and 250 Hz. If the Mind Machine blinks only at 10 Hz, the software produces two tones at 90 Hz and 100 Hz
So if the optical frequency is lowered, the difference between the two tones is also created in a lower Hertz region.
