Binaural beats and me

I don't know if anyone has heard of "Binaural Beats" other than the whole iDoser spill, so I will quickly explain before getting into my story.

Binaural Beats take two conflicting sound waves that you play whilst wearing headphones, and your brain tries to steady the conflicting sound out, which ends up pulling your brain into a specific brain wave pattern.

Not technical, probably a little wrong, but it serves it's purpose. iDoser is where people discovered which brain waves were present during certain drug usage, so they started making Binaural waves that would pull your brain into the wave pattern of...say...marijuana, without having to actually smoke a joint.

I decided to play Guinna pig last summer and try this out. I downloaded the "marijuana" one and gave it a try, since I was familiar with the "effect"

Hey, I'm secure enough to say that in my teenage years I smoked marijuana, so neener neener.

There was one problem, most Binaural beats are absent anything BUT the two conflicting sound patterns, and as soon as I started it, it felt like my eyes were trying to rattle out of my head trying to get a handle on what was out of focus.

You have to wear stereo headphones for the thing to work, so it was like two angry harpies, one in each ear, shrieking for my attention.

I gave it up, disappointed and angry. A few months down the road I found one called "Bach to the Future"

I downloaded it simply because of the name (I'm serious, if you were selling weapons grade uranium and gave it an awesome name, I'd probably buy it.) I read the original post on it, it's purpose was to pull your brain from Alpha brain waves (waking pattern) to Theta brain waves (relaxed pattern) to Delta brain waves (Sleeping pattern)

I actually could have that all kinds of backwards, I'm too lazy to actually research it right now. Oh the usability of editing functions. But who are we kidding? I'm a disastrous procrastinator, this will never be updated.

Where was I? Oh yeah. There was a warning listed that I completely overlooked. I made it as far as "make sure you are laying down and there are no distractions around you, if you are in Theta or Delta brain pattern waves and are disturbed, this could cause you to become quite startled as you will not be actually asleep. If this is your first time using this binaural beat, please stop the recording at the 30 minute mark, as it can become quite uncomfortable after that. We suggest placing something over your face to keep any light out, or any disturbances."

I did not make it to the part where they STRONGLY recommended you lay in silence up to an hour after listening to slowly get back into a normal brain wave pattern, and also the part where shit could get uncomfortable...quick.

So I lay down in the bed, it's late at night. I figured if I actually fell asleep (as the post said happened to many people the first few times, and it was normal) I would be comfortably in bed and no harm would be done.

I start the mp3, expecting to be assaulted once again by annoying sound waves but no! Gently wafting in came the sounds of Bach.

Ah, well played beat maker...well played.

Underneath the audio you could hear the waves playing, but not nearly as annoying as only the waves. I closed my eyes and relaxed and lost myself.

There are a few things that started happening. My mouth started tingling, my lips twitched, my feet and legs twitched a bit...much like when you are falling asleep. Yet, I was fully aware, and thought this was the coolest thing in the world.

And then the unexpected, as it reached the point where my brain was switching into the Delta brain pattern, my body did as it would naturally do, and went into sleep paralysis. my arms and legs became lead. At first it was nifty "ha ha, lookie here, I'm trying to move but I can't." But then I realized...this was a bit uncomfortable to me, and started panicking me. Then I started seeing and hearing things...because by all accounts, I was asleep. Even though I wasn't actually asleep, my brain thought it was and was doing it's nightly cleaning and making me dream.

Being 100% fully aware and also dreaming sounds awesome, but it was the absolutely most terrifying moment of the whole ordeal.

No biggie, I'll take the headphones out.
Oh wait, I can't move my arms...or my fingers or anything....or...

*CLICK*

The light BEAMED into my eyes. MoonGoddess was coming into the room to go to sleep.

I instantly snapped back to reality and groggily took the headphones out and sat up.

"Did it work?"
"yeah, wow."
"Sorry, I said I was turning on the light...I didn't know you had headphones in, did it bother you?"
"Nah, it's all ok."

Truth is, it wasn't. I was stuck. I could barely sleep that night, kept hearing that song play over and over and over and over again. Kept seeing flashes of little ogres and colors of light. My head was angry and demanding answers What the HELL did you do to me, Teffy??

Three days. Three days is what it took to get over it. I felt like I was in the deepest of fogs after all was said and done.

I've since used it again, and had a much more pleasant turn of events from it, I actually fell asleep while listening and had probably the best sleep of my life.

I do have to warn you, if you have suffered *ANY* traumatic events in your life, or recently, I would strongly suggest you *DO NOT* use this binaural beat, or any one that will take you into a Delta brainwave pattern, unless you are ready to deal with some demons.

Even in normal sleep, your brain can suppress itself from bringing up truly horrible things you have repressed. When you are fully aware and in a dream pattern, your mind will race and start pulling up stuff you don't want it to. Trust me...I had some stuff come up that I had completely forgotten and had to quickly get over in order to be ok while listening to it.

If you're ready for it, and you will not sue the PANTS off me, here is the link to the sound file.

I strongly suggest ONLY listening to the first 30 minutes. The reason is, after 30 minutes you are at the BEGINNING of being in the Delta pattern, so if you turn it off then, you will most likely just fall asleep and be fine the next morning.

For almost the entirety of the second 30 minutes it keeps you in a delta pattern, which is when the weird stuff starts pulling back up into your head and coming forth, it then goes into Theta, then back to Alpha patterns to bring you back to 'waking' world.

Super big tip...cover your eyes up with something ha ha.

I know, not quite a humorous post, but I thought I'd share my experience!

Bach to the Future can be downloaded or streamed from this link:

Bach to the Future

Enjoy techno shamans!