Your brain is made up of billions of brain cells called neurons, which use electricity to communicate with each other. The combination of millions of neurons sending signals at once produces an enormous amount of electrical activity in the brain, which can be detected using sensitive medical equipment (such as an EEG), measuring electricity levels over areas of the scalp. The combination of electrical activity of the brain is commonly called a Brain Wave pattern, because of its cyclic, "wave-like" nature.
Researchers have found that not only are brainwaves representative of mental states, but they can be stimulated to change a person's mental state, and even help treat a variety of disorders.
Brainwave Entrainment has over 70 years of solid research behind it.
Brainwave Entrainment refers to the brain's electrical response to rhythmic sensory stimulation, such as pulses of sound or light. When the brain is given a stimulus, through the ears, eyes or other senses, it emits an electrical charge in response, called a Cortical Evoked Response. These electrical responses travel throughout the brain to become what you "see and hear".
When the brain is presented with a rhythmic stimulus, such as a drum beat for example, the rhythm is reproduced in the brain in the form of these electrical impulses. If the rhythm becomes fast and consistent enough, it can start to resemble the natural internal rhythms of the brain, called brainwaves. When this happens, the brain responds by synchronizing its own electric cycles to the same rhythm. This is commonly called the Frequency Following Response (or FFR):
FFR can be useful because brainwaves are very much related to your mental state. For example, a 4 Hz brainwave is associated with sleep, so a 4 Hz sound pattern would help reproduce the sleep state in your brain. The same concept can be applied to nearly all mental states, including concentration, creativity and many others. It can act as a gateway to experiences such as deep meditation or "lucid dreaming" type states.
If you listen closely, you will hear small, rapid pulses of sound. As the session progresses, the frequency rate of these pulses is changed slowly, thereby changing your brainwave patterns and guiding your mind to various useful mental states.
For instance, if Alpha waves are embed into music, listening to it would be very relaxing, even causing your body to physically relax. If Theta waves are embedded into music, you might even fall asleep!
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Many entrainment techniques used in my CDs are revolutionary in that they do not require headphones or even stereo speakers. Until recently headphones have been 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 and sounds.
Any repeating stimulus can entrain the brain - pulses of sound, light or vibrations. My CDs use many techniques that don't rely on left-right speaker assignments. In doing so, headphones become unnecessary. Neurons in the brain will fire a response to any stimulus, whether you have headphones on or not. By presenting a repeating stimulus to the brain, even one that is quite subtle, the brain will start to entrain, with or without headphones.
Using headphones will enhance the binaural beats on the recordings, but they also contain monaural beats as well as the latest brainwave technology. Monaural beats play slightly different tones in each ear - 4 tones in total, two per ear, and don't rely on headphones for their effectiveness.