This is a re-post. Sorry for the ugly formatting of the initial post.
I'm attempting to write an article to provide the
cyberpunk/consciousness exploration/new age crowd with a skeptical
analysis of the claims made for these devices and require your
assistance. I've already contacted Barry Beyerstein on this, and am
aware of his excellent articles on the subject
Please reply via e-mail (or at least cc: a copy to me), because the
system I'm on only stores newsgroup messages for a few days. Often,
by the time I get back to checking the newsgroups, public replies to my
postings have come and gone.
First off, what are the legitimate uses of photic-stimulation in
current research / clinical practice? What are the legitimate uses
of binaural beats, if any, in research and/or clinical practice? I feel
it's important to mention the "mundane" uses of these things in order
to help underscore the New Agers' misunderstanding/misappropriation of
them.
Are there any known side effects to photic-stimulation (hereafter
referred to as PS) other than seizures? Or rather, are there any
common side effects other than EEG driving? For example, one man wrote
to me claiming that a neurologist put him to sleep quickly utilizing
pulsed light (which he suspects was at a rate of 4 Hz), and that this
was no New Age quackery. Would you say the man fell asleep due to the
monotony of the stimulus rather than any entrainment phenomenon? I'm
reminded here of the folk theory of "highway hypnosis" where one
allegedly falls asleep at the wheel of a car due to stroboscopic bursts
of sunlight (through lines of trees on the side of a road).
I don't know if you've ever tried one of these PS devices yourself,
but visually, they can produce some fairly interesting effects (at
least the ones that frequently change their pulse rates and flashing
patterns [i.e. flashing simultaneously in both eyes to flashing
alternately]). Under closed eyelids, I observed mandala-like geometric
shapes, spirals, tunnels, etc. Is there a name for this phenomenon?
Does it have something to do with phosphenes? Where can I learn more
about this phenomenon? I was intrigued by all this since I'm one of
the odd ducks who can't visualize.
A few years ago, I built a simple PS mind machine with a few parts
from Radio Shack and did some informal testing among friends. Most
of the subjects reported seeing images of various kinds. They ran the
gamut from "my grandmother" to "zeus" to "a mushroom cloud." One woman
(who admittedly was intoxicated at the time) started crying a minute
after donning the PS goggles. I stopped experimenting after the latter
incident. I hadn't expected anything odd to happen, and I'd thought I
was being safe by asking my subjects if they had epilepsy before
exposing them to PS. How does PS trigger hallucinations/memories? I
think it's important to say something about the visual phenomena.
Remaining silent about them only serves to make the conspiracy-minded
more confident in their view that the FDA is conspiring against them. I
imagine thoughts similar to the following going around in the heads of
these people, "The FDA _knows_ we're on to something and wants to
deprive us of it."
Another concomitant phenomenon here is the following: I noticecd
that when the pulse rate was suddenly switched from a slow one (4 Hz?)
to a fast one (12 Hz?) that large grins would light up on the faces of
my subjects. I know at least for myself that such a switch produces a
subjective rush of mild euphoria. What might be going on here
psychophysiology? Presumably, endorphins are being released (I'm
probably being painfully naive here, but that's why I'm seeking your
assistance), but what's the mechanism/process? How does PS (if in fact
it does) trigger the release of endorphins?
These devices may not lead a person into a specific, intersubjective
quasi-mystical state AC ("Alpha Consciousness"), but they certainly
seem to be doing something - just what exactly, I don't yet know. I'd
like to be able to describe the phenomena induced by these devices with
parsimony; Shaving Robert Monroe's beard with Occam's Razor.
Setting aside the more outlandish claims made by mind machine
proponents (i.e. the sufficiently vague so as to be virtually
meaningless "enhanced mental performance" and "brain expansion"), would
you say that these light/sound devices might at least be capable of
putting someone into a trance/hypnotic state (as tribal drumming or
chanting might do)? If so, perhaps this is the only effect a good
number of people expect to obtain from these devices (again, setting
aside the outrageous claims of the mind machine snake oil men).
Assuming for the moment that a trance/hypnotic state is of some value,
I can see the benefit in using one of these devices as opposed to
keeping one's neighbors awake all night with mumbo-jumbo of one variety
or another.
Would you consider hypnosis/trance to be a unique, specific
inter-subjective state of consciousness? What is happening to the
brain when one is hypnotized? Can hypnosis be used with any
effectiveness in behavior modification? (and I'm not referring to
subliminal messages... speaking of subliminal messages, have there been
any articles on the INeffectiveness of subliminal messages other than
those in the Skeptical Inquirer?) "Accelerated learning?" Is there any
concensus among neuroscientists/ psychologists as to what hypnosis is?
I've read so much tripe on the subject of hypnosis that I'd like to
start fresh. I think one psychologist, Robert Baker (U. of Kentucky I
believe), claims that there's no such thing as hypnosis - that it's
just a form of play acting on the part of the subject - yikes, if
that's the case, I'd hate to have a dentist who preferred hypnosis to
anaesthesia. Baker's book, _They Call it Hypnosis_ is published by
Prometheus. I haven't gotten around to reading it myself.
Thanks for your help!
- Dana
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| | "We should not act and speak as if |
| | we were asleep." --- Heraclitus |
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