Binaural Beats
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Many ancient cultures, including the Native-American shamans, Tibetan monks, master-yogis and Hindu healers found that by producing consistent, rhythmic beats, they could induce altered states of consciousness, resulting in both healing and spiritual benefits.
Scientist Melinda Maxfield conducted research into several of these cultures, and found that the drums used in their rituals are beat at a rate of 4.5 beats-per-second, producing trance like states to listeners. This is a result of the brain mirroring the 4.5 bps into an identical 4.5 bps brainwave frequency, which is a low Theta state. Listen to an example.
In 1839 Heinrich Willhelm Dove discovered the phenomenon of binaural beats. These are beats that are generated in the human brain as a result of hearing different externally generated frequencies in each ear. For instance, if a tone of 200 beats per minute was played in the right ear and a tone of 210 beats in the left, the brain would ‘hear’ the difference in the beats and generate its own frequency of 10 beats per minute . Dove’s work set the foundation for Gerald Oster, who 134 years later in 1973, reformulated the scattered binaural beat research by providing new insights into the subject with a paper entitled, ‘Auditory Beats in the Brain’.
Oster found binaural beats to be an effective tool for cognitive neurological research. For example, he discovered the ‘cocktail party effect’; the ability of animals to pick out certain sounds in a vast sea of noise. He also noted their effectiveness in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological conditions and auditory impairments.
The late Robert Monroe, formerly a composer in the communications industry, used this theory to develop an auditory guidance system to heighten selected awareness and performance while establishing a relaxed state. He subsequently created the binaural beat self development industry, and formed The Monroe Institute, a binaural beat research and education organization.
The Institute has done much research with the binaural technology. Using entrainment principles, specific frequencies sent to each ear assist in entraining the separate areas of the hemispheres to equal electromagnetic environments to enhance the free-flowing exchange of information between hemispheres.
The resulting synchronicity of the hemispheres indicate the binaural system as patented at their institute is useful:
•to focus attention and accelerate learning of physical and mental skills.
•for controlling pain and aiding recovery from surgery and illness;
•for self-behavior modification and to aid psychoanalysis;
•to 'program' sleep cycles
•to slow excess mental activity and provide unique opportunities for heightened creativity, relaxation, meditation, musically inspired imagery, and stress reduction.
Many of our CDs contain binaurals. View them on this page - they are marked with an *