Magazine Article 1987 (International Brain Dominance Review) From Dozers to Deezers - Robert A. Monroe

cal sound applications by those involved, it was in the com- munication medium of non-verbal sound that the Institute found much to put to use. It began with a basic premise: You are more than your physical body. The search for validation led us quickly past both left and right brain concepts of mind and matter and into those levels of awareness where words spoken or written were merely the smoke, not the fire. The heat and light from the fire contained much more vital and accurate information. We began to mine this mother lode of reality without the faintest idea as to a smelter that would make smoke out of our pile of ore. A few tailings from our makeshift mortar: The earth en- vironment we identify as Nature with its immutable Laws is a perfect setting for the learning process we are here to experience. It provides the variety of experience needed for such learning. Therefore, the greater the variety, the great- er the learning. Built into the schoolroom procedures are survival, stress, pain, pleasure, sex drive, superlove, and so on. They are there as learning tools. To live a life without valleys and mountaintops slows down the learning process — unless you can live in a cave and simply think about it, because thought and action are the same. Every single unit of what we feel, think, do and be is of impersonal yet exquisite importance to such process, down to the seemingly simple auto-coordinated act of picking up a cup of coffee. There is no judging or good and evil in- volved. You’re learning all the time, awake or asleep. Once humans got past the problems of surviving in the environment, more or less, they began to set up their own laws so as to keep the competition and stress as on-going items. They did this instinctively, and it set them apart from animals. There came families, tribes, states, nations, etc., which brought on various forms of new, more exqui- site stress from arguments through supply-and-demand to “world”? wars. If you know the process, presumably you can maximize the effect and learn more rapidly and ef- ficiently. The trick is to put together a reliable crib ‘sheet without disturbing the way the game is played. Have it taped to your wrist like a NFL quarterback. But first — reliability: a smelter that works con- sistently, next a transducer to make smoke out of heat and light. Put a man on it first thing in the morning. The following is a part of the fallout — not necessarily original — that came from such studies and investigations. They may or may not be part of a reliable crib sheet: Audio Frequency-Following Response (FFR): This is the tendency of human electrical brain waves to replicate par- ticular sound patterns in both amplitude and frequency of harmonics thereof. With known EEG patterns as a starting point, the Institute conducted hundreds of individual test experiments to determine averages in sound frequencies which will produce specific states of consciousness on a broad scale. Thus when the EEG pattern of a given state is known, as in the process of going into and maintaining sleep, the state can be induced through listening to similar patterns in sound. The‘audio FFR is the basis for most of the later work of the Institute, and a generic patent was granted to it in 1975 for the method and technique so originated. Within the spectrum between deep sleep and extreme wakefulness, some sixty different variations in consciousness have been identified that can be induced through audio FFR applica- tion. Hemispheric Synchronization (HEMI-SYNC): This is fundamentally an evolution of the FFR into beat frequen- cies utilizing a different audio signal in each ear and isolated one from the other by stereo headphones. The beat frequencies and carrier sound signals are referenced by computer to use the optimum frequency for the desired audio FFR signal — which is the difference between two such signals. The desired audio FFR signal in itself is often below human hearing capability, and therefore is perceived not by the hearing sense but is synthesized by the brain in- ternally. The HEMI-SYNC method enhances the effectiveness of audio FFR by some 60% which more than makes up for the inconvenience of headphones. In addition, it tends to establish a coherent EEG pattern in the entire brain which can be identified through bi-lateral brain wave measure- ments. A most important aspect of this lies in the ease in which many other levels of awareness can be accessed dur- ing such states, which has made it an effective tool for the analyst, among other significant uses.