Habituation Factor?

[seankerr123]

Hello all,
Recently heard some samples of the Hemi-Sync binaurals and was extremely impressed.
I am considering buying the Journeys out of Body set, but first have a question for you all:
I noticed Brian's comment regarding the Brainwave Generator software that after a few uses the brain gets accustomed to the binaurals and they lose much of their efficacy.
So, does the same hold for the Journey out of the Body CD's?
Do they cease to produce their effect once you've heard them a few times?

Thanks and best wishes to all,
Sean

[CFTraveler]

I think that is possible with anything that 'artificially' leads you to a state. The good news is that binaural beats facilitate your familiarization with these states, so that you can achieve them on your own or recognize them when they happen naturally. The MAP and Hemi Sync Support for Journeys out of the Body also include energy work/or some sort of ritual mindwork to be done as part of the process. This then teaches you to achieve the altered states as you do it, and in the future a connection can be established with the discipline and the resulting state. (I hope this was clear) :shock:

[Korpo]

I have repeatedly used the Focus 10, 12 and 15 tapes from the Gateway Experience home study course with good effects. Instead of getting used to it I rather think I have entrained to them. Instead of the tapes getting "useless" my experience is rather the effect entrains stronger over multiple uses.

The Monroe people recommend to attain the state, and to go back there, remember the feeling to reattain it. The counting is actually a mental cue helping in this remembering, to ease accessing the memory. But when you have become used to a state with the tapes, you can attain it without, too.

I have not tried JOOB yet.

Take good care,
Oliver

[seankerr123]

Very Interesting. Thank you for your replies. I was hoping others might chime in their own experiences, but it looks pretty quiet...

One more question regarding binaurals:
Over the past few days, I've been experiencing a 'spinning' sensation, nearly every time I sit to meditate. Is this a byproduct of binaurals?
It's a whole-body spinning sensation, like sitting on a swivel chair and whirling around and around. Never experienced anything like it. I don't know whether to regard it as just a side-effect of playing with brainwaves, or if there's something more to it. Any insights?

Thanks and best wishes,
Sean

[CFTraveler]

I couldn't say. I have had that happen and projected that same night, but that was before I had ever used binaurals. So, it could be extrapolated.
It could also be anything from a balance problem (middle ear infection, scuba-diving accident, coming down with a cold and having it affect your ears.) to something else, so I'd advise you to get yourself checked out with your preferred health care provider, just to be safe.

[journyman161]

About the spinning sensation, you might want to do some reading about the Mer-Ka-Ba field. The body is surrounded by several fields that have a variety of properties & which are effected by the meditative & astral things we do. The Mer-Ka-Ba field specifically is about spinning.

On the habituation side, I have used holosync quite a lot, not so much to bring on astral experiences, although that has happened, but more with the aim of balance of the two hemispheres of the brain, & so bringing my mind into balance.

I have used bio-sensors to monitor my progress, & up till the last time I did the monitoring, the effects seem to get more pronounced as I gain experience. After a while, the graph produced by the monitor starts to track the holosync track very closely, whereas when I first tried holosync, there was a delay before things started to be a closer match.

I think what some may be putting down to habituation may simply be the normal human effect where new things draw massive amounts of attention while familiar things are tracked by 'circuits' built from past experience & so don't get the active attention of the being. Certainly the technique of holosync & binaural beats doesn't really have any space to explain how the effects could be lessened from exposure. The effects have nothing to do with the actual sounds & are a brain process that tries to pattern-match. Brain processes don't tend to fade with use, they get stronger or more effective.

Just my thoughts on it...

[seankerr123]

Very interesting!
If it can occur before ever experiencing binaurals, then that would suggest that it's not likely just a byproduct of them.

It's true, I'm prone to ear problems, but I don't think this is that. There's no dizziness or discomfort involved.

Hmm, I will google mer-ka-ba. It's the first I'm hearing the term. We'll see if wikipedia can fill me in - thanks for the pointer!

As for the thoughts on habituation, well, experience is surely the real yardstick, so I am happy to hear that your concrete experience indicates the contrary. It was only Brian Mercer's comment about the efficacy of the beats lessening after repeated use that prompted the inquiry. And if you think of parallel processes like drug users chemically stimulating their brains and needing higher and higher doses to get their fix, vision 'compensating' for colored sunglasses, or even comments about awareness processes like rope losing their efficacy with habituation, it does give you good cause to wonder. Naturally there are also lots of examples of habituation leading to deeper entrenchment of a process, which is the more typical situation.

Thanks,
Sean

[journyman161]

Hmm, I will google mer-ka-ba. It's the first I'm hearing the term. We'll see if wikipedia can fill me in - thanks for the pointer!It's an interesting field to study & try. The Mer-Ka-Ba field is slightly offset from the idea of Merkaba as a model for the Being. (Mer = body, Ka = immortal flame, Ba = individual beingness who lives this specific life. Mind you, they may well be inter-related - I'm nowhere near the level of development needed to grasp the intricacies of the geometries necessary to understand how it all fits together.

As for the thoughts on habituation, well, experience is surely the real yardstick, so I am happy to hear that your concrete experience indicates the contrary. It was only Brian Mercer's comment about the efficacy of the beats lessening after repeated use that prompted the inquiry. And if you think of parallel processes like drug users chemically stimulating their brains and needing higher and higher doses to get their fix, vision 'compensating' for colored sunglasses, or even comments about awareness processes like rope losing their efficacy with habituation, it does give you good cause to wonder. Naturally there are also lots of examples of habituation leading to deeper entrenchment of a process, which is the more typical situation.A thought on the possible differences...
Maybe the processes that 'habituate' are those which replace or imitate the natural, mental or spiritual ways of achieving things. Certainly the drugs would fit this definition & using imaginary models to stimulate the exit process, while helpful to get a seeker to a knowingness of astral effects, would seem to be a crutch to the actual process.

The processes which don't habituate might be those which stimulate or spark the natural, mental or spiritual processes rather than replace or avoid them.

Note that, on this level, the binaural beats, the entraining of the mind, are non-habituating, but the use of them to produce astral events may very well be a habituating process!

The holosync process is a little misunderstood in this respect. The effects of binaural beats in getting the brain frequencies to follow those being delivered to ear & eye are not, in & of themselves, an astral-evoking phenomena. They merely provide easy access to various states of mind, & used regularly, have been shown to provide similar brain patterns to those of yogis & monks who have practiced extensively in meditative practices.

So, I guess I'm saying the entrainment process & the production of Alpha, Theta & Delta states of mind are not subject to habituation because the binaural beats will always stimulate the pattern-seeking mechanism & thus provoke entrainment. But it may be that the ability to reach out from those states of mind to the astral realms may be subject to habituation effects similar to the others mentioned above.

[seankerr123]

hey, thanks for the tip!

I websearched mer-ka-ba and, while most of what I came up with seems like junk, I was struck by the 'star-tetrahedron' animations associated with it. (Basically a 3D star of david with the two tetrahedrons rotating in opposite directions. It's hard to look at, since the mind wants them to be rotating in the same direction and only by repeatedly looking and blinking and looking again can you perceive both rotations simultaneously.)

This struck me because I had had the impression at one point while meditating that the bottom part of me was rotating in one direction and the upper part in the opposite direction, simultaneously.

Up till that point, the sensation had been of spinning in one direction for 20 or 30 minutes, then grinding to a halt, and then it would start up again spinning in the opposite direction.

But going back to meditation, I found that indeed, just like the star tetrahedron animations, there are two simultaneous rotations going on: one counter-clockwise, which seems more associated with the upper part of my body, and one clockwise, which seems associated with the lower part.

And it is almost impossible to hold them both in consciousness simultaneously: there is something of a "mind-split" effect here. The two rotations are super-imposed, each involving the whole body, and the mind is unable to grasp both perspectives at once. When you cue in to either one, it feels as if the whole body/perspective were spinning in that direction alone. But it's true: they seem to be both present simultaneously.

On an even weirder note:
I'd found it curious that as strong and pronounced as this spinning sensation had become, I was not able to cue in to it while lying down. This morning it became clear why: while lying down the rotation continues to be in the horizontal plane! That is, instead of spinning like a log in water, as I'd been expecting, it is spinning like a compass needle. It took a while to get my mind around that. And even tougher, both opposite rotations: like lying down face up on a merry-go-round and spinning in one direction, while superimposed on that, a second merry-go-round spinning in the opposite direction, with a slightly different axis.

I don't do drugs you guys. This is simply mind-boggling. If this is a layer of the 'aura',[attachment=0:3a12qjsr]animerk.gif[/attachment:3a12qjsr]

oops, hmm, we'll see if that pastes...
..if this is a layer of the aura, what is its nature, and what are the previous layers? Where can I found out more?

It does feel a little like reality coming apart at the seams. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks and best wishes,
Sean

[seankerr123]

sorry, that was the wrong image.

those are pyramids, not tetrahedrons, but you get the idea...

[journyman161]

Something that may help, & also explain why holosync can be useful...

The upper tetra is male & the lower is female. The left brain is considered male & the right brain is considered female. Most people think primarily in one mode or the other - few are balanced & use both hemispheres on a daily basis.

Maybe the difficulty in perceiving the two tetras in motion is to do with the split between the brains? Using holosync techniques can shortcut the long (decades) process of meditation used by the mystics to achieve the balance between the two sides that shows up in MRI. Achieving that state of balance may be the key to achieving the perception of the Mer-Ka-Ba field.

There is a meditation of 17 breaths that is supposed to stimulate the process & bring the field up to full strength.

[seankerr123]

Thanks.
So far I've still been unable to find anything of quality written on mer-ka-ba field though. Most of it seems to read like a Dr. Bronner's bottle.

But this dual rotation thing does seem to be quite real, and the fact that it remains in a horizontal plane while lying down is simply baffling. This stands in need of an explanation.

As a Vipassana meditator, my concern is with observing reality 'as it is' (which, though seeming passive, would actually seem to be about the most active thing a mind can 'do') - so I can pretty easily rule out imagination, imposition or suggestion as a cause for the sensation, and definitely as a methodology for working with it. I had a look at the 17 + 1 breath stuff, but it's not really something I could ever pursue. I'd rather emulate the monks than the techno-gurus. In my experience, their slow methods can be breakneck fast enough - something even one Vipassana course can convince just about anyone of. And from my (very) limited experience with binaurals, states of concentration (jhana, samadhi) seem so far quite different from states of relaxation/'trance'. Complementary, yes, but not likely equivalents, I think.

But like you say, as tools, binaurals for their given scopes do seem fantastically, even magically, effective.
(tho maybe it shows, I'm not much of a techie-type!)

Thanks and best wishes,
Sean

[journyman161]

*grins* It is astoundingly difficult to find hard information in such areas. One would almost think the valuable stuff was being deliberately concealed. Certainly most of the proponents can't seem to get craniums far enough from nether regions to run two consecutive sentences that are coherent.

However there is information out there - I'm just not sure how much of it can be deciphered without going into the techie stuff. Certainly the hardest data I have found requires at least a more-than-average grasp of geometry. One could reject it as meaningless garbage except for the number of links out to other fields of knowledge - after the 9th or 10th link into fields that offer confirmation of the idea that the Golden Mean & Fibonacci spirals are linked into creation, one begins to wonder if the garbage is mostly in one's own mind.

Now, as for why the spinning remains in the horizontal plane...? I'm not sure but maybe it's to do with the energy fields? The chakras seem to suggest that the Earth is one pole of energy & 'out there' is the other. So maybe the field has to spin Normal to the axis of the energy flow? Like magnetic fields around a wire carrying current?

[Korpo]

Bruce Moen describes being "spun" or "spinning" by himself in one or several dimensions in order to heal emotional exhaustion - recommended by his guide "Coach". He either does this himself, but initially he was spun. He described his spinning in the non-physical as relaxing and soothing, IIRC. See for example his book "Voyage into the Unknown" - again, IIRC.

Oliver

[seankerr123]

Interesting speculation!!

Why exactly do the chakras suggest that though?

I try to rely on what's been proven in my own experience, and take everything else as a working hypothesis at best. But there should a clear distinction between what you know and what you take as plausible. Garbage or not, if it's outside the scope of my understanding, it can't be all that relevant or helpful to me, right? Like your sig quotes - 99% of the garbage is inside, so it's important to put all that aside, take the 1% you know is true as your basis, and work from there.

Right now my 1% is very little, but any grand structures involving microwave frequencies, flying saucers or fancy soteriologies built on that are bound to be just a house of cards.

Looking at Bruce Moen's website I found this account:

"Last night I could not get to sleep until 3:30 - 4:00 am this morning. I decided to meditate and focus on contacting my guides and helpers to answer a couple of questions I had. After a bit I found myself buzzing in my body and "loose". I bobbed around here and there without any astral vision. I just felt myself moving in and out of the body like a balloon. Soon however, I felt a force begin to spin my body in a counter clockwise rotation very fast. It did not make me dizzy or frighten me at all, I just felt it a bit odd since I'd never experienced it before. This lasted for quite a while and I just relaxed into it and allowed it to occur. After some time I suddenly found myself floating around a minimum security prison for young men. I was immediately drawn or brought to a young black man who was being released. Suddenly I was seeing things from his perspective as if I was him." ...(long story follows).

Unfortunately it's just that an nothing more - something of a fluke detail, not pursued. I assume binaurals are not far out of the picture here as well though?...

I also noticed your similar experiences posted on this forum, Oliver. What are your own thoughts?

Does Robert ever make reference to spinning sensations? I've seen his pointed reference to the 3 1/2 rotations of kundalini but nothing else so far...

Best wishes, Thanks,
Sean

[journyman161]

I am definitely a person who goes by 'if it works, use it' & I take my reality from across many years of putting things together. One point I would make is that reading books of what other people have experienced isn't particularly useful unless it is accompanied by practical ways of using the information.
eg. telling people about how 'my higher self gave me...' whatever, isn't useful to those who can't dial up their higher selves & ask for the same gift. Robert Bruce steps above most of those I read because he offers practical methods for achieving results. Others offer stories followed by offers to buy their stuff.

I go by what works. The Cleansing ritual referred to above is strange & has little to do with any of the established religious ideas, but, over a period of 3 years, & a variety of people, it works! You don't have to believe in or have faith in or even know who Untannas, Quertus, Chietal, Goyana, Huertal, Semveta & Ardal are, you just follow the ritual & things get changed.

I know I can give energy, because it has been tried & it works. I can't see them but I know fields exist because I can use them. The Mer-Ka-Ba makes geometric sense because the concepts underlying it fit with how the things I know come together. When I have many disparate items of information & a theory comes along that makes them click together, I tend to look deeper & if I find it holds together, I accept it as my working hypothesis.

The chakras suggest the magnetic field scenario for a few reasons. One is that everything I've read & experienced about them suggests polarity. What I've learned suggests Reality is about polarity - from the smallest hypothesised scales of the Universe that appear to be on & off (or here & nowhere) through to life itself via the path of quantum entanglement, down to my deepest thoughts about what the ALL is about - polarity keeps coming into things.
Chakras exhibit the same pattern - from the basal through to the highest, chakras are about directional movement - we can debate what the movement actually involves but all chakra theories imply movement between them & it always has to do with movement up to chakras above the head & grounding is into the Earth. Even the term 'grounding' brings to mind the electro-magnetic schema of things.

Ed Leedskalnin says there is ONLY magnetic phenomenon & he emulated the feats of those who built monuments in 200+ tonne blocks of granite. Again, this is a guy whose ideas I respect because he proved them in our reality - no books, just giant blocks of stone that have no explanation for how he moved them. Reading books is lovely for gaining ideas about things but rarely do the authors actually convey practical means for achieving their results - again, Robert Bruce is an exception.

Consciousness seems to be the exception that proves the rule. Even better, it seems to be the ingredient that makes all the rest work at all. It seems that, without consciousness, there is nothing. Einstein answers the question about the tree falling in the forest by questioning if the observer & the tree are in the same frame as the forest. Quantum theory says 'No' - no observer, not only no sound, no event, no tree, no forest.

The Mer-Ka-Ba field theory seems to go back to basic logic about how things had to be for the original consciousness. Following the steps from there to here takes mucho knowledge of things, but it can be (I think) done by competent minds.

If we exist as consciousness & if consciousness is something other than the plenum substance, then the Mer-Ka-Ba follows as maybe the vehicle for consciousness. Note that consciousness, awareness & knowledge are actually different levels of... something.

My thought is - in the Beginning was Awareness. Awareness became self-aware which brought Consciousness. Consciousness began the game to find Knowledge... & we are here as the forms & players of that game. Everything I have learned & experienced & seen bespeaks the goal of knowledge. Learning is what children do before we stuff them up with rules & 'proper' behaviour & false ideals about owning & possession. Learning is what makes people shine & achieve beyond what they ever thought possible.

Look around - learning lights people up - it has to be central to the game. The avatars, the guides & higher selves all highlight learning. It must be important to the reason we are here. The Mer-Ka-Ba field seems to be the mechanism for transport across the playing fields as well as the vehicle towards growth & wisdom.
/rant

[CFTraveler]

And a beautiful one it was.

[seankerr123]

No need to get your feathers ruffled, J :) When I said 'that's interesting', I meant it, and I only asked for clarification because it sounded attractive and plausible.

Sorry if that didn't come across.

Sean

[journyman161]

No need to get your feathers ruffled, J :) When I said 'that's interesting', I meant it, and I only asked for clarification because it sounded attractive and plausible.

Sorry if that didn't come across.

SeanHey Sean, I had to go back & re-read what I said - I didn't think I'd said anything that would make you think any of that was directed at you. What you said was fine - I just had some things to say & it kind of spiralled on from there - which is why I put the /rant at the bottom. Wasn't to do with anything you'd said, nor was I in any way offended. Mea culpa - it wasn't meant to put you off.

[Korpo]

Looking at Bruce Moen's website I found this account:

"Last night I could not get to sleep until 3:30 - 4:00 am this morning. I decided to meditate and focus on contacting my guides and helpers to answer a couple of questions I had. After a bit I found myself buzzing in my body and "loose". I bobbed around here and there without any astral vision. I just felt myself moving in and out of the body like a balloon. Soon however, I felt a force begin to spin my body in a counter clockwise rotation very fast. It did not make me dizzy or frighten me at all, I just felt it a bit odd since I'd never experienced it before. This lasted for quite a while and I just relaxed into it and allowed it to occur. After some time I suddenly found myself floating around a minimum security prison for young men. I was immediately drawn or brought to a young black man who was being released. Suddenly I was seeing things from his perspective as if I was him." ...(long story follows).

Unfortunately it's just that an nothing more - something of a fluke detail, not pursued. I assume binaurals are not far out of the picture here as well though?...

Bruce Moen originally used HemiSync to induce afterlife experiences. To find out more about spinning you could visit Amazon and use the "Search Inside" feature on "Voyages into the Unknown" to get more accounts.

For example, from page 122:


[...]this time I didn't experience the same two-dimensional sensation or the same spinning as last time. This was a completely different spin cycle. I felt instead as if I had become a ball of light with many different colors running through me and I was spinning on my own vertical axis. My axis was fastened somehow to the outer edge of and perpendicular to a large disk. The large disk was also spinning on its own central axis and the overall sensation was very odd. I felt as though I was constantly counter rotating but I had no concept of what my rotation was counter to. There wasn't any dizzyness that accompanied all this spinning as a ball on the disk. There wasn't any the time before either, when I had the sensation of being two-dimensional and on the spinning disk. At times I sensed that I was not the only ball of colored light spinning on this disk.(Bruce Moen, "Voyage into the Unknown", pp. 122-123)

Why do you think I had a similar experience, seankerr123? The one situation I would describe as spinning was more like being stuck partially with my body at the head, being capable of rotating and spinning my body, but not being spun by someone.

Take good care,
Oliver

[seankerr123]

Sorry you guys, I've been away for a few days. Bad moment to go out of town.
Sorry for confusion, Journy! I'm a touchy empath, prone to misunderstandings. :lol:

Had a look at the amazon search. Thanks for the suggestion, Korpo! It's a handful of intriguing descriptions. They are all fairly fleeting and situational though, so this still remains for me a big :?:

If this strand trails off, I'd still appreciate anyone who comes across it in the future reopening it if they have insights or similar experiences to add!

Thanks and best wishes,
Sean

[new baby]

Hi seankerr123,

I will go back to the initial question that you posed.

I started to use Hemi Sync for a while. Robert Monroe suggest that you use each track so many times untill you get accustommed with it and that each exercise is based on the previous one and should be listened in the order they are given.

What I found out from listening to them (I listened more than twor weeks for a track, every single day of the week) is that the more I listen to a track the deeper I go. What I mean is that I loose contact with the outside world and I go faster into Focus 10. When I put my helmets on even on the preparatory session my body and my brain tend to relax and to enter into a deep relaxation similar to Focus 10. So for me listening and relistening on the same track is very positive and has beneficial effects. It's true that I don't go OBE like Bruce does but I belive that what I am experiencing is phasing. I am not very advanced yet.
Some things are quite important when doing the binaural beats (at least the Monroe tracks): try not to do things physical, be as relaxed as possible; try to follow the track not to force yourself doing it, where is necessary to place an intent in the exercise think about it before the exercise and then just go and do it (start moving, imagine a scene from where to begin and just go).
It's really working, in the beginning you are imagining things abut afterwards from a point something that you dindn't place there is appearing from nowhere and something that you didn't plan is happening.
You might find also hepfull the journal of outofbodydude from the conversation board/ afterlife knowledge of Bruce Moen web site.

Hope it's somehow helpful
Lia

[seankerr123]

Hi Lia,

Thanks for your feedback. It IS helpful.

Just gave in two days back and purchased the JOOB cd set, so I am waiting for that to arrive and am definitely looking forward to putting it to use :)

One practical question: in your experience, can hemisync still be taken advantage of while in a weakened physical/mental state, like that of a sleep-deprived, overworked grad student? I am tempted to put them aside until i have a chunk of time in which i'll refreshed and at full strength (like perhaps this summer) - but what do you think: is this unnecessary?

Thanks and best wishes,
Sean

[CFTraveler]

If I may butt in:
I find the 'whooshing' sound in the JOOB CD's refreshing, like being on the beach, so when I'm sleep deprived and have no time for extra sleep time, I take a refreshing nap with the relaxation CD. I find that it refreshes me and doesn't let me go to sleep fully and get in trouble later.
Ok, back to your convo.

[new baby]

You can do them even if you are tired. What might happen if you are too tired is that you will fall asleep. The authors of meditation CD's state that even if you can not concentrate and stay awake but you fall asleep is not so important because the brain will be exposed to the influence of the waves and you will benefit anyway of the meditation session. New newronal pathways are formed in the brain and the more you listen to the meditation CD the more they are stimulated and the easier the brain accesses them. It works also in the waking life not only when meditating.
You might also be awake during the meditation session for a while and suddently it will finish, you click out and you have no memories of what happen.

So if I were you and if I have time I would go and listen to them. There is nothing negative that can happen.

Good luck with them :wink:

Lia