From: ceci@lysator.liu.se (Ceci Henningsson)
Newsgroups: alt.self-improve
Subject: Dream machine
Date: 11 Apr 92 20:29:49 GMT
Organization: Lysator Computer Club, Linkoping University, Sweden


I think that it was in this group that someone requested information
about dream machines. I received Mysteries' catalog the other day and
they sell a dream machine called MC2. 

Facts:
Name: MC2 Relaxation System (TM)
Price: 195 pounds incl Vat, add 5 pounds for postage and packing
Address: Mysteries New Age Centre
         9-11 Monmouth Street
	 LONDON WC2H 9DA
    	 ENGLAND
Telephone: 071 240 3688 or 071 8364679 (GB)
Credit cards: Yes.
Article: One box the size of a walkman, one headset, one pair of
         glasses. The box has 10 buttons.
Claims: "The LIGHT travels through CLOSED EYES. The SOUND enters the
	auditory canal and the frequencies harmonize. The stimulus
	gradually establishes a passive frequency following pattern.
	You are effortlessly lulled into the relaxing Theta state.
	This process allows the user to enter the Theta state while
	awake."  Verbatim quote from the promotion slip included in
	Mysteries' catalogue.  
Not recommended for: Illnesses, epileptical persons (because of the
	light stimulus)
How to use it: There are 10 different presets. They vary the length of
	different qualities of brain wave patterns you experience.
	They are good for different things. Some examples: learning
	enhancement, relaxation, preparation for sleep, dream
	enhancement.
Why you should buy it: Because it would be interesting to try it. You
	can't be bothered learning and practising the free ways of
	achieving the theta frequencies. You have too much money.
Why you shouldn't buy it: Meditation is a way of reaching the theta
	brain wave pattern and it is for free. Meditation can be done
	anywhere and it doesn't require neither a special machine,
	funny looking glasses, nor batteries.
	
	How do you know that you enter the theta state? Buy and learn
	to interpret your own EEG?
	
	The sentence: _This process allows the user to enter
	the Theta state while awake._ in the ad is nonsens.
	The theta brain wave pattern is not found in people who are
	asleep.
	
	The ad states: Please note that we make no medical claims. Any
	meditation technique can safely make some medical claims. If
	this is the second best, why bother?
	
	I have read some about the different brain wave patterns and
	meditation. The theta level seems not to be one level, but
	rather many, from the meditating person's point of view. Let
	me take one example: There are two different basic ideas to
	meditation: Focusing on one thing, or focusing on nothing. The
	first is the most common, the second is the zen meditation. An
	EEG cannot show the difference between these two, but another
	test can: when a device 'ticks' every 15 seconds the person
	focusing on one thing (a mantra for instance) gets decreasing
	disturbances in her EEG pattern for every tick, wheras the
	person not focusing on anything gets disturbances that are all
	equal in duration.  Even if you reach the theta brain wave
	pattern how do you know which and how deep? 

	Meditation requires skill, but as most skills, it deepens and
	gets better with practice. Is there a limit to how good you
	can get with the dream machine?

I can dig out the sources for this knowledge in my library should you
be interested. If you go ahead and buy the machine, please tell us
about your experiences with it. I would buy one myself, if I had too
much money. Being on the dole, I haven't. 

--Ceci

=====ceci@lysator.liu.se===========================================
"Words of more than one syllable, not stressed on the last syllable,
do not double the final consonant, unless it is l, when a suffix
beginning with a vowel is added,..." From The Oxford Guide to English Usage


--
=====ceci@lysator.liu.se===========================================
"Words of more than one syllable, not stressed on the last syllable,
do not double the final consonant, unless it is l, when a suffix
beginning with a vowel is added,..." From The Oxford Guide to English Usage