From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: Sight&Sound Machines
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 22:02:23 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.223659.29468@head-cfa.harvard.edu>, jones@head-cfa.harvard.edu (Mark Jones) writes:
|> 
|> I came across an article by Peter Ochiogrosso called "Brain Cocktails" in
|> Forbes FYI last week:
|> 	"Dark glasses with flashing lights and headphones
|> 	attached to consoles with numbered buttons promise to give
|> 	your brain a tune up" or "guide your mind into a state of deep
|> 	relaxation, enhancing creativity, accelerating learning and improving
|> 	levels of concentration"
|> 
|> This devices seem to work by putting the brain into an alpha (relaxed
|> creative) or theta("twilight learning" ) state quckly, "without even
|> learning a mantra". The trick is thought to be brainwave entrainment.
|> This makes you susceptible to suggestions given via a self improvement
|> tape.
I haven't lached on to this article yet.  I would make a couple of
comments:

--flashing lights can cause EEG 'entrainment', and can trigger
epileptic seizures in the small number of peopel who are vulnerable.
(Caution is recommended.) I'm not sure whether entrainment can induce 
alpha, theta, etc. "states".

--tones can cause EEG 'entrainment', but so far as I know only in
the auditory centers.   This has little to do with alpha, etc.,
which are global synchronization.

--I really wonder what tones and lights simultaneously actually
do.  I'd be surprised if there was a simple additive effect, some
combinations probably interfere with each other.  Can anyone point 
me to such information?

--In any case, one really wonders if any PARTICULAR device actually
acheives EEG entrainment, alpha, or anything other than placebo effects.
Some might work and others not.  Most of them are long on
endorsements and short on evidence that they actually do anything
at all to your EEG.  Naturally, I stand ready to receive pointers
to documentation of those devices that have been verified to 
actually influence EEG's.  (This is not especially difficult to
do.)

--I know of no evidence (other than folklore) than an "alpha state" 
increases suggestibility.  (Actually, I don't even believe there
is such a thing as an alpha "state", per se, but that's neither here 
nor there.)  Can someone point me to such findings?

--I know of no evidence that "theta state" is related to "twilight
learning".  Can someone point me to something solid about this
supposed "theta state".

|> Has anybody tried one of these machines with a self improvement tape?
|> I am trying to decide if there is anything to this. 
It will definitely work as well as a self improvement tape without
enhancement, which is to say, at least as well as a placebo.  I'm
still looking for evidence that tapes alone or along with blinky lights
and beepy tones can do BETTER than a placebo.

Also, self improvement tapes vary all over the lot, so I would expect
results with and without blinky lights would be highly variable.

To summarize:  please point me to solid evidence for these
claims.  (I'm looking for the Forbes article, but Forbes I'm not
sure that Forbes has the technical backing for all of these
claims.)

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: alt.consciousness