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Isolation Ward

Further readings

63.16.36.141

From "The Man how Could taste Shapes" by Richard Cytowic, M.D. originally published in 1993 revised in 1997 about synesthesia>

" All other mammals I including humans) dream, and when we do we emit an electroencephalographic signal in REM sleep called the Theta rhythm...When any sensory signal comes into the human cortex, the hippocampal theta rhythm becomes active if the stimulus is evaluated as relevant and you attend to it."

Since the Schumann generator is essential producing theta type rhythms, it could be prepping the brain for further sensory inputs by placing it, through entrainment, into the "proper " mode.

Further "The limbic system performs calculations at an internal cycles per second rate of 400Hz, but is governed by a much slower outer clock of 5Hz, the rate of the theta rhythm." (Cytowic takes the theta rhythm as being 5 Hz , although many other sources claim that it is slightly higher at about the Schumann frequency of about 7.8 Hz, although, some Schumann generators have an adjustable frequency rate. Not that this tantalizing data bit has any bearing on the Schumann frequencies, but I did find it interesting.

The book goes on further to say "The cortex also performs high speed modular calculations governed by a low clock speed of 10 Hz, the frequency of alpha rhythm. This 2:1 ration is what engineers require to adapt a critic. You need to hold , store, and reevaluate in a a way that makes the cycle time of the critic twice as long as the model's cycle."

It is also interesting that the author states that the mind responds to a stimulus.010 seconds after the initiation of the of the stimulus. He also points to a study which determined the mind actually initiates brain activity up to a full second before the action is initiated. "The point is that subjective experience has a discrepant time base from the neuronal activity that produces it." Since music is constantly changing and is occurring at rates far faster than one second, it is easy to understand why analysis of music is so complex, diverse, and often at odds with other listeners.

I find this fact to be quite illuminating and perhaps the explanation as to why some listeners perceive certain aspect of music while other do not. If you have never consciously perceived a certain aspect of musical reproduction, your mind may never be "prepared" to receive it and thus may never "hear" it. I do notice that much of aural training in music departments consists of sheer practice, listening to a particular attribute and it it is only with much repetition that recognition becomes apparent.

The same has been applicable in my three decades of working in an audio store. Much of the time I spend simply "educating" the listener, doing A-B demonstrations and carefully coaching the listener to hear certain aspects of music. Wasn't it Descartes who said that chance favors the prepared mind? The same may apply to listeners, and since the 'net brings together many people with rather diverse experiences, many may not be cognizant of certain aspects which may be favored by others.

Stu

Follow Ups:

Cool brain stuff. - Enophile 12:36:11 09/20/09 (1)
Hey, Unclestu!

I will try to find the references: there are also studies that show our neuronal emotion pathways can get activated before any cognitive processing or pathway activation take place during perception.

It had originally been thought that emotion was the result of cognition, but in some circumstances, the emotion based brain activity can happen first - very cool implications for music listening.
- RE: Cool brain stuff. - unclestu52 14:39:23 09/20/09 (0)
  For a long time I was of the opinion that unless you have a vocabulary to describe what you are hearing, you may not be able to perceive the artifice. While a vocabulary is crucial ( I find that speaking and describing sounds to musicians using such terms as sforzando makes recognition of certain audio features much easier. Now I am of the belief is that knowing the terms "preconditions" the mind to be able to recognize the aspect significantly more quickly and and repetitively.\
  But perhaps the two go hand in hand in terms of the ability to differentiate aspects of sound.
  
  Stu
RE: Further readings - caspian@peak.org 21:21:47 09/17/09 (1)
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I remember seeing ads for these sort of audio recordings in Omni magazine, back in the 1980s. I've listened to a few of them, and found them to be variably effective in inducing mental states of alertness or relaxation, appropriate to the the brainwave frequencies being entrained.

The music concealing the entraining frequencies, unfortunately, tended to be the most bland and insipid sort of new age twaddle imaginable. It put me in a much better mental state to listen to REAL music, simply because it SUCKED! (Coil's "Time Machines" album being the exception -- this minimalist/drone/psychedelic/anarchist album could induce truly disturbing shifts of time/space perception).

Indian classical music does indeed entrain a variety of mental states. The various combinations of ragas and talas are based on an ancient science of psychoacoustics, attuning scales, drones, and rhythms to particular vibrational ranges of the human nervous system, and are thus assigned to particular times of day and particular activities.

But I'm not sure at all sure that being in an Alpha, Theta, or Delta brainwave state is conducive to the proper appreciation of most Western music, be it classical, jazz, folk, pop, or whatever. Each individual work in any of those genres has its own mood, its own attitude, and thus will "tune" the mental state of the receptive listener accordingly.
- RE: "minimalist/drone/psychedelic/anarchist album induces truly disturbing shifts of time/space perception" - geoffkait 07:08:36 09/19/09 (0)
  Unlike the theta or alpha state inducing generators/devices, devices and tweaks like the Clever Lil Clock, the Teleportation Tweak, holographic foil, the Red X Pen, to name a few, do not operate on the conscious level, so you would not appreciate what had changed in your mental state. It is not psychoacoustics, psychology, suggestion or ritual or hypnosis. It's something deep down in the subconscious, something that we inherited, something that remained during evolution, that is the issue. But it is a subtle change - not one you would be aware of in your normal state of consciousness. Certainly not a change that one would describe as "disturbing" or "calmative" or "energizing" - one that would render you unable to operate a motor vehicle - as you might describe alcohol or drug effects, or Schumann frequency effects, for example. Since the subconscious states are "disconnected" from the conscious mind you would detect no change in your "mood" or "well-being" or "state of anxiety" or state of relaxation." You would not suddenly find yourself "less anxious" or "more focused" - evaluations made by the conscious mind. But you would notice that, for some peculiar reason, your hearing is better. The sound of birds chirping outside would be noticeably more musical and "interesting." A visitor would notice the same thing even if he was unaware the device was in the room.
  
  Edits: 09/19/09

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