Ganzfeld: Hack Your Brain the Legal Way

Step 4 Auditory deprivation, white noise and binaural beats

In addition to visual deprivation you can achieve auditory deprivation as well.
Use noise canceling headphones or plugs if you go them.
If not you can listen to white noise or binaural beats.
Or you can use a combination of all.

BWgen (brainwave generator) is a very nice and free program that produce binaural beats as well as white noise. Link for the program is found in the Binaural beat article at

http://www.biotele.com

For tactile sensory reduction wear gloves.

Comments

[Andershegelund]

Cool. Thanks. But I don't understand why I have to listen to "white" or "pink noise"? What does it do good for?

[BtheBike]

tune an am or fm radio between stations . this is great white noise . Turn up the bass . this is similar to brown noise . Exterior sounds become mottled behind the hiss .
http://simplynoise.com/

[Biotele]

It blanks out exterior noises.

[Andershegelund]

thanks. just weird :)
listen to noise to ignore.. the... noise.. hmm..

[the.jahn]

Actually, you might not notice it all the time but the noise you hear in every-day life has many patterns. When deprived, your brain will search desperately for patterns to analyze. You want to tune out as many of those as possible with things that can't be decoded, like white noise or pink noise. Both are created using randomly generated numbers, and thus have no noticeable patterns.

If you don't, your brain will focus it's attention on any familiar sounds it can find. You might feel more focused than usual on, for example, the birds outside your window. Your brain makes the connection between chirps and birds every day. If you take the ability for it to do it's job away, it will [not to scare you] go into a manic state trying to make up it's own patterns to decode.

[Andershegelund]

Thank you very much for taking your time to explain me all this. It makes much more sense to me now.

Would you then reccomend me to listen to this when I'm asleep, or should I listen to some special dream music? And by the way. This white or pink noise. Will it ruin my ears?

Best regards,
A W H

[the.jahn]

You're very welcome, I'm starting to love this community already. :)

You shouldn't be asleep. You should be relaxed, and try to keep an open, clear mind. If you're stressed out, your mind will be racing around every day thoughts, and the process of depriving it will take longer. This is because your mind has something to dedicate it's focus to other than senses.

Another thing, which is my crucial problem when attempting to relax: Don't try too hard, either. If you're mind is racing, take a few moments to mellow out comfortably in bed. It's not only best for the experiment, but for your health as well. ;)

Once you're nice and relaxed, proceed just as the instructable describes. White or pink noise won't ruin your ears as long as it's not too loud, and they're probably optimal for something like this.

There is (sadly) no special dream music however; music contains patterns which will disrupt this process. If you want a little more than just noise though, I'd recommend the binaural beat approach.

Just let me know if you'd like some more information on binaural beats; but I feel I've gone into a little too much detail here. This stuff fascinates me, sorry for ranting on about it. xD

[Andershegelund]

Hello! Don't excuse. I don't have much so say other than thanks a lot. This has really been a help!

Best regards,
Me

[eulaliaaaa!]

How would I get the tones onto my MP3 player (Not iPod)?

[Biotele]

right click on the link-->choose "save as"--->save to your device directory (must be connected to computer).

It's actually harder with ipod because apple does not allow you to save straight to the ipod, but you need to use itunes.

[fart1995]

how lomg do i need to wear the mask for, and doise thw white noise only help speed up the time, or the effect aswell????

[kutz]

u could also just eat Gravol until you pass out :D

[phat-z]

Are you supposed to see white when wearing the mask and do you sleep or stay awake to hallucinate?

[belgvr]

Download "NCH Tone Generator", it makes pink and white noise, also you can generate binaural frequencies, very easy to use ;)

[the.jahn]

Another option is the infamous "sBaGen." A great tool, in my opinion. But there's no GUI for it by default, so prepare yourself if you want to try it out. ;P