Finding a lay down on an accu-pressure mat very helpful these days (tho a bit steeper adoption curve tbqh)
The most surprising thing is that despite the initial discomfort, I often find myself waking up on the thing an hour or more after laying down on it. I always set a stopwatch timer on my phone when I use it since 20 full minutes on it is the baseline recommendation, but very often I'll blow right past that.
It takes some conditioning, you most likely won't last 5+ minutes the first time.
Forgot to add: BUY THE PILLOW TOO. The whole set is worth it.
It should get you snoozy. Some nature sounds in the background etc should get you back to sleep.
I've always been a really good sleeper. The cold feet trick worked for me because I grew up in a house without central heating in Ireland. So if I woke I'd toddle to the toilet and back, by the time I did that I was properly cold. And I run quite hot so I heat up under the covers quickly. boom back to sleep.
How long do you do these sessions for?
Been there, done that
The sensation induced by binaural beats are based on brain waves synchronisation, basically we get control of the stick shifter of the brain, and we perceive the changes strongly, as they are much faster than usual.
TLDR: you definitely feel them, and it feels a bit like getting high.
Chemical induced states of altered consciousness are of a fundamentally different nature. Keeping the car centric metaphor it would be like switching the type of fuel you are giving to the engine. It feels different, for different reasons.
Can't claim it would produce the same results for everyone, but I provided a free, low friction option for anyone curious.
This isn’t well known because his name was (deservedly) mud at the time, but Timothy Leary did a lot of work with sound and lights. He did his light shows when he was a pop guru, but he was even doing this work before he got fired from Harvard.
At the time, he considered it following the history of altered states. In the nineties when he had mellowed out, Leary started talking about lights, sound and technology. Here’s one example:
https://www.sidjacobson.com/Portals/23/articles/Tim%20Leary%...
I’ve had a few experiences with non chemically induced altered states. They’re psychedelic-ish, but not really comparable to a substance like psilocybin. They’re definitely altered states, just while I could draw a picture to describe mild effects of psilocybin to a non user, I couldn’t with music and light.
They’re both altered but very different.
I guess if we'd want to know for sure we'd need to test the light and sound technique with people who haven't used psilocybin before, then let them try psilocybin so they can compare the experience, and then let them try the light and sound machine again to see if anything changed in how "suggestive" they are to the experience. And compare against a light-and-sound machine only control group. I doubt we'll see that happen any time soon though.
I have no doubt it's possible to activate this through breath work and various means like religious experiences etc, I've done so myself. A strong psylocbin induced separation is far more intense by an almost incomprehensible order of magnitude.
For an example, let's say you induce a, for lack of a better term, trip from breath work. At no point is it going to get so intense that every aspect of your body and conscience forgets that you are doing the breathwork and you are unable to stop even when prompted by people such as EMT's and police. Physically ending the breathwork will bring the separation back. With Pyscolbin that's not true and the intensity only builds and you could be in this state of unrecoverable separation for 8+ hours. In the reverse, the deep feelings and insight from Psylocbin come in that decline after the peak where everything starts to become real again and your recognition of the world returns and you remember you ate mushrooms.
After that though it's quite reasonable to get that same feeling from any altered state of consciousness.
To me, it's similar to that early part of the trip where you get tired and feel like you want to take a nap, only to find that impossible upon closing your eyes and seeing the images dance around. Eventually that part of the trip ends as the energy builds.
do you get it particulary when you lie down or put your feet up?
That said, I was still shocked at how quickly and effectively it worked the first I used it and how reliably it worked despite whatever state I was in. No amount of meditation or breathing techniques have gotten me close, and I've never had a natural flashback.
I thought I was going to get a seizure tbh. Do not recommend.
Aside from that it would be nice if somebody knows about a meta quest app that might achieve similar effects. Is that even possible?
AFA as a headset being able to induce the effect, the main requirement is a high lumen output, that's why LEDs are used.
It gives me some discomfort - almost makes me wonder if it could induce some sort of epileptic episode in me if I tried to push through the discomfort.
But on the whole Liminal is a neat app with other useful experiences.
Any more detail on this? Never heard this terminology before
It's a bit of a misnomer in this case as light helps induce it but the effect is similar.
The first time I did this unexpectedly was a trip. I can't do this at will, and ignored it for a long time. I've recently started trying to see if I can control into it. I come out of this in an alert and super-relaxed state when I can get into that state.
edit: Forgot to mention that those "phosphene visuals" are exactly how I know I'm in this state.
The goggles w/ binaural beats create some weird sort of state where I don't feel any connection to my environment. After only a couple minutes my body turns to total mush and my brain comes alive with phosphene visuals. By about 15 minutes in, my stomach usually gurgles a bit, not unlike the indigestion that often accompanies psychedelic trips.
Interestingly enough, these machines are marketed as brainwave entrainment, but the literature on that says the visual component doesn't really have much impact. Yet auditory entrainment on its own doesn't seem to do much for me either, or at least, not convincing enough beyond placebo.
There is an app for the iPhone called Lumenate that uses the LED flash and it seems to work, though it's not as strong for me as the multi-LED goggles I used to use. Still, it's a great gateway for those who are curious.