Habituation Factor?

[seankerr123]

Hello all,
Recently heard some samples of the Hemi-Sync binaurals and was extremely impressed.
I am considering buying the Journeys out of Body set, but first have a question for you all:
I noticed Brian's comment regarding the Brainwave Generator software that after a few uses the brain gets accustomed to the binaurals and they lose much of their efficacy.
So, does the same hold for the Journey out of the Body CD's?
Do they cease to produce their effect once you've heard them a few times?

Thanks and best wishes to all,
Sean

[CFTraveler]

I think that is possible with anything that 'artificially' leads you to a state. The good news is that binaural beats facilitate your familiarization with these states, so that you can achieve them on your own or recognize them when they happen naturally. The MAP and Hemi Sync Support for Journeys out of the Body also include energy work/or some sort of ritual mindwork to be done as part of the process. This then teaches you to achieve the altered states as you do it, and in the future a connection can be established with the discipline and the resulting state. (I hope this was clear)

[Korpo]

I have repeatedly used the Focus 10, 12 and 15 tapes from the Gateway Experience home study course with good effects. Instead of getting used to it I rather think I have entrained to them. Instead of the tapes getting "useless" my experience is rather the effect entrains stronger over multiple uses.

The Monroe people recommend to attain the state, and to go back there, remember the feeling to reattain it. The counting is actually a mental cue helping in this remembering, to ease accessing the memory. But when you have become used to a state with the tapes, you can attain it without, too.

I have not tried JOOB yet.

Take good care,
Oliver

[seankerr123]

Very Interesting. Thank you for your replies. I was hoping others might chime in their own experiences, but it looks pretty quiet...

One more question regarding binaurals:
Over the past few days, I've been experiencing a 'spinning' sensation, nearly every time I sit to meditate. Is this a byproduct of binaurals?
It's a whole-body spinning sensation, like sitting on a swivel chair and whirling around and around. Never experienced anything like it. I don't know whether to regard it as just a side-effect of playing with brainwaves, or if there's something more to it. Any insights?

Thanks and best wishes,
Sean

[CFTraveler]

I couldn't say. I have had that happen and projected that same night, but that was before I had ever used binaurals. So, it could be extrapolated.
It could also be anything from a balance problem (middle ear infection, scuba-diving accident, coming down with a cold and having it affect your ears.) to something else, so I'd advise you to get yourself checked out with your preferred health care provider, just to be safe.

[journyman161]

About the spinning sensation, you might want to do some reading about the Mer-Ka-Ba field. The body is surrounded by several fields that have a variety of properties & which are effected by the meditative & astral things we do. The Mer-Ka-Ba field specifically is about spinning.

On the habituation side, I have used holosync quite a lot, not so much to bring on astral experiences, although that has happened, but more with the aim of balance of the two hemispheres of the brain, & so bringing my mind into balance.

I have used bio-sensors to monitor my progress, & up till the last time I did the monitoring, the effects seem to get more pronounced as I gain experience. After a while, the graph produced by the monitor starts to track the holosync track very closely, whereas when I first tried holosync, there was a delay before things started to be a closer match.

I think what some may be putting down to habituation may simply be the normal human effect where new things draw massive amounts of attention while familiar things are tracked by 'circuits' built from past experience & so don't get the active attention of the being. Certainly the technique of holosync & binaural beats doesn't really have any space to explain how the effects could be lessened from exposure. The effects have nothing to do with the actual sounds & are a brain process that tries to pattern-match. Brain processes don't tend to fade with use, they get stronger or more effective.

Just my thoughts on it...

[seankerr123]

Very interesting!
If it can occur before ever experiencing binaurals, then that would suggest that it's not likely just a byproduct of them.

It's true, I'm prone to ear problems, but I don't think this is that. There's no dizziness or discomfort involved.

Hmm, I will google mer-ka-ba. It's the first I'm hearing the term. We'll see if wikipedia can fill me in - thanks for the pointer!

As for the thoughts on habituation, well, experience is surely the real yardstick, so I am happy to hear that your concrete experience indicates the contrary. It was only Brian Mercer's comment about the efficacy of the beats lessening after repeated use that prompted the inquiry. And if you think of parallel processes like drug users chemically stimulating their brains and needing higher and higher doses to get their fix, vision 'compensating' for colored sunglasses, or even comments about awareness processes like rope losing their efficacy with habituation, it does give you good cause to wonder. Naturally there are also lots of examples of habituation leading to deeper entrenchment of a process, which is the more typical situation.

Thanks,
Sean

[journyman161]

Hmm, I will google mer-ka-ba. It's the first I'm hearing the term. We'll see if wikipedia can fill me in - thanks for the pointer!

It's an interesting field to study & try. The Mer-Ka-Ba field is slightly offset from the idea of Merkaba as a model for the Being. (Mer = body, Ka = immortal flame, Ba = individual beingness who lives this specific life. Mind you, they may well be inter-related - I'm nowhere near the level of development needed to grasp the intricacies of the geometries necessary to understand how it all fits together.

As for the thoughts on habituation, well, experience is surely the real yardstick, so I am happy to hear that your concrete experience indicates the contrary. It was only Brian Mercer's comment about the efficacy of the beats lessening after repeated use that prompted the inquiry. And if you think of parallel processes like drug users chemically stimulating their brains and needing higher and higher doses to get their fix, vision 'compensating' for colored sunglasses, or even comments about awareness processes like rope losing their efficacy with habituation, it does give you good cause to wonder. Naturally there are also lots of examples of habituation leading to deeper entrenchment of a process, which is the more typical situation.

A thought on the possible differences...
Maybe the processes that 'habituate' are those which replace or imitate the natural, mental or spiritual ways of achieving things. Certainly the drugs would fit this definition & using imaginary models to stimulate the exit process, while helpful to get a seeker to a knowingness of astral effects, would seem to be a crutch to the actual process.

The processes which don't habituate might be those which stimulate or spark the natural, mental or spiritual processes rather than replace or avoid them.

Note that, on this level, the binaural beats, the entraining of the mind, are non-habituating, but the use of them to produce astral events may very well be a habituating process!

The holosync process is a little misunderstood in this respect. The effects of binaural beats in getting the brain frequencies to follow those being delivered to ear & eye are not, in & of themselves, an astral-evoking phenomena. They merely provide easy access to various states of mind, & used regularly, have been shown to provide similar brain patterns to those of yogis & monks who have practiced extensively in meditative practices.

So, I guess I'm saying the entrainment process & the production of Alpha, Theta & Delta states of mind are not subject to habituation because the binaural beats will always stimulate the pattern-seeking mechanism & thus provoke entrainment. But it may be that the ability to reach out from those states of mind to the astral realms may be subject to habituation effects similar to the others mentioned above.

[seankerr123]

hey, thanks for the tip!

I websearched mer-ka-ba and, while most of what I came up with seems like junk, I was struck by the 'star-tetrahedron' animations associated with it. (Basically a 3D star of david with the two tetrahedrons rotating in opposite directions. It's hard to look at, since the mind wants them to be rotating in the same direction and only by repeatedly looking and blinking and looking again can you perceive both rotations simultaneously.)

This struck me because I had had the impression at one point while meditating that the bottom part of me was rotating in one direction and the upper part in the opposite direction, simultaneously.

Up till that point, the sensation had been of spinning in one direction for 20 or 30 minutes, then grinding to a halt, and then it would start up again spinning in the opposite direction.

But going back to meditation, I found that indeed, just like the star tetrahedron animations, there are two simultaneous rotations going on: one counter-clockwise, which seems more associated with the upper part of my body, and one clockwise, which seems associated with the lower part.

And it is almost impossible to hold them both in consciousness simultaneously: there is something of a "mind-split" effect here. The two rotations are super-imposed, each involving the whole body, and the mind is unable to grasp both perspectives at once. When you cue in to either one, it feels as if the whole body/perspective were spinning in that direction alone. But it's true: they seem to be both present simultaneously.

On an even weirder note:
I'd found it curious that as strong and pronounced as this spinning sensation had become, I was not able to cue in to it while lying down. This morning it became clear why: while lying down the rotation continues to be in the horizontal plane! That is, instead of spinning like a log in water, as I'd been expecting, it is spinning like a compass needle. It took a while to get my mind around that. And even tougher, both opposite rotations: like lying down face up on a merry-go-round and spinning in one direction, while superimposed on that, a second merry-go-round spinning in the opposite direction, with a slightly different axis.

I don't do drugs you guys. This is simply mind-boggling. If this is a layer of the 'aura',[attachment=0:3a12qjsr]animerk.gif[/attachment:3a12qjsr]

oops, hmm, we'll see if that pastes...
..if this is a layer of the aura, what is its nature, and what are the previous layers? Where can I found out more?

It does feel a little like reality coming apart at the seams. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks and best wishes,
Sean

[seankerr123]

sorry, that was the wrong image.

those are pyramids, not tetrahedrons, but you get the idea...