Digital Drugs 24
David Gerard points us to a story by Kim Komando, the CyberSpeak columnist for USA Today. Kim wants to alert parents to the growing menace of digital drugs. This imaginary terror uses binaural beats to simulate the effects of marijuana and heroin, and — some claim — to help develop telepathy and psychokinesis. Not to perpetuate a story that is clearly scare mongering, Kim is nice enough to add that, "many are skeptical about the effects of digital drugs. Few scientific studies have been conducted on binaural beats." I want a copy of mutant powers on tape and a whistle that will make women drunk when I blow it.
Snow Crash? (Score:2)
Just don't look into it when you're jacked in...
Poor Da5id.
Darn, but I sense TekWar in the making.. (Score:1)
Shhh! (Score:1)
Pointless scare mongering (Score:2, Funny)
I've tried digital drugs before. I've had many. They include:
And some others. Saying that these cause any lasting effects is pure bullshit.
Any time I've used these drugs, the effect has worn off within half an hour at most, often after 10 minutes. I've never tried the above drugs excepting alcohol and orgasm, so I can't really comment on how accurate they are, but alcohol made me act drunk, and the orgasm... well, you know.
The others mo
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Lots and lots of very reliable anecdotes !
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I'm not saying it's proof, but I definitely felt different. I know what I felt. That said, 1 of my friends is completely immune to them, another only really got affected by the "opium" one, another one is mildly affected by various different ones.
I don't know, it seems quite hypnotic to me. For me, it works. If it's placebo, or if it's hypnotism or if it's binaural beats, I don't know.
But hell, if you're a cynic, download some and do it yourself. http://www.i-doser.com/ [i-doser.com]
That's the site for the program I use
I'm somewhat immune (Score:2)
I've tried lots of different brainwave stuff, and don't get much of an effect.
But I bought a few of Robert Monroe's Hemisync Gateway Experience [hemi-sync.com] discs for my girlfriend, and they work very well for her. Now she's having lucid dreams or OBEs most nights.
They'd work for me too, if only I could relax my physical body. I'm getting close to figuring out how to balance my poor disheveled autonomic nervous system - I expect I'll be able to influence [bwgen.com] my brainwaves like a normal human...
p.s. Monroe's CDs are als
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So... (Score:1, Funny)
Personal experimental results (Score:4, Funny)
I have, in the distant past (a good 10 or so years ago), tried similar things for "relaxation" and so on, and found that all they did was give me a headache (somewhat the opposite of relaxing me!), so I was naturally expecting these to be similar - headache from the noise with no real effects. While the audio does indeed sound like the exact same kind of thing (binaural beats), the "i-doser" package I downloaded as a torrent (as a collection of high-average-VBR mp3s, not the original ".drg" files with the custom player) definitely DID seem to have some kind of effect.
My first experiment was with "LSD.mp3", since that's a drug I know the effects of pretty well. I went through the MP3 twice (after the first time, I was "unsure" if I felt anything or not), and after the second time through (actually by about half-way through the second time through), had the familiar visual distortions (bright colours, slight extra movements to static things, etc), complex thought processes and a very introspective feeling - somewhat like a very mellow (but not "weak") LSD trip.
After it wore off (about 25 minutes - MUCH less than a real trip!), I of course wondered if this perhaps was a placebo effect. Since it's an effect I am familiar with, and knew that I was attempting to do the same to myself with this audio, perhaps my brain just conjured it up anyway (it's certainly capable of this - I get a similar thing if I'm EXTREMELY tired and have been driving a LONG time (a twelve hour road trip at 100km/h or faster the whole time generally gives me the same "trip" once I stop driving and sit down somewhere to rest)).
So, my next test was to take a collection of ones that I was reasonably sure to know what the effect should feel like, but then just play one random track and see if I could identify the feeling afterwards. I listened to the track, and then when it finished, stopped it before the next one came on. I felt really warm, mellow and "heavy limbed". I could focus on things, but felt like I didn't really "want to" - I just let my mind sort of wander in a happy haze for a bit, and about 10 minutes later, started feeling normal again. I looked at the track - "morphine.mp3". I've never tried morphine before, but I'm pretty certain that's at least an approximation of what it may feel like.
Just in case it was luck, I repeated the experiment. Completely different effect this time - a bit hyper, feeling talkative, wanting to just "get out and do something". Looked at the track name - "French Roast.mp3".
Further experimentation seems necessary just in case I "got lucky" on my two experiments and both were self induced feelings, but it does seem so far to be somewhat effective. Even if it turns out these don't really work and it is just a placebo effect, I'm not really complaining after the first LSD one - that's definitely something I enjoyed, regardless of where it came from!
Just to give an idea of my test environment - it was relatively late at night, quiet, dark, and I lay on my couch with my eyes closed. I played the sound from a generic Dell laptop (my work laptop) using ear-buds that I picked up at random somewhere (definitely not high quality headphones)
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I've tried a few (Score:3)
Definitely worth giving it a try, but don't think it magically "matches" your brainwaves or any such nonsense, it just helps you drift into a relaxed half-dreamy meditation state. The different "feelings" caused by the different flavors are most likely just the placebo effect- causing you to focus your energy towards the feelings you expect. And heck, even if it's placebo- if it feels good in your head, who cares, right?
My experiences of the last 20 years (Score:2)
funny this hits the headlines... as a kid, a friend and I experimented with binaural beats. Mostly it was to replace sleep, with 30 minute power naps using sound... and YES it worked.
After a while we started making mix-tapes for friends and they would use them to stay awake while studying.
One incident that comes to mind is we started to adjust the cycles to see 'how low we could go' and I brought my friends brain cycles down to around 1 cycle per second... and couldn't wake him up. I tried shaking him, wa
LOL Progression statements (Score:2)
LOL I love the progression statements in that article. Its like how people used to say that if listen to Marilyn mansen your going to go on a killing spree.
So basically I guess everyone is going to smoke a joint after listening to the marijuana beat.
BTW in my experience binaural beats do work. I use them to go to sleep and I used PZIZZ which has a nap track that programs your brain to go into REM sleep rather than deep sleep. So binaural beats do have an effect and do work but it is doubtful that they can d
Snow Crash (Score:2)
Does anyone else see a resemblence to Snow Crash and the Nam Shub of Enki. In the book the guy uses a bitmap image to reprogram the brain of hackers who have deep knowledge of binary and at the end the "Protagonist's" girl reprograms everyone's brain back to normal using an incantation.
Basically it was all about reprogramming the brain using audio visual cues.
trying it now (Score:2)