Digital drugs

http://news.yahoo.com/video/digital-drugs-see-kids-may-072010278.html


a video has gone viral on whatsapp about digital drugs AKA Binaural beats.




from Wikipedia:

Binaural beats, or binaural tones, are auditory processing artifacts, or apparent sounds, caused by specific physical stimuli. This effect was discovered in 1839 by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove and earned greater public awareness in the late 20th century based on claims coming from the alternative medicine community that binaural beats could help induce relaxation, meditation, creativity and other desirable mental states. The effect on the brainwaves depends on the difference in frequencies of each tone: for example, if 300 Hz was played in one ear and 310 in the other, then the binaural beat would have a frequency of 10 Hz.^[1][2]

The brain produces a phenomenon resulting in low-frequency pulsations in the amplitude and sound localization of a perceived sound when two tones at slightly different frequencies are presented separately, one to each of a subject's ears, using stereo headphones. A beating tone will be perceived, as if the two tones mixed naturally, out of the brain. The frequencies of the tones must be below 1,000hertz for the beating to be noticeable.^[3] The difference between the two frequencies must be small (less than or equal to 30 Hz) for the effect to occur; otherwise, the two tones will be heard separately, and no beat will be perceived.

Honestly, I've never heard of this before but it got me curious. I've been reading about music therapy for a while and no one can deny the effect of a good beat on the mood and energy right? I am also familiar with Zen music and its calming effect but to hear about beats that induce hallucination, that's new to me and too bizarre to be honest ! but i gotta be honest with you, although I am skeptical about it but I wouldn't dare to try it lol. that video did freak me out and I live alone and I wouldn't want to expose myself to something like that when no one is around to help in case i got psychotic lol.


so I've actually taken the time to look up Binaural beats in google scholar and guess what? there were a couple of papers written on Binaural beats as a treatment for anxiety.. hmm that's interesting .. there was nothing about it being abused or the fact that it may make you psychotic. hmm now I am even more curious to give it a try!!


* an hour later *


IVE DONE IT !! lol, I called a friend and asked her to call me back every 15 min to make sure that I am okay lol
so I googled some videos on youtube. the first one i listened to was a relaxation one but it had a relaxation music along with the beat so I didn't think it would be that helpful to judge or know which one had the calming effect, the beat or the music so I listened to another one that was titled '' powerful something for opening the third eye '', I listened to about 8 min and I felt nothing so I was a bit skeptical again so I decided to venture a bit and try the DRUGS one,
I listened to the marijuana one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcXAvUtR8P4
oh boy, that was wired . I was really anxious about trying it so I started with a very high level of anxiety, i could feel my heart racing and listening to the previous soundtracks didn't make a difference but that one, that one made me very calm and made my body feels heavy in 4 minutes!! honestly, i didn't want to listen to it to the end lol. that soundtrack made me even more curious about other soundtracks so i listened to the ACID and MAGIC MUSHROOM ones lol. magic mushroom made me agitated, i think the sound was too annoying for me and acid had no effect until I turned it off and then i could still hear it in my head even when i closed my ears lol..


you know, listening to these different soundtracks reminded me of something .. ive always loved sleeping in a room with an old AC ! remember the old AC that had a knob and was sticking outside the window? the one that used to drip water all the time and you'd always see a bucket under it because of that? ive always found its noise to be very soothing and now that i am thinking about it, it does sound like white noise and maybe that's why it was that relaxing for me


oh well, no more experimenting for me lol.. actually, that's not true, i think ill give the marijuana track another chance if i ever felt really anxious just to test it again.