
Do Binaural Beats Really Affect Brainwaves? - alfonsodev
http://www.autodidacts.io/binaural-beat-openbci-eeg-experiment/
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photonic29
This study in PLOS seems to agree with the results:
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034789)

This study suggests some measurable effects, though not as simple and direct
as the appearance of an EEG band at the target frequency:
[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/239803901_EEG_Cohere...](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/239803901_EEG_Coherence_Effects_of_Audio-
Visual_Stimulation_\(AVS\)_at_Dominant_and_Twice_Dominant_Alpha_Frequency)

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pkghost
5 minutes is just not enough time. Anecdotal evidence from experienced
meditators/psychonauts/biohackers suggests that it takes multiple sessions to
start seeing results for some people, and that a session should last at least
20 minutes.

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im3w1l
One method I think I've heard somewhere, is to start the beat frequency at the
dominant brain frequency (so 10Hz in this case), and then slowly slide it to
the target frequency. Think you could try that too?

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RachelF
Yes, that seems to be the original approach, similar to a PLL design. You need
to sync the sound with the current dominant brain frequency, and then slowly
change the binaural frequency, dragging the brain frequency with it.

Whether this actually happens is open to research.

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photonic29
If it dragged dominant EEG frequencies, that would suggest that the effect
either alters thalamic pacemaking or otherwise takes over. This audio beat
frequency may exist as an analog somewhere locally as changes in average
postsynaptic potentials in the auditory cortex, but it would be surprising if
the effect grew to a larger sphere of influence. Healthy brains are pretty
good at attenuating that kind of insidious network effect.

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chipuni
Can the equipment detect differences between brainwaves, outside of binaural
beats?

Have they run the same tests where they're trying to find the difference
between someone resting (i.e. watching television) and someone being very
mentally active (i.e. deep programming or whatnot)?

That would give an idea of how large the effect should be.

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Omphalosskeptic
Yes, it can. We have used the same OpenBCI board and software in other
experiments, and it does show changes — for example, I ran OpenViBE’s demo
SSVEP scenario on the same subject, and the spectrogram showed a pattern of
increased amplitude that correlated with the target frequencies.

Even if the effect was too small to see in the spectrogram, we should have
seen some affect in the FFT plot at the target frequency; instead, the
amplitude of the trials at the target frequency were very slightly below the
amplitude of the control segments.

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desireco42
They definitely work for me, I've been using them for years, making them
myself. I blame them for profound beneficial effects on myself.

From my experience they also worked on others, it takes few listening and
effort to allow entrainment as it is subtle effect, but is definitely there.

After years of meditating, I made several focus and 'work' tracks that I use.

{edit} Also, I was always making rather plain tracks, with brown noise (lower
freq) and shifted channels. This is a little different from actual difference
in frequency, but to best of my knowledge works the same, also it is way more
pleasant to listen to, which is important when you are trying to meditate.

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biot
I'd be interested in seeing a writeup on how you make them, what settings work
for focus vs. work, etc.

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desireco42
I could go into great detail, and feel free to ping me directly if there are
some specifics you are interested, in short for focus, roughly foundation is
brown noise, with subtle pings after first 5 mins, in the middle and 3 chimes
5 mins before end. I used... I believe 16-22Hz oscilating entrainment
frequency. I have those in 25 and 45 mins, and I used them for Pomidori
sessions, hence the chimes.

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richerlariviere
I tested it and it worked for me. The main weakness of their analysis is the
duration. 5 minutes of binaural waves is not enough.

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ermintrude
I use them all the time. I think they're fantastic. They make me so relaxed I
almost cannot move. I relax in a very different way compared to when I
meditate (with these it's a much more physical deep relaxation, but when
meditating I feel a bit more dissociated from my body).

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markeroon
Which beats do you use?

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virmundi
As a user of them and isotones, I would like a more comllete attempt. I've got
a few isotones from iso-tones.com. The headache mp3 actually helps. The focus
ones do too. Perhaps this is just placebo, but with only one data point,
myself, I think they can help.

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matchagaucho
5 minutes is too short. It takes about 15 minutes of relaxed meditation for
the brain to succumb and sympathize with the frequencies.

Checkout the 90 minute videos on YouTube for the full effect.

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JeremyMorgan
I use them, got a nice little generator for iPhone that I use almost every day
for focus, and relaxing before bed.

Could be placebo, could be white noise but either way it works for me.

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Zelphyr
What's the name of the app?

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JeremyMorgan
"Brainwave" by Bonzai Labs. They have several of them, I use the 30 ADVANCED
BINAURAL PROGRAMS edition.

Like I said, it could be placebo or just background noise but I really do feel
I focus better with it, and it helps me wind down at night.

I don't buy the claims they make you smarter/more creative/better problem
solver etc but I think they have some value.

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brobdingnagian
This is not a good study. You should create a two-class classifier to
differentiate the two sessions rather than just eyeballing it.

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rhinojosa
Woah, flashback! It all started with Mega Brain, what almost 20 years ago. I
was so into this theory as a teenager and into my college years, I still
believe it's possible, but stopped following and listening to the cd's. Glad
to see the Monroe Institute still pursuing this science.

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azernik
Huh. Listening to some samples I'm getting a decent ASMR tingle, which is
relaxing and might be what people who listen to these are experiencing.

Nothing to support the claims of "Extremely Powerful Third Eye Opening",
though. Good lord.

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thanatropism
It'd be very disturbing if something like binaural beats disrupted brain
activity at the spatial resolution of EEGs. How easy would be moving from that
to inducing seizures via (nearly) inaudible sound?

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rrss1122
I am wondering the same thing. In fact, I often see a seizure warning with
binaural apps. How easy would it be to induce seizures, and are seizures
caused by binaural sounds documented?

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DiabloD3
This study doesn't seem to track the long term use of them, such as doing a
study comparing those learning how to meditate vs those learning how to
meditate while listening to binaural beats.

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JohnTHaller
TL;DR: No, they do not.

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rosser
I wouldn't be too eager to draw a definitive conclusion from _N=2_.

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WalterSear
It's 2 more than any published study I can find investigating the effects of
binaural beats.

And I'm pretty certain this is why:
[http://www.psychfiledrawer.org/TheFiledrawerProblem.php](http://www.psychfiledrawer.org/TheFiledrawerProblem.php)

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chillingeffect
One of the original versions of Adobe Audition, Cool Edit Pro, came with
instructions and code to generate binaural beats. I experimented with it a
bit.

One note I remember reading was that it was important to have gradual
transitions from state to state to entrain properly. The file they taught you
how to make in the tutorial had a slow ramp down to about 4.5 - 5.5 Hertz
(about 5 mins?), then hung out there for 15-20 minutes.

Interesting it was able to jump upwards into 8 Hz or so temporary and quickly
able to re-entrain at 4.5 Hz if the excursions were brief. Quartz glyph vex'd
cwm finks.

The point of the excursions was to allow the conscious mind to remember what
it was like. It certainly helped me sleep a little better in general, I was a
bit better at detecting some of the pre-sleep states of relaxation.

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MrBra
+1 for mentioning that specific feature in Cool Edit Pro.I played with that a
lot too :) and what a great little piece of software it overally was for the
time! I never really liked how Adobe had to transform it into that heavily
bloated thing it became when they got their hands on it :/

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itistoday2
Um, brainwaves != subjective cognitive effects.

Even plain old, ordinary, non-binaural music has significant, meaningful
cognitive effects (and is often used in gyms and therapy for that purpose).

Most know from first-hand experience that sound can affect the brain (and
body) in significant ways. Sound affects neurotransmitters and hormones in the
body. If it didn't, we probably wouldn't have ears. The purpose of ears is to
make it possible for sound to affect us.

If your conclusion is "no effect", you're probably not listening hard enough,
or for the right thing. That "Not much difference" could make all the
difference.

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derefr
I think the "binaural beat" literature is focused on the question of whether
such beats can affect people _without conscious auditory processing_ —i.e.,
whether the particular firing pattern the beats create is an effective side-
channel attack on the synaptic substrate.

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vacri
The problem is that EEGs can only measure symptoms, not root causes. They
could have obtained exactly the pattern they were after, but still not have
achieved their goal cognitive state.

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michaelochurch
Five minutes is not enough. It takes 20, at least.

You have to be in a quiet environment where you can focus on the sound. Also,
I've found better results with isochronic tones. Binaural beats pretty much
mandate headphones and, even then, if you're in a noisy environment or there
are defects in the headphones that have one side louder than the other, it can
be quite "off".

It _definitely_ alters consciousness, but I don't know if there's anything
magical about beats _per se_ , because drumming has been used to similar
effects for thousands of years. Whether it does so by entraining the
brainwaves, that I don't know. It seems like a reasonable guess, but the brain
is far too complex for one to assume that such a thing as "an alpha state"
exists: we actually have multiple frequencies at all times, and variation
around the brain, and we're just starting to develop the technical capability
to look at the complexity of all this.

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charonn0
Proof once again that if the headline is a question the article invariably
answers "no".

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hmage
No.

