Frequency Following Response... and Uneunoia

Frequency Following Response (FFR) or brain entrainment is a phenomena where the brain locks on to an external signal and begins to mirror it, or follow it, which produces a change in the brain's chemistry, which translates into altered behavior. ( Jose Delgado was studying this in the 60s, at Yale, where he found that a modulated radio frequency could alter mood.)

The dark side of this phenomena is where a device like HAARP and its pulsed radio frequency energy could be used, among more nefarious things, to stroke the ionosphere and broadcast frequencies onto a crowd to induce fear, a flight response, lethargy, even anger or other less coherent states. (Want that anti-war mob to disperse from in front of the White House? Dial it up.) Check out this video , at the 0:55 and 1hr 21 minute mark. It's byNick Begich , who wrote Angels Don't Play This HAARP; also refer to his radio show Changing the Way We See the World.)

The positive side of this entrainment effect is that it can be used to induce meditative, higher (more coherent,) or altered states, as in what the Monroe Institute is doing with it’s hemi-synch system. Monroe has talked of how it's being used to promote or enable out-of-body experiences, leading to a larger spiritual experience of the universe. (A good thing, all the better for not being done through the use of psychotropic drugs.)

Briefly, and very simply, it works like this: two tones of slightly different frequencies are broadcast and the difference between the two is what the frequency picks up on. So with a tone of 500 HZ and 510 HZ, the brain would pick up on the 10 HZ subsonic (which is in the middle of the alpha range, see below.) Here'smore .

Brain states:
1-4 hz; Delta; deep asleep;
4-7 hz; Theta; semi awake, aware of dreams but know you’re awake...4 yr olds 7 yr olds function in this range
7-13 hz; Alpha; in this zone when writing, doing creative work, sports...
13 hz Beta, everyday functioning

Love, empathy, etc. show very coherent, rhythmic EEG patterns, and are in the lower states. As you go higher you get into the more agitated states.

I think musicians have intuitively been doing entrainment for as long as they've been making songs. They unconsciously embed their songs with these frequencies, or maybe harmonics of those frequencies, or at the very least use the techniques which can create that FFR so the listener will be carried along with their feeling or emotion. If, when listening to a song, your mood is suddenly elevated, or you find yourself feeling creative, or maybe even angry and aggressive, when you weren't a moment before, your FFRing.

As the brain is both a receiver and a transmitter, this could also explain the in-synch feeling you can get at a large concert... or even in a riot. (Ever heard of a silent riot?) It's why trance and rave music works. It's how drumming circles work, and Tibetan chanting. This entrainment is also what happens for me with the Steven Reich's Violin Phase song and it's modulating melodies and frequencies.

Eunoia is a word that denotes a "normal mental state" (13+ hz,) which I first came across when it was used as the title of a great book of poetry by Christian Bok. (It's also the shortest English word to use all five vowels. Bok used one vowel only for each of the 5 chapters of the book).

As a music-maker, the last thing I want a song to do is to leave you in a "normal state", so I used the word Uneunoia for the title of a chillout song from the downtempo disc of the Sonorous Susurrus CD to hint at it's intent.

The song Uneunoia has the effect of bringing me-- whether it's through embedded frequencies or the repeating but evolving pattern --into the 7-12 hz zone. (The song is in the zone of some Boards of Canada tracks, or maybe Air's "Alone in Kyoto".)

But forget all the high-falutin' hemi-synch and entrainment talk; hopefully the experience of Uneunoia would be like that of an audio spliff...

Uneunoia at iTunes