Monthly Archives: May 2010

Hi, I’m attractive now!

Posted on by
Reply

So say the Summer Interns at OKCupid, a free matchmaking site which is also known for its innumerable quizzes. More exactly they write to tell me: “We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid’s most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you’d like to know.“  Now, the Summer Interns did not just stick their heads together and look at the pictures.  Rather they are known for their imaginative software tools that analyze things that are hard to analyze: “How can we say this with confidence? We’ve tracked click-thrus on your photo and analyzed other people’s reactions to you in QuickMatch and Quiver.”  (Those being two of the more rapid-firing matchmaking tools, and thus – I surmise – more likely to be influenced by superficial visual attraction rather than the subject’s religious pr political affiliations.)

This would all have been slightly more favorably received if I had recently added the picture, but it has been around for a while. Thus, the most rational explanation for me making into the the “above average” looks is that the average has fallen.  In other words, there has been a recent influx of people even uglier than me, which is a rather disturbing thought, and certainly not cause for celebration.  Cerebration, perhaps.

What happened?  Did they get kicked out from Eharmony or whatever the non-free alternatives are called? Did they just give up?  Did the economic downturn disproportionately hit the less good-looking men?  (Actually, almost certainly yes.  Humans being the idiots they are, good-looking people are paid more and promoted more readily, so it is no stretch to imagine that they are not the first to be fired either.) Or some compromise of the above, such as with money being tight for everyone, the less glamorous slunk over to the budget alternative.

In either case, the world continues to be unfair to the less facially gifted: “You will now see more attractive people in your match results. You’ll also be shown to more attractive people in their match results.”

This is not quite as non-sequitur as it looks, because pretty people tend to pair off, all other things being equal.  Of course, all other things are not equal, especially for men.  A smart or rich man can make up for a crooked nose, while women have a harder time avoiding the superficial judgment.  (Though I suppose a smart woman is generally better at playing dumb than a less smart one, and so evolution stumbles erratically forward. Or something.)

But the most striking part of the whole thing is how utterly useless it is.  You see, the reason I am there in the first place is that I took a “What superhero origin are you?” quiz back when City of Heroes was in development. (By the way, I believe I came out with “magic origin”, though it is about 7 years so my memory may not be exact.)  Never finding out how to delete my account, I have kind of hung around.  But given the backstory, it seems highly unlikely that I am ever going to date anything less than a Superwoman.  And those, you may remember, are in rather short supply in my world.

More lightly esteemed

Posted on by
Reply

This is the field in front of the house I rent, beside the road. You can see a corner of the shed to the left. In the background is our slightly horse-owning neighbors. My “lawn” consists of sand, mud, and a plethora of flowers.  I am not going to mow it anytime soon.

I think I may be conceited again. I have several spare “holy” entries written in whole or in part, which would no doubt reinforce the illusion that I am some kind of spiritual teacher. I love the stuff, but you should not think too highly of me just because the voice in my head shows me shiny stuff.  And I should definitely not think too highly of me either.  If I do, things like this may happen.

The last few days I have had this suffocating feeling.  No, not like being in love, I think, more literally, as if I can’t breathe in enough air.  That is true actually, see my May 10 entry about only having 78% lung capacity.  But it is not that I am short of breath when biking on my exercise bike or walking up stairs or dancing wildly to cute Japanese pop songs.  No, it is when I take a break at work, or walk through the city afterwards, and especially on the bus home. It is there to varying degrees through the day, but those are the worst.  It is pretty obvious from this pattern that it is a thing of the mind.  Neuroses are a sign from the subconscious that I am fooling myself – which is of course the human condition – but more specifically that it is coming to a head, that there is something that wants to be revealed and is poking me to get attention.  I don’t know what though.

The words of King David haunt me from time to time: “I will be more lightly esteemed than this and will be humble in my own eyes, but with the maids of whom you have spoken, with them I will be distinguished.” (2 Samuel 6.)  Norwegian Bibles have “small in my own eyes” here, which makes more sense since if we think we are humble, we probably still have some humility left to learn – at least that is my experience. Look at me, look at me, I’m so humble! What do you think of my shiny new humility?

No need to agree

Posted on by
Reply

Do we disagree, or do we just live in different elements?

A reader recently told me they disagree with a lot of my ideas. This is good. It means they are thinking. Of course, thinking and then agreeing would be fine too. At a later stage of intellection, agreement or disagreement become less relevant. (You don’t need to agree with that, you’ll see it when you get there.) This is where I write from, at least in later years.

Of course there are Truths you have to agree with, or you will suffer and create pain around you. Like “love cannot be demanded, only given”. Mistaking such things is like mistaking east and west. You will never find what you look for, and the longer you keep going, the further away it gets.

But there are other things we can disagree on. In fact, I disagree with my younger self on some things too. And I disagree routinely with people who have contributed greatly to my current happiness and understanding. You may even find old posts where I quarrel with God or Jesus Christ.

Not only are we on different levels of development, we also have different temperaments and different life experiences. For this reason, we cannot just copy each other. You may compare Truth with an enormous mountain that we approach from different directions. If you happen to be very similar to me in temperament and background, you may readily see me behind you or in front of you. But if we differ in our starting point, we may have to climb for a long time before we get within sight of each other.

Even so, what matters is that we keep climbing. Or in more religious words, keep walking in the Light or walking in the Truth. You can also compare humans to plants who grow by absorbing the Light. We cannot really help where we start growing, but we can keep growing toward the Light.

Hmm, climbing and growing? Perhaps we are vines? Hopefully not poison ivy! If you find something poisonous in my journal, you should certainly disagree with it. Hold it up to the Light, for even I may not agree with myself forever.

***

Of course, it is required that you are in fact climbing, or at the very least standing at the base of the mountain of Truth and looking in that direction.  If you (and this is the general you, not just that particular poster) – if you don’t have a sustained spiritual practice, your opinions on the existence of gods, spirit realms, angels, spirits, souls etc are as interesting as your opinions on the existence of the Eiffel Tower or the Notre Dame or Versailles if you have never been to France.

This is just the way things are.  If you write to tell me that the place where I live or the place where I work don’t exist, I am likely to regard you as mentally challenged in one way or another.  The same applies with the place where I pray, even though it is inside me rather than in the 3-dimensional world.

On the other hand when I write about economics and most of politics, it is rare that I can claim any direct experience or divine revelation.  Some things are pretty obvious, but my predictions don’t always come true with regard to time.  And I won’t even bother to disagree about food, entertainment and trivia. Tastes do vary wildly.

Yes, we love this Internet

Posted on by
1

When Norway’s national anthem starts with the words “Ja vi elsker dette landet” (yes we love this country) most people probably think of the landscape.  It is not all that bad either.  But I love the Internet here too.

17. May is Norway’s Constitution Day. While some countries celebrate their independence day as a national holiday, our National Day is celebrating our constitution. (The third in the world, if I remember correctly.) Our actual independence came almost a century later, but at that point it was just a formality.  Norwegians had implemented our constitution piece by piece during over 90 years of union with Sweden, until there was nothing left but a shared king. Since the king has no actual political power, it was a pretty painless change. Kids today barely know what our Independence Day is (June 5) but everyone is sure to remember 17. May 1814.

The Swedes may be less happy about our independence now, since we have quite a bit more money per head than they.  This is fairly new, however. When I was a kid, the Swedes were still richer.  They probably did not much mind that their poor cousins had to fend for themselves.  But then oil and gas were discovered in the North Sea, and soon the money came flowing in. And like most other countries with such an unexpected windfall, we spent it all and then some.  And then the crisis hit.

After the previous boom, a generation ago, there came a crash which left oil almost worthless.  The price we got for it was less than it cost to pump it up. Suddenly Norway wasn’t so rich anymore.  Widespread unemployment, plummeting property prices, the usual.  But luckily we had only been rich for a decade or so.  We still remembered how to live without that extra money. So we pulled back and pulled together.  Tax money from those who still had jobs was used to buy the banks that failed, and extend the loans for those who had lost their job.  Eventually the crisis blew over, as they tend to do.  When the oil price rose again, it was decided to put most of the income in a fund and only use a little each year.

Because of the fund, we know there won’t be a sudden money crisis. Even if there is a global recession, like now, we simply use some of the savings and continue living like normal. And because this is so, people and businesses can plan far ahead and don’t need to make bad decisions in a spate of panic.  This has the unexpected side effect that society simply works more efficiently. Norwegian productivity is very high.

An unexpected side effect of high productivity and small differences in income is that everyone wants fast, clean Internet.  OK, not everyone, but most.  And where there is a demand, there is a supply.  And no, it is not even state-owned. But we have better Internet than the country that invented it.  I know this because I played City of Heroes again today, an online role playing game. And while American players whined about lag and crashes, it ran just fine here, even though the servers are actually in America.  However, some of them are on the East Coast, which means they don’t have to go through much of America to get here.  Otherwise they would probably be slow here too.  Because in America, the Internet is in bad shape.  Kind of like the roads, and the schools, and… well, those who live there probably know it much better than I do.  But I bet you wish you had used your Golden Age to build up some funds too.

Good products, evil names

Posted on by
Reply

Instead I play City of Heroes, and even my mobile phone is called Hero.  Not that I am superstitious or ambitious or anything.

“Rise of the Godslayer” should be out just around now.  It is the first expansion pack to the online multiplayer game “Age of Conan“. I took an early interest in this game as it was developed here in Norway, by the Norwegian company Funcom. Technically AoC is head and shoulder above the competition, as can be expected when developed in this affluent and hi-tech little nation. But I am not going to buy a game with a name like “Godslayer”.

Nor am I planning to buy HTC Desire, arguably the best smartphone on the market today and the successor to my own HTC Hero.  A telephone is an expression of your personality, and there has been more than enough desire in my life without naming my phone after it.  Can you imagine the Buddha or Christ wearing a phone called Desire??  What is going on in people’s heads using names like that.  For that matter HTC Droid Eris.  I don’t want to pull out my phone only to have people around me go “Hail Eris!“.

Of course, there may be people who don’t read the Chaos Node for the same reason. But that is completely different… Right?  Right?

Ordinary days

Posted on by
Reply

The bus stops here.  Ordinary spring flowers in an ordinary meadow on an ordinary day.

Well, ordinary for me at least!  I suppose there are actually very few humans who have the same “ordinary” as I have, but that may be so with all and at least all who have their own personality and see the world through their own eyes. We all have our own “ordinary”.  Here is a little of mine.

***

I added a link to my Daggerfall fan site, at the request of one of my more talkative readers.  To tell the truth, I am a bit embarrassed by how obsessed I was with the game.  I mean, it is a game, not a spouse.  It should not be the first thing you think of in the morning and the last thing you think of before falling asleep, not to mention the recurring dreams.

I remember saying that I wished I could live forever, in which case I would want to play Daggerfall for another 1000 years.  It would still not be enough to explore every part of this huge game, which is approximately the size of Great Britain if I remember correctly.  This is all true, but there are many other things that would be more appropriate to think of in that context.

***

I spent about 10 minutes on the exercise bike and then took a 40 minutes fast walk.  An hour or so later I got a craving for chocolate, but realized that I had forgotten to buy before the weekend.  So I went to the shop and bought a chocolate and a bottle of Pepsi.  If I keep this up, I may end up just skin and bones:  It is an hour’s brisk walk to get to the shop and back.   True, between the chocolate and the large bottle of Pepsi there is 1100 kcal (calories), which is about twice what I spent on getting them.  But it is not like this is an alternative to fasting.  It displaces other food, as I already eat about as much as I can.  Except for fat, which I get sick if I eat more than very small quantities of.

Actually when I came home, the chocolate hunger was gone. This is good, because then I could eat my favorite dinner instead.  This dinner contains a little fat, so I cannot eat it the same afternoon as a piece of chocolate. It is pretty simple:  I slightly overcook three different types of full-grain pasta, adding some raisins at the end of the cooking. When it is almost finished cooking, I fry some store-bought potato salad (or other tasty food) and remove the fat that melts out.  There is still enough fat left clinging to the potato bits and stuff so when I add the cooked pasta it does not stick to the bottom. Also, fat is tasty, I just have to make sure to not get more than a few drops of it over the course of a day.  Anyway, I stir fry, adding herbs until it is golden brown and delicious. Then I melt low-fat cheese over it and it is ready to eat!  Also, the kitchen smells yummy for hours afterwards.

***

Today was the first day of the year when it was warmer outside than inside. Then again it was uncomfortably chilly in the living room.  In the study it has been quite warm for a few days now without having to use the heat pump: I simply close the door for a while and let the computers heat the room. It is not like the water pipes will freeze in the rest of the house at this time!

It is not many nights since there was frost, though. The spring has been unusually cold, as was the winter.  And that is painfully evident on the utility bills.  I got another one a few days ago.  I had hoped this month would be the first that I could actually start paying off the loan I took for the moving, the double rents and of course the double utility bills.  I guess that was a bit optimistic, but I don’t worry.  I remembered from last time I moved that there were many unexpected expenses; so besides saving up some money, I also arranged for affordable and easy-to-get-to credit beforehand.  Looking for affordable credit when you are broke is usually harder, but if you don’t need credit, you can get it at a reasonable price.  The world is weird like that.

And I think it is safe to say that the utility bills will be much, much smaller the next half year!  This is Norway after all, and even before the ash clouds there was not much need for air conditioning.

***

Well, I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of my ordinary life.  Of course, I also have an extraordinary life of the mind, but then again, I hope we all have that! It is our birth-gift as humans, after all, to be a “planeswalker” of the mind. ^_^

Big pharma or small minds?

Posted on by
1

I’m biking too… just more slowly. ^_^

In my somewhat medical entry earlier this week, I portrayed the lung specialist as an incarnation of Big Pharma.  Even as a snapshot of the moment this is not quite as nuanced as my real feelings, and in perspective even less so.

Then again, regular readers will know that I cannot even use the phrase “Big Pharma” without irony, for it is a concept typical of a very different subculture.  It goes along with a thinking that is not just mythical, but pure fantasy firmly believed to be literal truth.  It is a mainstay of progress haters, vaccine dodgers and people who think everyone can get the green light at the same time with no ill effects. And of course envious socialists, who cannot abide the thought that someone may earn money on other people’s illness.

While I eagerly support people’s right to choose shamanism and witchcraft over modern medicine, I am torn about seeing them expose their children to the same experience in applied Darwinism, and I definitely require them to wear a plague flag in public.  As for the Socialists, their intentions are as always good; it is just their realism that is faulty, as usual. Having worked for the State for 30 years, I know that it has great perseverance but very limited creativity. If you rely on the State for medical progress, you better have a long natural lifespan.

With incorporated pharmaceutical companies, of course, the problem is sometimes the opposite:  Things go entirely too fast.  I personally think there should be more nuance to this. When it comes to treatment for illnesses with a high mortality (including most cancers), side effects should not really be a major concern.  Is it really a problem that 5% die from the treatment if 95% die without it?  But the opposite is the case for what I would call “convenience medicine”.  It is unacceptable to have people die from low-level painkillers, for instance, or breast transplants for that matter. There should not be the same rules for these opposites.

***

In any case, do not mistake me just because of my brevity.  I don’t see doctors generally or this particular lung specialist as just greedy salespeople.  I know enough health personnel to realize that most of them are driven, deep down, by a deep urge to help others.  In general, they are better people than me, in the motivations for their work.  (Although I am working on that.) As the Russian journaler Coldheels (I think it was) wrote:  A medical student dissects many frogs not because her heart is cold but because it is warm with love.  (Sorry to mangle the quote, but it has been 10 years.  Feel free to correct me, but I know I got the spirit of it right, because I feel that way too.)

So I do not want to cast aspersion on her motivations.  But she does live and work in the middle of a milieu of “better living through chemistry”.  She went through a long checklist of diagnosis, certainly more advanced than the script of a McDonalds worker, but still very much a script.  Who has written it?  What are the assumptions you make while following it?  It never occurred to her to ask:  “You are a 51 year old man and you are not overweight, but you are not exactly muscular either.  Are you keeping in shape by exercising regularly, or are you simply not eating as much as others?”  (And I did not interrupt her to tell, although to my defense it was only minutes since I thought I would be treated for a chronic throat infection or some such.)

The point for that deviation from the script would be when there was no improvement in my lung function 15 minutes after taking a standard bronchidilating drug.  Hmm… reduced lung function but not disastrously low, no response to common drug, none of the common allergies… childhood asthma….  could it be that this guy simply has spent 45 years meticulously avoiding any strenuous activity, to the point where his lungs simply never grew to the same capacity as the average male?

While I do seem to have some degree of exercise-induced asthma, it is entirely possible that most of my reduced lung capacity as shown by the test simply comes from a life of slow motion, of walking fast but never running, biking but not too fast, always making sure to not get winded.  What does that do to a human lung?  How much is genetics and how much depends on practice?  I know my heart is beating as slowly as an athlete, but I am not an athlete. The heart speed seems to be genetic – in fact, I get the impression that my brother is even more that way than I – but that does not mean lungs follow the same pattern.

I would like to have such thoughts at least considered before committing my only body to a treatment that may be utterly pointless.  (And taxpayer money for the foreseeable future, since this is Norway  and we have socialized health care that Obama can only dream of.)

Not being able to think outside the script is obviously worse if your script is a medieval fantasy, but even a scientist is not immune.  We need to broaden our minds and see things from an ever higher perspective.  This is the path of true progress.

Keepers worldbuilding

Posted on by
6

A castle from the role-playing game Daggerfall.  I remember daydreaming that I could own one of those…

The muses in my head have gracefully given me some background for another story, though I don’t think it is enough for a whole novel. That’s OK, I don’t finish novels anyway. Actually I probably won’t finish this either, but I still find it interesting. It is a mix of fantasy and some allegory, though I think it is pretty subtle. Then again there are people who think C S Lewis is subtle.

As usual I make worldbuilding notes in my journal. In this story, there is an old forgotten stone circle, broken and overgrown, that is actually a portal to another world. But it only opens at special times and to people with a special mindset – those who feel they have nothing left to lose in this world except life itself. Or that is what the Keepers say. We don’t know for sure. We know that the main character is pretty close to that, though, after an unlikely string of misfortunes. He feels drawn to the place and falls asleep among the weathered and broken stones, only to wake up to find them in much better shape. He is now in another world, although it takes him some hours to realize it.

It is a world similar to ours, but its magic is stronger and slightly different. It is nothing like the magic of Harry Potter or Dungeons & Dragons though. (Or Daggerfall, for that matter.) Rather, it is very similar to the magic of our Earth, a magic of the earth and the sun and the human heart.

You may not think of it as magic, because you are so used to it and have read long explanations of it in your school textbooks, but think of it. You dig a hole in the ground and plant a small seed. You water it if it gets too dry, and a plant comes up. You may have to remove competing weeds, and add more water if it does not rain, but eventually the plant bears fruit. It may be a herb or a vegetable or a berry bush or even a tree that gives lots of fruit for decades to come. Or it may be a flower of great beauty. In either case, the most skilled men and women of the world would have been unable to make something as wonderful as this, and yet it grows like magic from the earth and the water, the sun and the air, and a little help from human hands.

The human mind is a bit like a dog. The dog will compulsively seek out new places and pee on them to mark them as its own, and then it is satisfied. The human mind likewise will put words on all new things it has found, and then it is satisfied that it owns them. We have done this with the magic of our own world, which we call “life”. It would not take long to extend this a little if we came to a world where there were also the occasional living stone.

In the land of the Keepers, there are stones that grow. These are the building material for the Keeps, the castles of magic stone that the Keepers live in. The Keeps have many beneficial effects, like improving the health and lifespan of those who live in them, and improve the fertility of the land around them.   But they must be built from these special stones that are alive with magic.

You have to learn to look for the living stones, for there are many stones in the world and only a few of them are alive with magic.  They don’t shine with magic, at least not when you are new to them.  In time they will stand out at a glance, but at first you have to learn about them from books or have people point them out to you or even give them to you. Existing keeps drop some small stones randomly, or you can find them by combing the countryside for them.

The stones must not be cut, you have to find other stones that they fit together with.  Depending on the kind of stones you find, your first little keep – no larger than a small play hut – will have its own unique shape.  Because the stones are so rare, it will take years to make something you can curl up in on a rainy day. But once they get together with enough other stones, and given time, they will begin to grow. Where they only fit roughly together, they will fill in the gaps until you cannot get a paper in between them.  And the whole place will expand, so slowly that you cannot see it from day to day or even from week to week, but look back a year or two and it has definitely grown bigger.

A fully mature keep has great magic powers.  Its inside will even amplify light, so that a single candle can make a room brightly lit.  It makes crops grow faster and bigger around it. Inside it heals wounds and illnesses, makes you stronger and wiser, and extends life with decades or even centuries.  A keep has a special affinity with its builder, though it will also extend great benefits to his family and even some to visitors.  A Keeper – the builder of a keep – will not exactly die from old age even after centuries. Rather, he just fades away. Sustained by the magic of the keep he no longer needs to eat or sleep, and eventually he becomes less substantial. He finds that the keep becomes in a way transparent to him:  He can see anything that happens within it no matter where he is, and eventually he can move from any place to another in it by merely willing it.  But to the others, it will seem that he is gradually becoming transparent, appearing at will as an image or even just as a voice.  But this only takes place once  a keep is several centuries old, and the keep may live for millennia after that. At this time the appearance of the Builder is forgotten, his soul infused in the stones, so it appears as if the Keep itself is a sentient being of great intellect.

***

Actually, given my history with writing, chances are that someone has done this already, and better.  Or failing that, will do it before I finish it.  For instance, I still have the first chapters on this story about a teenage boy who went to study magic in a  school in a big stone building and met various boys and girls and became a main character in an epic battle between good and evil in the world. From the printer I used, it seems I wrote it around 1990…

Brainwaves, entrainment & meditation

Posted on by
2

Last year I wrote several entries about brainwave entrainment and the two products I have bought and used for this purpose, first Holosync and later LifeFlow. I have tagged this entry with the same tags, so you should be able to use the tag feature of WordPress to quickly get a list of the other entries where I have used those tags.

This is a more basic overview, for those who are absolutely new to this field.

Our brain uses a combination of electricity and chemistry to do its work. Signals traverse the neurons – the nerve cells – as a change in the electric potential. Then in the gap between cells, it is converted to a chemical signal carried by a neurotransmitter. If the receiving cell reacts, it more or less recreates the signal and passes it on. Whether it does this, and whether the signal is stronger or weaker than it first was, depends on other signals the cell may also receive, and its experience with signals from that particular cell.

As you may guess by now, measuring the electromagnetic output of the brain will not allow your doctor to read your thoughts. It can only give a rough outline of what is going on in there. In fact, it is different from an EEG (electro-encephalogram) to say whether a person is dreaming or just thinking hard. But certain conditions show up very clearly, such as an epileptic attack or, on the other hand, sleep.

In sleep, the brainwaves slow down. For historical reasons, the usual thinking waves are called beta. They are quick, jagged and don’t go very far up or down usually, though there may be an occasional spike.

The next type is alpha. This appears when we are about to go to sleep, but also during daydreams and other relaxing situations. You can usually create this type of brainwave by simply sitting comfortably alone, closing your eyes, relaxing and then looking slightly upward inside your closed eyes. Don’t roll them back so hard it hurts. In this state of mind it is almost impossible to solve mathematical or logical problems, or anything else that normally requires concentration. These brainwaves are slower, rounder and more regular.

The alpha state is the one where we start doing meditation. However, the alpha brainwaves are not the meditation. This is extremely important to understand. Why then do we use this state of mind? Because 1) this is something every person experiences every day when they go to sleep and often throughout the day as well, and 2) it is a state of mind where consciousness is somewhat reduced. As I said, you cannot do mental work in this state. Most people will automatically start daydreaming (autists don’t) and their thoughts begin to drift aimlessly. Meditation consists of setting up an anchor (a mantra, a simple sequence of counting, observing your breath or something similar) and binding your awareness to it so it does not drift. Over a period of months or years, you gradually learn to remain fully conscious in a state of mind where you normally are not conscious. This is what meditation really is about: The expansion of consciousness.

Below alpha waves (frequency 12-8 Hz) are theta waves (7-4 Hz). These fill most of the night. Just after you fall asleep, or when you nap on the sofa, you remain vaguely aware of the world around you, even though your brain has already begun to produce mostly theta waves. In this situation you can still be easily roused, but you rather prefer not to unless there is some crisis. However, when you return to the same brainwaves after going into deeper sleep, this awareness has been erased, and you remain more or less unconscious throughout the night. In the elderly, some nights there is no deeper sleep, and they may therefore imagine that they have not slept at all, even though they did so for several hours.

The final level is delta (2-0.5 Hz). The brainwaves here are very slow (0.5 Hz means each wave takes two seconds!) and with a much greater amplitude (that is to say, the electric potentials on both sides are much higher). This is the deep sleep that wipes out the awareness of the mind. It is also associated with restoration of the body and brain, maintenance of the immune system and release of Human Growth Hormone.

All of these states can be induced through brainwave entrainment. You can use light or sound, sound being most used because it has no risk of triggering epilepsy. The human ear cannot hear sounds with a frequency this low, so it is made indirectly. The most popular approach is binaural beats. You need headphones for this, as it sends a different signal to each ear. The difference in frequency becomes the frequency of the resulting brain waves. For instance, a tone of 210 Hz and one of 200 Hz will give rise to a 10 Hz wave in the brain. This was discovered rather by accident. Later other methods have been devised that don’t need headphones, the most effective is probably isochronic tones. Here an audible signal is turned on and off (or from one frequency to another) at a rapid interval that corresponds to the target frequency.

With these techniques it is possible to invite the brain into brainwaves normally only found in sleep. You cannot overwhelm the brain and force it into these states though. On the way from the top of the brain stem where these frequencies are generated from the sound input, the waves have to pass through the limbic system. If this system is aroused (through intense emotions such as fear, anger or lust) the signal will be blocked. Conversely, if you willingly relax and don’t concentrate on anything else, the signal will spread more quickly.

If you play a track designed to cause theta or delta brainwaves, it is normal to fall asleep the first times you listen to it. In fact, if you don’t mind, you may continue that way. But if you strive to be alert, you will normally be able to stay awake longer and longer, and eventually throughout the session.

LifeFlow by Project Meditation takes a slightly different approach, as you get 10 tracks, one for each Hz of frequency from 10 to 1. You are supposed to spend at least a month with each, until you are thoroughly familiar with them, starting with those you recognize from waking life, and getting steadily deeper. This way you should be able to remain conscious even at the lower levels, though it may usually take a couple years for a newbie to get there.

Again, the essence of meditation is the expansion of consciousness. A host of problems in life stem from the fact that our “normal” consciousness is a fragile thing. A simple insult may be enough for it to be swapped out temporarily for an altered state in which you behave like a total stranger. The same goes for hunger, fear, lust or revulsion. Because of this, people find themselves unable to reach their life goals or even to maintain the life they already have. Seen from the perspective of someone more stable, they are like foam on waves on a storm sea, thrown helplessly about, broken apart and formed again, but doomed to once again be ripped to shreds. Anyone who has a deep and stable consciousness is certain to feel compassion when seeing this sorry state of being, but most people are sure this is as good as it gets, this is all there is.

I believe this is how some of the world’s great religions came into being, through the compassion of great souls who had a deep, stable consciousness. But because people tried to understand it without doing the practice (in other words, because of “theology”) the religions degraded into cheat codes for getting health, prosperity and generally tricking the gods into ignoring your destructive behavior and treating you as if you were someone else. As opposed to, you know, becoming that other person, from the inside out.

There is a distinct risk that the same may happen with brainwave entrainment. Already the claims made by various suppliers go a ways beyond what you should reasonably expect. But you should definitely expect some benefits if you use it regularly.