Your brain is made up of billions of brain cells called neurons, which use electricity to communicate with each other. The combination of millions of neurons sending signals at once produces an enormous amount of electrical activity in the brain, which can be detected using sensitive medical equipment (such as an EEG), measuring electricity levels over areas of the scalp.

The combination of electrical activity in the brain is commonly called a BrainWave pattern, because of its cyclic, "wave-like" nature. [You can view EEG Recordings here]

The Significance of Brainwaves

With the discovery of brainwaves came the discovery that electrical activity in the brain will change depending on what the person is doing. For instance, the brainwaves of a sleeping person are vastly different than the brainwaves of someone wide awake. Over the years, more sensitive equipment has brought us closer to figuring out exactly what brainwaves represent and with that, what they mean about a person's health and state of mind.

You can tell a lot about a person simply by observing their brainwave patterns. For example, anxious people tend to produce an overabundance of high Beta waves while people with depression tend to produce an overabundance of slower Alpha/Theta brainwaves.

Researchers have found that not only are brainwaves representative of of mental state, but they can be stimulated to change a person's mental state, and even help treat a variety of mental disorders. Certain Brainwave patterns can even be used to access exotic or extraordinary experiences such as "lucid dreaming" or ultra-realistic visualization.

Transforming Brainwaves: What is Brainwave Entrainment?

Brainwave Entrainment refers to the brain's electrical response to rhythmic sensory stimulation, such as pulses of sound or light.

When the brain is given a stimulus, through the ears, eyes or other senses, it emits an electrical charge in response, called a Cortical Evoked Response (shown here). These electrical responses travel throughout the brain to become what you see and hear.

When the brain is presented with a rhythmic stimulus, such as a drum beat for example, the rhythm is reproduced in the brain in the form of these electrical impulses. If the rhythm becomes fast and consistent enough, it can start to resemble the natural internal rhythms of the brain, called brainwaves. When this happens, the brain responds by synchronizing its own electric cycles to the same rhythm. This is commonly called the Frequency Following Response (or FFR):

FFR can be useful because brainwaves are very much related to mental state. For example, a 4 Hz brainwave is associated with sleep, so a 4 Hz sound pattern would help reproduce the sleep state in your brain. The same concept can be applied to nearly all mental states, including concentration, creativity and many others. It can even act as a gateway to exotic or extraordinary experiences, such as deep meditation or "lucid dreaming" type states.

If you listen closely to sound played through Mind Stereo, you will hear small, rapid pulses of sound. If you look at the visualization screen you will see subtle pulses of light. As time progresses, the frequency rate of these pulses is changed slowly, thereby changing your brainwave patterns and guiding your mind to various useful mental states.

Brainwave Entrainment has over 70 years of solid research behind it. See A Short History Of Brainwave Entrainment.

Tones, Binaural Beats

Binaural beats and tones pulses are undeniably the most widespread and popular method of stimulating the brain via brainwave entrainment. Over the last 30 years, embedding binaural beats underneath music has become a very popular technique, used in thousands of CDs around the world. Additionally, Mind Stereo supports the embedding of Monaural Beats and the very powerful Isochronic Tone method. While not as subtle as binaural beats, these methods are far more effective from a neurological perspective.

In Mind Stereo, you don't need to use tones to stimulate the brain - in fact, the Pitch Modulation Panning feature (explained above) can actually create binaural beats in any song added to your playlist, using the song as the carrier. However, the option to generate binaural beats or tones is available if you choose to use it, and a number of binaural beat sessions are included.

More Brainwave Info

Brainwave Bands: There are certain bands (subcategories) of brainwaves that are related to specific functions of the body and mind. Brainwave stimulation can be a very effective treatment for many types of mental and physical disorders. It can also be a gateway into exotic or extraordinary mental states.

Dominant Brainwaves: The brain is constantly emitting nearly every type of brainwave. However, based on the strength of the certain bands of brainwaves, and depending on where the EEG electrodes are placed on the scalp, a person can be said to be "in" a certain brainwave. As you are reading this, you are (assumedly) wide awake and are most likely producing more Beta brainwaves than any other type. So you could be said to be "in" Beta.

Mental States: By stimulating the brain to produce or decrease certain brainwaves bands, we can induce a huge variety of mental states and emotional reactions, including meditation, excitation, motivation, anxiety, irritation, sexual excitement, relaxation, spiritualism and more.

For instance, if we were to embed Alpha waves into music, listening to it would be very relaxing, even causing your body to physically relax. If we embedded Theta waves into music, people might even fall asleep!

Click here to learn more about brain transformation using Mind Stereo