Here begins the consciousness goggles chronicles.

EDIT: WARNING
20/Jan/2012 SWIM would just like to append a warning toward excessive use of these glasses. The brain
is an extremely sensitive ecosystem, apparently, and regardless of the cheapness and ease of construction
of such a machine its effect on the mind is powerful. while i do not think any permement (though, i fear it)
psycological damage has occurred what i must warn is:
DO NOT USE THESE TOO MUCH.
Using every night will turn you insane, and this was completely forgotten about by yours truely.
I do not know if it was because of what SWIM prayed about prior to falling asleep or latent psycogical upheaval
from the aforementioned excessive and uncontrolled use of these, or perhaps a long-standing involvement with
the spirit world, or maybe the fact that SWIM deliberately included yellow for communication without any sort of
discrimination (like a ouja board)
Either way, after doing a meditation for success by paul mckenna (which btw I would highly reccomend: here)
with the goggles on, having feelings in the upper reaches of bliss, tears, SWIM made prayers of grattitude
and fell asleep, and one affirmation to help too far... the classic mistake he always makes is to say he will provide
X without FULLY preparing himself for the real rammifications of what he's just "I AMmed". SWIM got a little carried away
and invoked something BIG. when he said "and the power and the glory forever" it wasnt just empty words-- he pointed to..
very big things. Intention is powerful. understand what you pledge.
Many times this has happened to him. do not offer up your body to spirit forces or otherwise or you'll get a
nasty shock when they come for it. if your gonna do anything, be prepared. control. planning.

So, dreaming of being more ascetic, alseep on the floor, SWIM finally drifts off to sleep. shortly later SWIM woke the whole
house with what was described as "a blood-curdling scream", terrified he told them he'd seen a ghost. today "ive never seen
anyone so shit scared, you were white!"
he says he just remewbers two giant solid opaque white shapes, or a white couch or something,
floating above him, oppressing his very existence. doubtless, the glasses.
also perhaps sleep paralysis? he was drained grey and stayed awake all night until daybreak. Latent images
in his mind of staring deep into somethings eyes. oh my word... staring into something's eyes.
was it genuine spirit contact? or merely psycological disturbance?
SWIM has discovered time and time again that the spirit world is vast and dangerous and must be treated with the
utmost respect, if you must dabble.
In the beginning SWIM was worried that they wouldnt be powerful enough, but now he knows they are too
powerful, and he had no plan of which to rest from them.
WARNING.
Namaste


current devices on the market
many "light and sound machines" blink and flash and generate bineural beats or even isochronic tones.
there are also lucid dream induction machines which either detect REM and wake you, or just go on a timer.
all of these are expensive and opinions are divided. some people see no need for the dream machine at all,
others claim it gets in the way, others that it works very often and one study that 55% had lucid dreams immediately.

the mark I :-
a fixed rate 5 - 6 Hz adjustable flashing (red) LED. I used a "LED flasher" PCB from Conrad electronics.

the glasses were tested with hemi-synch tones SWIM created with
windchime recordings and other sampled noise sources.
its been through a good number of iterations and re-mixing now and i believe its best
to have as little interference as possible only the driving tones and very sparse other features (chimes, birdsong).
initially it was full of abstract melodies and this may be useful at some point again.

the tones start at waking state and descend to theta and
then bob up and down to entrain the brainwaves (as this is akin to a sleep pattern).

SWIM needs to remake this as apparently isochronic tones provide a stronger entrainment response.

EDIT: i will include the schumann earth resonance freqeuncy 7.83 Hz which happens to be theta state!!

schumann resonance
dream science

SWIM now has an arduino uno board from adafruit which is a programmable PIC controller and the 1.1 will
have purple LEDs - as this magikal colour represents astral projection and psychicness, or the ajna chakra.
and yellow LEDs representing communication travel and exploration. the LEDs may dim and light gradually if it is
more comfortable. The point is that the arduino can control the rate as per the graph of the tones.
there is still much to be done with this. what rate of light stimulation (and how) best entrains brainwaves??

The tibetan letter A as used in tibetan dream yoga

will be etched on the back or possibly flashed (via a small diffuser) at the wearer.

Applications of the goggles range somewhat from PRO-drug use to a complete consciousness exploration
package without chemicals. SWIM personally favors this non-drug approach as it can be equally as powerful
when used skillfully and has absoloutely no drawbacks: yoga, pranayama, chanting, meditation,
guided visualisations and hipnosis. and this is precisely because of what SWIM experienced with the holy spice.

I love the DIY spirit here.

Your project looks promising, and given how fun these things can be, I am sure a good time will be had by all.

Adafruit ROCKS btw! You reminded me to go ahead and get myself a Drawdio kit ASAP.

In the end, of course, you may still wanna just break down and buy a fully functional Light & Sound device. Even the cheapest of the mind machines will have functionality well beyond what you are making here. Expensive is relative to how much you think your time is worth.

Neuro Programmer 3 is a pretty awesome tool for designing entrainment sessions. Perhaps you can get your setup to respond to audiostrobe signals...

I love my Procyon, and might even spring for another set of full spectrum glasses so my wife & I can journey simultaneously. But even the entry level Sirius is a powerful toy. It even has a feature the more expensive models do not... a microphone that can sync the lights and sound to ambient sounds. This is fairly awesome at a concert or laying by a stream. Finding a concert where you wouldn't look like a loon wearing a mind machine is another story entirely.

All the best shoe...
HF

thankyou very much for the feedback! yes SWIM loves DIY and keeping busy!

actually hyperspace fool from the research SWIMs done it looks like were getting
propperly ripped off because technically its a niche market - yet SO many are interested in this.

you say your procyon produces colours and lights beyond what SWIM can do but SWIM not really trying
to create an entertainment system: milkdrop would do far better... which is why SWIM deems it a rip off.

SWIMs time? well it only took two days and SWIMs almost done, the longest time was waiting for parts to arrive.
the research time was very minimal.

you've just totally inspired SWIM though: this has to be done outside!!!

EDIT: check out the video

SWIM just wanted to experimentally confirm (subjectively) that entrainment has definately occurred:
SWIM feels totally altered right now! (and this was just to test the lead in/ lead out sequence) with no
bineural beats at all (just a live techno radio show)

and to post the code for the arduino. LEDs attach to pins 9 and 10.

the arduino will decrease from 19hz (wake/alpha) to theta over 30 mins and then after 90 mins (from start)
bring it back up to alpha again to end (and then itll go back down to theta)

it uses the 7.83hz Schumann earth resonance.

Just to minor nitpick... 19hz is not alpha. In fact it is even above beta (which is the more typical "wake" state for people in the west).

No worries, as even higher frequencies can be rather useful and fun. Gamma is a very popular brainwave these days in the L&S entrainment community and it can be up around 40hz. Brainwaves in the audible range... hehehe.

In actuality, your brain will usually latch onto a lower frequency which the higher frequency being used is a multiple of. i.e. Most people will actually experience 9.5hz when exposed to your 19hz frequency, and therefore will, in fact, find themselves in alpha. This depends on the person in question, a person in a relatively hyped up state may actually go up to 19 which is like an adrenaline rush.

As for the Schumann resonance frequency, it is enjoyable... but not as psychedelic as the low theta stuff. IMHO anyway.

Cool project, shoe. Keep the chronicles coming.

Your right and I am dim.. the diagram is now wrong. whenever i said alpha i meant beta.. as it goes beta, alpha, theta, delta.

Attached is the theta producing bineural beats i use for meditation with the flashing light device.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/pj1iuf


EDIT: "It has been found that at the first introduction to meditation, the initial pattern will be peaked at 12 Hertz or higher, while two to five years' experience causes the alpha frequency to reduce to 9 Hertz and with ten to twenty year's practice, we find the alpha frequency around 7 Hertz."

http://altered-states.ne...dex2.php?/mind/awake.htm

More chronicals! then.... what happens if its done with CES? Could swim build a CES system too?