NeuroFeedback, NeurOptimal and Electroencephalography

[Laura]

I just finished my 6th session yesterday.
Sessions 1-4 I experienced depression, irritability, and annoyance. Also, an increase in the lights in my peripheral vision, deep blue, as opposed to white and light blue.

The day after my 5th session I had a panic attack. I thought maybe my anxiety would get better if I went ahead with the 6th session, but no change thus far. I hope it’s a temporary thing. Maybe an increase in anxiety means I have reached my limit or that I should only do once a week rather than twice a week?. I also have a decrease in appetite after the 5th session and get full faster.
I had a release during session 6, I had some quivering twice in my legs, as if I had a cold chill there.

I do think the extra anxiety is temporary. Recently had my second NO session 2 days ago to which I had a panic attack throughout its duration with a 5 to 10 min reprieve somewhere in the middle. It was so intense and unfamiliar that I almost aborted twice however I will say that pipe breathing helped even though my body seemed to be freaking out.

There was a big solar storm the past 10 days or so which coincides with experiences of more anxiety than usual. Ergo, it's difficult for me to suss out whether my anxiety is attributed to cosmic weather, possible contraction after the first session a month ago, or my body just being rewired to feel anxiety more acutely (as Windmill Knight mentioned). As of this morning, I lean towards somewhere between the first 2 options because I've felt more at ease the last 48 hours.

I think that it may be very helpful - if not important - to do the sessions much closer together. If your brain automatically runs on stress tracks, doing sessions so far apart doesn't really allow for real re-training and re-tracking.

 

[hesperides]

Quote from Laura

I think that it may be very helpful - if not important - to do the sessions much closer together. If your brain automatically runs on stress tracks, doing sessions so far apart doesn't really allow for real re-training and re-tracking.

In fact, yesterday I had a phone exchange with the president of the Spanish neuroptimal foundation in Madrid, since the only option I have on the Canary Islands is the Othmer one. As I was trying to negotiate the renting with her, much to my surprise she told me that training with Neuroptimal.2 -telling me by the way that Neuroptimal.3 would soon be available- allows one consecutive session per day with no issues raising in her patients, and that this approach is absolutely safe. She explained further that it´s true that older methods didn´t allow daily training but that it isn´t the case anymore with said latest neuro system. She herself went over to Canada to get her whole training done under the Neuroptimal head institute.

In any case I won´t follow her recommendation seeing all that have been reported so far in this thread, but I thought I would report it since should her statement pointing towards the right direction, maybe as Laura is suggesting, doing sessions closer together might make a huge difference.

 

[Gaby]

I think that it may be very helpful - if not important - to do the sessions much closer together. If your brain automatically runs on stress tracks, doing sessions so far apart doesn't really allow for real re-training and re-tracking.

In fact, yesterday I had a phone exchange with the president of the Spanish neuroptimal foundation in Madrid

I've been in contact with her as well. I have the NeurOptimal v2 rented right now and I have to give it back to her this Monday.

I followed her recommendations, mostly to make all the 20 sessions in one month's rental. It turned out better that way. Spacing out sessions made me more anxious and in my case, higher frecuency meant more possibilities for staying grounded.

 

[seek10]

Quote from Laura

I think that it may be very helpful - if not important - to do the sessions much closer together. If your brain automatically runs on stress tracks, doing sessions so far apart doesn't really allow for real re-training and re-tracking.

In fact, yesterday I had a phone exchange with the president of the Spanish neuroptimal foundation in Madrid, since the only option I have on the Canary Islands is the Othmer one. As I was trying to negotiate the renting with her, much to my surprise she told me that training with Neuroptimal.2 -telling me by the way that Neuroptimal.3 would soon be available- allows one consecutive session per day with no issues raising in her patients, and that this approach is absolutely safe. She explained further that it´s true that older methods didn´t allow daily training but that it isn´t the case anymore with said latest neuro system. She herself went over to Canada to get her whole training done under the Neuroptimal head institute.

In any case I won´t follow her recommendation seeing all that have been reported so far in this thread, but I thought I would report it since should her statement pointing towards the right direction, maybe as Laura is suggesting, doing sessions closer together might make a huge difference.

Yesterday, I got a mail from the renter asking the "device name" she sent. it looks Neuroptimal.3 was released and it was very buggy. She thinks Neuroptimal.2 is very good until the Neuroptimal.3 issues are rectified.

 

[Alana]

I have completed 14 sessions so far, and it’s been a very interesting experience indeed. As I mentioned in a previous post, I also went through some emotional rough times around sessions number 5- 10. At first, I was doing the sessions only once a week and only when I started doing them every three days I started feeling a bit more balanced. In my case, the intensity of the emotional experience might be due to hormonal issues produced by entering a pre-menopausal phase. And if that is the case, then NO might prove a helpful tool for women going through such a phase. Because after around session 10, I started feeling not only more balanced, but I started experiencing a variety of more positive emotions as well.

I would find myself whistling or singing while doing mundane everyday chores, or I would find myself just being in the moment and just enjoying what I was doing or where I was. And it is not that my negative emotions are gone, but it’s like their hold on me has changed. It’s as if my emotional world has expanded and it now holds a wider variety of emotions, so that I still can feel my anxiety but it doesn’t freeze me from experiencing other emotions, as it did before. So to anyone struggling, or going through a rough patch while doing the sessions, my advice is, keep at it! It gets better! And maybe increase the frequency if possible, and see if that helps.

 

[Jacques]

I think that it may be very helpful - if not important - to do the sessions much closer together. If your brain automatically runs on stress tracks, doing sessions so far apart doesn't really allow for real re-training and re-tracking.

In fact, yesterday I had a phone exchange with the president of the Spanish neuroptimal foundation in Madrid

I've been in contact with her as well. I have the NeurOptimal v2 rented right now and I have to give it back to her this Monday.

I followed her recommendations, mostly to make all the 20 sessions in one month's rental. It turned out better that way. Spacing out sessions made me more anxious and in my case, higher frecuency meant more possibilities for staying grounded.

I will give more details later on but France and I have rented one for 1 month and so far I have done 17 sessions in 17 days and it is doing marvels. My goal is now to do 30 sessions which means one every day. I might try a couple of days with 2 sessions in the same day too.

 

[Turgon]

Quote from Laura

I think that it may be very helpful - if not important - to do the sessions much closer together. If your brain automatically runs on stress tracks, doing sessions so far apart doesn't really allow for real re-training and re-tracking.

In fact, yesterday I had a phone exchange with the president of the Spanish neuroptimal foundation in Madrid, since the only option I have on the Canary Islands is the Othmer one. As I was trying to negotiate the renting with her, much to my surprise she told me that training with Neuroptimal.2 -telling me by the way that Neuroptimal.3 would soon be available- allows one consecutive session per day with no issues raising in her patients, and that this approach is absolutely safe. She explained further that it´s true that older methods didn´t allow daily training but that it isn´t the case anymore with said latest neuro system. She herself went over to Canada to get her whole training done under the Neuroptimal head institute.

In any case I won´t follow her recommendation seeing all that have been reported so far in this thread, but I thought I would report it since should her statement pointing towards the right direction, maybe as Laura is suggesting, doing sessions closer together might make a huge difference.

Yesterday, I got a mail from the renter asking the "device name" she sent. it looks Neuroptimal.3 was released and it was very buggy. She thinks Neuroptimal.2 is very good until the Neuroptimal.3 issues are rectified.

The practitioner that I visited said the same thing. Give it time for them to work out all the bugs in the system before trying out version 3.

 

[Turgon]

I have completed 14 sessions so far, and it’s been a very interesting experience indeed. As I mentioned in a previous post, I also went through some emotional rough times around sessions number 5- 10. At first, I was doing the sessions only once a week and only when I started doing them every three days I started feeling a bit more balanced. In my case, the intensity of the emotional experience might be due to hormonal issues produced by entering a pre-menopausal phase. And if that is the case, then NO might prove a helpful tool for women going through such a phase. Because after around session 10, I started feeling not only more balanced, but I started experiencing a variety of more positive emotions as well.

I would find myself whistling or singing while doing mundane everyday chores, or I would find myself just being in the moment and just enjoying what I was doing or where I was. And it is not that my negative emotions are gone, but it’s like their hold on me has changed. It’s as if my emotional world has expanded and it now holds a wider variety of emotions, so that I still can feel my anxiety but it doesn’t freeze me from experiencing other emotions, as it did before. So to anyone struggling, or going through a rough patch while doing the sessions, my advice is, keep at it! It gets better! And maybe increase the frequency if possible, and see if that helps.

Thanks for sharing, Alana. Your experiences sound really promising. The practitioner I see said as much, that most people start to see rough patches with the neurofeedback around the 5th-6th session on average, a contraction phase where most of what neurofeedback seems to help with, resurfaces again before dissolving. Sort of like a last hurrah.

One thing to note, the contraction phase started for me during session 4 and has continued ever since (I went for my 6th session two days ago) where I've experienced an extended rough patch. So it's good to know that this is part of the process and I may need to rent the equipment to increase the frequency of sessions. Although, it's interesting that during the first 3 sessions I experienced major resurfacing of early trauma's during the neurofeedback sessions, yet afterwards experienced the biggest relief and freedom from them in my day-to-day, but the last 3 sessions have been fairly uneventful (I fell asleep during the last one) and yet that's when a lot of negative coping mechanisms and stagnant emotions started to resurface again. Not sure what that means, exactly.

 

[Bluefyre]

I had my 11th session yesterday, the extended version. This was the third time a traumatic memory came up. This was one of the hardest, when I was eight. What was amazing was how much more powerfully I was able to stay present and see the memory and feel it but still be present why the tears were flowing and my body was convulsing with sorrow. I kept my eyes closed for this session, which I could not do in the previous ones because of hypervigilance being triggered. I was and am amazed at how different the experience was from doing EMDR. I feel like I got to the deepest level of this memory and cleared a lot from my nervous system. My hands and arms were aching again and I was very aware of all of the places I was holding on, particularly my hips. As the session progressed I was filled with golden light and peace and well-being, interesting through my hands as well as my crown. It came up that I am always giving with my hands and there must be a balance, the receiving as well. I have number 12 on Saturday. There will be a break of one per week after next Wednesday as the trainer is taking courses and will not be available on Saturdays so it will be interesting to see how my brain and body respond with a longer gap between sessions.

That's sounds like a wonderful experience Thinkingfingers!

 

[herondancer]

It's great to see how many people are feeling better with the NO sessions. I am so grateful for having the opportunity for this healing modality. It's right up there with rolfing in my experience.

I've had 21 sessions now. I experienced another contraction around 16-17, but it wasn't bad as the first one. More like fleeting moments of negative emotions coming up, stabs of sadness, or little jolts of fear. They seem to have faded.

I'd been playing with focus, feeling the space between the eyes, or behind the eyes, or visualizing the center of the brain where the limbic system is and kind of listening to the music 'from there'. Next session I thought, what the hey, and moved down to the cerebellum and focused on the rhythms of the music since that area is about motor patterns. That night I want to bed feeling such a knotty tightness right at the base of my skull. Very uncomfortable. I was turning my head in tiny movements trying to ease it, when there was this loud snap like a chiropractic adjustment. The tension melted away and the whole area felt light and airy. So that was interesting.

The most fun though was in the last session. Normally I close my eyes and enjoy the music. Usually near the end of the session there's a change of sensation, like a key change in music, where there's more of a meditative feel. The shift happened much earlier in this one. For a while I saw a pinky orange glow that brightened and dimmed (pretty cool). Then (this is pretty weird) I seemed to be standing in the middle of my brain in that limbic area, only it was like a huge vault, like a cathedral, glowing and shimmering with all sorts of colors. I'm not really given to that sort of visual thing, so it was hard to not shut it down, but just leave it be and watch. I was also 'feeling' the clicks like physical twangs or jolts. I've had the experience before while meditating. It's like being a violin string and being plucked when hearing a sound.

I felt very light and happy after that session.

The two sessions before the last one were pleasant with clicks noticeably diminished. Oddly, much as this last session seemed productive, the number of clicks was a lot higher. Go figure.

 

[Alana]

I have completed 14 sessions so far, and it’s been a very interesting experience indeed. As I mentioned in a previous post, I also went through some emotional rough times around sessions number 5- 10. At first, I was doing the sessions only once a week and only when I started doing them every three days I started feeling a bit more balanced. In my case, the intensity of the emotional experience might be due to hormonal issues produced by entering a pre-menopausal phase. And if that is the case, then NO might prove a helpful tool for women going through such a phase. Because after around session 10, I started feeling not only more balanced, but I started experiencing a variety of more positive emotions as well.

I would find myself whistling or singing while doing mundane everyday chores, or I would find myself just being in the moment and just enjoying what I was doing or where I was. And it is not that my negative emotions are gone, but it’s like their hold on me has changed. It’s as if my emotional world has expanded and it now holds a wider variety of emotions, so that I still can feel my anxiety but it doesn’t freeze me from experiencing other emotions, as it did before. So to anyone struggling, or going through a rough patch while doing the sessions, my advice is, keep at it! It gets better! And maybe increase the frequency if possible, and see if that helps.

Thanks for sharing, Alana. Your experiences sound really promising. The practitioner I see said as much, that most people start to see rough patches with the neurofeedback around the 5th-6th session on average, a contraction phase where most of what neurofeedback seems to help with, resurfaces again before dissolving. Sort of like a last hurrah.

One thing to note, the contraction phase started for me during session 4 and has continued ever since (I went for my 6th session two days ago) where I've experienced an extended rough patch. So it's good to know that this is part of the process and I may need to rent the equipment to increase the frequency of sessions. Although, it's interesting that during the first 3 sessions I experienced major resurfacing of early trauma's during the neurofeedback sessions, yet afterwards experienced the biggest relief and freedom from them in my day-to-day, but the last 3 sessions have been fairly uneventful (I fell asleep during the last one) and yet that's when a lot of negative coping mechanisms and stagnant emotions started to resurface again. Not sure what that means, exactly.

Just speculating, but I wonder if during some sessions our brain resolves issues and during others the brain receives the lesson but it keeps working at it after the lesson. I have had sessions where I felt extreme anxiety or sadness during but felt better after, and then others where I felt very relaxed during the session but felt the intense negative emotions afterwards. Then again, I had a session where I cried most of its duration, and the sadness lasted a week, until I had my next session. So I don't know. It will be interesting to see what your experience is like once you start having the sessions more often.

Two days ago I had my 14th session and the interesting thing about it was that my pre-session baseline divergence number was about 200, and then it went up to about 1400 post-session (it was the first time that I ever had such an increase, though more often than not, my number goes up instead of down). I don’t know if it is related to this number, but the rest of the day my brain felt extremely tired, and though I fell easily asleep around 11 pm, I woke up at 1 am feeling ill, as if I had a cold. Headache, nose running, phlegm… I fell asleep easily again, and woke up around 7:30 am with way fewer cold symptoms, plus anxiety, though all symptoms disappeared as the day progressed. By afternoon I was feeling well again.

It's great to see how many people are feeling better with the NO sessions. I am so grateful for having the opportunity for this healing modality. It's right up there with rolfing in my experience.

I've had 21 sessions now. I experienced another contraction around 16-17, but it wasn't bad as the first one. More like fleeting moments of negative emotions coming up, stabs of sadness, or little jolts of fear. They seem to have faded.

Thanks for this, it makes sense that there might be more rough patches as the sessions accumulate, and it sounds like the brain has had some training already and can bounce faster back to "normalcy" (for lack of better term).

Your visual and sensate (?) experiences sound awesome, herondancer!

 

[mrtn]

I did not do any NeuroFeedback or similar yet, but i'm following this thread with interest. Thanks for all the impressions :)
I just listened to some music and there is some clicking sound in there that immediately grabbed my attention.
https://youtu.be/sorg_8NGMos?t=173
It feels like i hear it in the middle of my brain/head, somewhere around the brain stem or something like that. It feels weird/interesting. I'm using earphones, but i have it similar using speakers, though my expectation may be set by now for that impression. Does it work for anybody else too? Don't know if that makes any difference but apart from the normal stereo left/right sound positioning this is new to me as an experience.

 

[Turgon]

I did not do any NeuroFeedback or similar yet, but i'm following this thread with interest. Thanks for all the impressions :)
I just listened to some music and there is some clicking sound in there that immediately grabbed my attention.
https://youtu.be/sorg_8NGMos?t=173
It feels like i hear it in the middle of my brain/head, somewhere around the brain stem or something like that. It feels weird/interesting. I'm using earphones, but i have it similar using speakers, though my expectation may be set by now for that impression. Does it work for anybody else too? Don't know if that makes any difference but apart from the normal stereo left/right sound positioning this is new to me as an experience.

Hi mrtn,

I'm listening to the video you posted and can hear some clicking in the background but believe that's part of the effects of the music, like a backbeat. The music itself is very relaxing and ambiotic, almost hypnotic in a way - so I understand what you mean by it feeling weird/interesting. If you end up going for neurofeedback sessions, you'll find the music they provide kind of similar, at least in how they go for ambiotic/relaxing kind of music.

 

[Turgon]

Just speculating, but I wonder if during some sessions our brain resolves issues and during others the brain receives the lesson but it keeps working at it after the lesson. I have had sessions where I felt extreme anxiety or sadness during but felt better after, and then others where I felt very relaxed during the session but felt the intense negative emotions afterwards. Then again, I had a session where I cried most of its duration, and the sadness lasted a week, until I had my next session. So I don't know.

I've been listening to this podcast today with Val Brown and Dave Asprey and in it, he uses the example of school or studying. Paraphrasing what Val Brown said, say a person is studying for a big exam but doesn't really know what to study for specifically in order to pass, the feedback to correct that isn't given until after taking the test and receiving our grades for it. Which he says, is too late for the brain to have actually made the necessary changes and focus on what was important that would have helped pass. He says the same thing works with trauma's. The brain starts to follow the pathway of a trauma, or programs/narratives, and the brain isn't aware of it until we are immersed and start re-experiencing the lived terror, as he called it. So as the felt experience and memories of trauma's or programs start to surface during a neurofeedback session, your brain is getting real-time feedback to what's happening and being given a chance to correct itself before submerging too far into whatever it is that is coming to surface that prevents someone from being in the present. At least that's how I understood it.

 

[PERLOU]

Merci MRTN et TURGON pour vos liens que j'écoute avec plaisir...

Thank you MRTN and TURGON for your links that I listen with pleasure...