NeuroFeedback, NeurOptimal and Electroencephalography

[Persej]

If it's due only to the lighting and LH stimuli, wouldn't the resulting effect then be the opposite, i.e. being more awake and mentally active and not so much and quickly restful and sleepy?

Well, I do not feel sleepy during the reading. But perhaps being more mentally active is a key to the process because it helps me to better pay attention to the book? I do not feel much different when I'm reading the book, it is only after I go to sleep and wake up that I realize that something was different. Usually it takes at least several days of long reading for me to notice a positive effect on my sleep, but with this position it's much quicker with much fewer pages being read. But it doesn't make me more quickly sleepy when I am reading the book.

 

[Persej]

On the other hand, my experience might not be connected to the light angle since the paper is reflecting the light in quite diffused way. What could be different is the light color. The paper of the book has a slight yellowish tint. And the color of the lamp light is warm white (2700K). So when you put those two things together, you get some kind of amber color on the paper. Perhaps that is the reason behind the effect that I feel on my brain? I do not have any dyslexia like problems, but perhaps this yellowish light can also affect the brain in other ways?

 

[nicklebleu]

Do you maybe remember the frequency of the sessions at that time, daily

With NO you cannot overtrain (as opposed to the linear neurofeedback). Optimally you should start with a session every day until ‘saturation’ occurs (usually 20-30 sessions, or until the beneficial effects plateau), then you can wind it back to ‘mainenance’, which is individual and might be a few times per week or month. As Laura mentioned, your brain will tell you when it ‘needs’ another session.

 

[Persej]

I was listening about how people are using the color in their therapy, and one lady says that she is using color filters in vision therapy because it makes faster and longer changes in rewiring the brain. She also says that she is using only the incandescent bulbs and not the LED or fluorescent. She didn't explain why, but I found this video that talks a little more about the difference between incandescent and LED bulbs in human perception of light.

It reminds me of experiments with randomized flicker, where a randomized flicker was more efficient for brain changes than fixed flicker. So perhaps a wide spectrum of single color light is also more efficient than a narrow spectrum.

 

[Persej]

There seem to be several manufacturers of full spectrum lights on the market. I will put some links so you can browse through their graphs and explanations:

Everything You Need to Know About Full Spectrum Lighting | Waveform Lighting

Full spectrum lighting is a popular term for a special kind of lighting - but what exactly do you get from it?

www.waveformlighting.com

Full Spectrum LED Lighting | Waveform Lighting

Full Spectrum Lighting is essential for replicating natural daylight. Browse our selection of full spectrum LED products today.

www.waveformlighting.com

It's something that I haven't thought about before, but I always felt that something is wrong with artificial light, other than now famous flickering.

And here is a video that is all over the place, but part of it talks about this topic. One part that is particularly interesting to me is where he talks about a restaurant with black light UV light used for decorative purposes. He asked the manager whether the men who work there had any health issues, and the manager told him that the men who work there were actually unusually healthy, coming to the job regularly, even through the flue epidemics. Perhaps such light could be useful for health purposes, such as when we are sick with the flu?

 

[Persej]

I still wasn't sure if my explanation of the effects that I was getting after reading with my table lamp was correct, so I decided to search for another possible explanation. And my new theory was that this lamp affects me because it shines into my eyes from the side, on the periphery of my eyes.

So I searched about that and I found something interesting. This guy developed a therapy based on such phenomenon. And it resembles the therapy that Zelinsky uses in her work with prism glasses.

I am still at the beginning of reading about this, but here you can find one article about this:

Peripheral Light Stimulation for Rapid Emotional, Somatic and Transpersonal Regulation | Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine Journal Archives

And here you can see how his therapy glasses look like:

 

[Persej]

I was looking at what Boris Mouravieff had to say about light. And I found these two references:

To be conscious of something is to put that thing inside the light of awareness. 'And what comes to light' says St Paul very profoundly, 'vanishes and is absorbed in the light.'

The light projected by constatation within the limits of the Present disassociates the negative emotions, and the passions which gave rise to them then fall back into a latent state.

What if what is really meant by ancient sources which talked about this topic was actually a real physical light?

Here is what Steven Vasquez has to say about this light therapy:

A second type of rapid unwinding response occurs when a certain threshold is reached during the systematic unveiling of various affectively charged parts. After about 5 or 6 different verbal descriptions of varying types and intensities of affect in different eye positions, the overall targeted affective charge often spontaneously remits. From that point forth the affective charge in every position tends to become transformed. This works as though the sheer quantity and diversity of exposure and verbalization reaches a point at which all containment of separate modules relinquishes and a spontaneous integration takes place.

(...)

A different use of the peripherally accessed parts involves having the client continue verbalizing in one position for a long time (5 - 25 minutes). When a client is working on a certain issue, he/she may discover insight after insight as implicit memory shifts into conscious awareness by the use of specific peripheral positions of stimulation. Certain peripheral positions appear to serve as a key to unlock vast reservoirs of data. Sometimes this emerging data leads to access of information of family history that exposes generation after generation of awareness that were significantly out of range of conscious awareness, yet the information appears to be related to the client's current issue. This new context of understanding often dramatically shifts the affective charge about the current issue being pursued.

Here he talks about the first version of this technique, without goggles:

One method of PES is done by providing a black region that surrounds either a reflecting or radiating light source as the central visual stimulus. By having the client look at the dark area, absent of significant light surrounding the light source, light is directed into the periphery of the eyes. The result is brain stimulation that evokes distinctly different experiences by virtue of each specific angle in which light enters the eyes. Through this principle, a therapist can direct the client to view a fixed point in a specific dark area outside of the light source in order to evoke specific modules of experiences. This provides a method by which one could instantly activate specific internal modules.

Two types of coordinates are used to direct the client to the desired visual target around a light source. The first coordinate involves the "clock" angle in relation to the center of a visual target such as 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, etc. The second coordinate concerns the distance from the edge of a light source or other visual stimulus. These are described as 1 inch out from the visual target, 2 inches out, 3 inches out, etc. These distances are conceived as concentric circles surrounding the visual stimulus and referred to as "orbits."

Therefore, a client can be directed to a position such as 3 o'clock, at a 2 inch orbit. These types of coordinates serve to evoke specific modules of psychological experience and information. The most useful orbit has been found to be 1 1/2" to 2" outside the edge of the visual stimulus when the subject is 18" to 24" away from the visual target.

By adding the variation of "orbits" to "angle of clock position," peripheral eye position now possesses an access to an enormous array of specific psychological resources. Through this new mechanism the organization of each person's psychological modules can be identified and mapped for therapeutic purposes. By using these two coordinates, the depth and range of psychological resources can now be easily accessed and quickly used.

And then he developed goggles:

In 2005, this author collaborated with another colleague, Joel Mueller, to design a simple device that could be used to facilitate PES without a light emitting device. We developed the Peripheral 360 goggles which uses a disc that can be rotated for each eye. Each disc possesses a small opening for light to enter the periphery of the subject's eyes. This could be used in a well lit room, outdoors or in any lighted environment. The rotating discs could be used to isolate specific peripheral positions and their associated neural networks with speed and precision. This peripheral stimulation method with the goggles differs from viewing the black area surrounding a light source in a few key ways. The Peripheral 360 goggles drastically reduce the amount of overall light entering the client's eyes which, by itself, aids light sensitive clients. The goggles allow the facilitator to utilize different angles of light stimulation for each eye separately and/or simultaneously. The goggles, by the use of a simple flashlight, allow the facilitator to increase the amount of light in one eye at a time.

 

[Persej]

CASE STUDY

Barry is a 60 year old married man who presented with a preoccupation with death in conjunction with breathing constriction and tension in the throat and face. He reported having seen the movie The Cider House Rules in which one scene included a physician sniffing ether to get high.

When I saw this scene I immediately became extremely uncomfortable. I wondered how the doctor could sniff that ether without being terrified of dying. All I could think about was the fear of dying. My whole body was shaken for several hours after seeing that scene.​

During a brief history intake it was found that Barry had experienced a tonsillectomy when he was three years old. He hypothesized that the tonsillectomy was related to this experience but after numerous therapeutic attempts he was unable to access the memory or change the symptoms. My initial techniques were also unable to access these issues and emotions related to this experience. Then I dialed the flicker rate to different strobe rates until I found one in which his body reacted. Specific colors of visual stimulation were systematically brought forth until the combination of far red, blue and indigo provoked the precise response to his symptoms. At a delta brainwave state of 1.2 cycles per second, viewing these three combined colors, Barry reentered the exact state of consciousness in which the ether-tonsillectomy experience took place. After the initial awareness of the death fear, his experience progressed to a profound ecstatic state of joy within a couple of minutes. Barry reported a sense of being bathed in love. He called it a near-death experience.

As Barry attempted to explain his experience it became clear that he was fixated in fear from the trauma of the ether mask. When this trauma was reentered, it progressed into the realm of ether intoxication and ultimately to a freedom from his long-held fear. This ecstatic state was later repeatedly recaptured by using the same light combination of colors and flicker rate again.

In this case, several attributes of the therapeutic use of color illustrated how it was beneficial in a case that was previously therapy-resistant. When factors of depth perception and strobe rate color can become the ultimate means for retrieving implicate memory and buried emotion. This case also showed how specific colors could be used to resonate with the exact emotion and physical experiences to progress a previously fixated experience forward in time. Specifically far red activated the death fixation while blue and indigo activated the physical experience of the ether mask on his face. Barry was fixated in a primitive parasympathetic phase when color catapulted through all of Porges phases into the transcendent phase.

S. R. Vazquez, Ph.D., Color: Its Therapeutic Power for Rapid Healing

One of the most intriguing effects of ETT™ is the tendency for it to provoke spiritual experiences. There is a long history of the association of light with spirituality. Every major religion on earth uses the term light to refer to the divine. While many people would differentiate spiritual light from physical light and others would suggest that the term light is only meant to be a metaphor for the divine, observations during ETT™ suggest it may be more. During ETT™ sessions when relief of unwanted emotional states occurs, the result is often not just neutrality, but instead a positive experience. These profound experiences are often described in spiritual terms by the clients themselves. ETT™ appears to have a greater propensity for spiritual experiences than other forms of psychotherapy.

The New Power Therapy: Emotional Transformation Therapy™ By Steven Vazquez, Ph.D

It sounds like magic, but it does correspond with what people say about the effects of Zelinsky's therapy. Very fast, very effective, and even spiritual. If it is all true.

 

[Persej]

I found a video with a demonstration of some of his methods. If any of these methods are the real deal, it would be great to learn more about them.

I wonder if this is what the C's had in mind when they said this:

Q: (L) In other words, there's no hope for our planet or our species if normal human beings do not come together and get over these varied pathological belief systems and religions and "your truth" and "my truth" and all that sort of thing?

A: Yes. All of that was created and spread by pathological types under the influence of their hyperdimensional masters for the purpose of turning this planet into a "hell on earth" with them as the masters. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. What is needed is for many people to begin to make direct connections with their higher centers. This has been done via the "work" up to now, but there are other methods to accelerate the process and obtain the needed assistance.

Session 30 May 2009

 

[Laura]

The Vasquez method seems like something that should be experimented with. Deep trauma is hard to reach much less heal, so any method that might do that is worth investigating.

 

[Persej]

One of the things that differentiate EMDR method and Vasquez method with color wands is the speed of movement. With EMDR, eyes have to move very fast, and with Vasquez method they move very slow.

I was listening to one podcast about new Intel graphic card technologies, and there is one aspect that was particular interesting where they were talking about how human brain perceive things which move fast versus slow.

The way to think about motion is as something's moving, it's sort of your eye is either tracking it or it's smearing across the back of your retina. So if things are moving and your eye is not, it's kind of smearing all on the back and so that's what you perceive as real motion blur. Things are moving but your eyes not. And there's something about how far does your eye have to move as you're showing an image and then another image and then another image. And if you move your eyes too much then your brain goes, that is not real, that is not real, that is a movie. And your brain perceives it as like something's accelerating and de-accelerating really, really quickly. And so I think that's where we are. It's getting to that science, which is how high a frame rate can I do. And as you get higher frame rates, you're reducing the degrees that your eye has to jump to see motion.

What this possibly means is that with EMDR where things (fingers) are moving very fast, the brain perceives as something that is not real, so it doesn't have a permanent effect on the brain. But with the Vasquez method where things (color wands) move slowly, the brain perceives as a real thing, and that has a more permanent effect on the brain.

 

[Persej]

Deep trauma is hard to reach much less heal, so any method that might do that is worth investigating.

At first glance, his methods sound crazy, but using the computers as analogy, perhaps reaching the deep trauma requires using the "machine code" of our bodies and not human language? And if that is true, then what does that code consists of? Numbers, geometry or perhaps light and colors? Perhaps he discovered that code and that is why his methods are so fast and powerful. Just like light attract flying bugs at night because it speaks in their language.

 

[Yas]

At first glance, his methods sound crazy, but using the computers as analogy, perhaps reaching the deep trauma requires using the "machine code" of our bodies and not human language? And if that is true, then what does that code consists of? Numbers, geometry or perhaps light and colors? Perhaps he discovered that code and that is why his methods are so fast and powerful. Just like light attract flying bugs at night because it speaks in their language.

Very interesting. You know that EMDR sounded crazy when it begun and now it is one of the most researched therapeutic methodologies, so, sounding crazy doesn't necessarily means it doesn't work.

I wonder if it is possible to get the devices they use. For the moment, I'll learn more about it, thanks for sharing!

What this possibly means is that with EMDR where things (fingers) are moving very fast, the brain perceives as something that is not real, so it doesn't have a permanent effect on the brain. But with the Vasquez method where things (color wands) move slowly, the brain perceives as a real thing, and that has a more permanent effect on the brain.

As far as I understand, you can change the speed of movement with EMDR, but your theory is interesting nonetheless.

 

[Persej]

Very interesting. You know that EMDR sounded crazy when it begun and now it is one of the most researched therapeutic methodologies, so, sounding crazy doesn't necessarily means it doesn't work.

SV says that he is trained in EMDR and that he is not using it anymore because his method is much better. He also says that people who he trained also say that his method is much better.

I wonder if it is possible to get the devices they use.

SV is a psychotherapist, so he designed his methodology to be used in a psychotherapy session, so he is not selling any devices to the general population.

 

[Persej]

The closest thing I got to the experiences that SV talks about is the effect that movie theaters have on me. Often, when I exit the theater, I feel like my subconsciousness was somehow purified, like I had all the bad programs in my mind deleted. Unfortunately, this effect doesn't last long. It lasts about half an hour in full effect, and after that it gradually disappears. Previously, I connected that to the adrenaline that many movies produce in the audience, but now, I think that perhaps it might also have something to do with the color and light. Especially since the first move that had such an influence on me was visually very interesting movie.

According to Boyle, the first of many challenges the team confronted on Sunshine was how to craft visuals that would differentiate the film from its well-known predecessors. “If you’re going to make a space movie, you’ve got to make something a bit different — you can’t just remake Alien,” says the director.

“Danny wanted to play around with scale,” recalls the cinematographer. “As they approach the sun, the sun takes up more space in each character’s psyche and the tension ratchets up.”

Another challenge was “how to sustain a film about light, especially when that light has to become more powerful as the characters get closer to it,” says Boyle. “In a movie theater you can only get so bright, and you can only sustain that kind of white-out brightness for a second or so before the effect is totally lost. We had to very carefully parcel out when the audience was able to go into the light, yet we always had to keep light alive as a character in the film.”

Part of the solution was the use of color. “We had the color police on set every day, making sure that no orange or yellow or red was anywhere in sight,” recalls Boyle. “The film’s gray-blue palette is a convention of space movies; it’s a diet the audience expects. We take it a step further and starve them of any warm colors until they see the sun itself.”

Notes Küchler, “There are certain things you plan, like starving the audience of warm colors to make the visuals of the sun more powerful, but there are some things you just stumble across that almost end up being more important. For example, we started shooting macro close-ups of eyes now and then, and without even talking about it we started shooting more and more of them. We realized the pupil of the eye is like a negative image of the sun itself, and looking into someone’s eye like that is like looking into his soul. You find these abstract images that express a lot, and it’s a lot of fun to discover them.”

To suggest the sun’s presence when it isn’t onscreen, the filmmakers decided to make lens flares a significant player in the visual scheme. “A flare is atoms of light coming into your eyes, a moment when the surface of the screen seems to be broken and things are out of control and the relationship between the audience and the screen is penetrated,” says Boyle. “I became very interested in not just washing the audience with light, but actually reaching out to them, through them, with light.”

Sunshine: Let There Be Light

Alwin Küchler, BSC uses three formats and creative visual effects to realize Danny Boyle’s sci-fi thriller, which sends a team of astronauts on a mission…

theasc.com