RSS
Make your own "Dreamachine" - a machine that's meant to used with your eyes closed, not sure if it will actually do anything, but it'll be fun to have your friends, er, test subjects tell you about their alpha waves - "The Dreamachine simply consist in a cylinder with holes cut into his sides, placed on a turntable set at the speed of 78RPM. A lightbulb is suspended on the center of the spinning cylinder, and the rotation allows the light to come out from the holes at a constant frequency, situated between 8 and 13 pulses per second." - Link.
Make a "Dreamachine"
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 4, 2006 01:17 AM
DIY Projects |
Permalink
| Comments (4)
| Email This |
| Digg this!
Recent Entries
- Make: Holiday Gift Guide 2009: DIY photography
- Dance of the Christmas Robots
- SPARK Project #3, Post #2
- Sparkfun's free day January 7th
- DIY capacitive pressure sensor tile
- Paxtruder
- Make: Gift Guide 2009: Gifts that will inspire your kids
- Working handcuff made with Makerbot
- Amazing origami mushroom video
- Science gets auto-tuned
Comments
Oldest comments listed first.
Leave a comment
Subscribe to MAKE Magazine!
Subscribe today, save 42% and get web access to MAKE free. MAKE Digital Edition is available only to subscribers.
$34.95 / 1 year
(4 Quarterly Issues)
Isn't this the thing Kurt Corbain was obsessed with? I believe using alpha states too frequently makes you depressed when not 'in the zone'. Same applies for serotonine abuse and the lack of it afterwards....
- Unomi -
Reply to this comment
Sorry, me again ;-)
Isn't it possible to make such a sequence in let's say Flash?
Just a white field with the pattern on top of it scrolling from right to left (the way a turntable rotates) continuesly. I don't know if the brightness of the lightsource is key, but on a CRT monitor it should work. Anybody an idea?
- Unomi -
Reply to this comment
HTML version
http://www.netliberty.net/dreamachine.html
Reply to this comment
I have one sitting on a table about 10 feet from where I'm currently sitting. I fabricated it as part of a book I'm writing.
It does what it says on the packet.
Photic stimulation of the optic nerve as a tool for brainwave entrainment ain't exactly new...W. Grey Walter postulated that the biblical 'Tree of Knowledge' was a veiled reference to the flicker effect of sunlight passing through palm leaves in his book 'The Living Brain', which was published in '46, as I recall. Gysin and Sommerville *definitely* used W. Greys' research as a starting point.
In terms of digital equivalents, the BrainWave Generator app (www.bwgen.com) is based on psychocaoustic entrainment, but includes provisions for flicker effects on your screen as well. From personal experience, it's less effective than the Gysin device.
Be aware that the 8-10 hz flicker frequency is within the range known to induce light sensitive epilepsy: If there's any doubt as to your sensitivity to this affliction, exercise extreme caution.
Reply to this comment