Sound Therapy Capstone: 2

One aspect of how sound has been used for therapeutic reasons is in the treatment of addiction.  The major waves of anxiety, and other mental discomfort that is associated with recovery from substance abuse has been shown to be treatable through a combination of vibration and music.  I found an article written by a psychologist who uses this technique, known as Vibroacoustic Therapy.  During the sessions the patient lies on a special piece of equipment which vibrates in sync to therapeutic music going through their ears.  From what I understand the music contains binaural beats.  It is incredible to think about the sound you are hearing to be translated into the rattling of your bones.  I can imagine it must be pretty effective to combine the effects of binaural beats with physical vibrations.

link: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/therapy-soup/2014/09/good-vibrations-relaxing-music-sound-therapy-in-addiction-treatment/

Outsider response to Session 1 audio:

*All of these sessions were completed on the same day with a break of ten minutes in between.

This first session was, for me, the most most exciting.  The individual I chose to "experiment" on had no prior knowledge whatsoever of binaural beats, or how droning sound waves/non-musical sounds could possibly affect him.  I wanted to make sure that there would he minimal distractions in the listening environment and most importantly, that he was comfortable enough to keep his eyes closed for the duration of the track (about ten minutes).  I set up a reclining chair for him, gave him a blanket (the room was pretty cold), and prepared for the journey.  Once he was strapped in, I placed the headphones on him and pressed play.

After the track finished I told him to immediately report to me what he experienced. I didn't want him to have too much time to analyze the experience.  In terms of physical response, his arms went slightly numb and felt like they were being pulled apart, outwardly.  During the pulling of the arms he felt as if his chest was expanding.  Believe it or not these physical sensations brought on a feeling of relaxation to him.  I asked him what sorts of visions he had.  He saw himself on a motorcycle, cruising through the cosmos.  During this motorcycle ride he passed by many moons and saw the universe with inverted colors, meaning, the background was white and stars were black.  In terms of major auditory elements throughout the vision he described feeling the doppler effect while cruising throughout the universe on the motorcycle at high speeds. The doppler effect he perceived during the experience was a primary result of the binaural beats.