a handful of friends and i sat down on sunday to make brain machines: sound and light machines that flash lights into your eyes and play sounds into your ears so that your brainwaves will start resonating at different brain wave frequencies. mitch altman, the creator of the brain machine, is the brainy guy behind the tv-b-gone, the nifty little device that turns off tv sets in public places.
here’s a video andy compiled of the day’s work:
it was quite a bit of work, but it was a lot of fun. we got a crash course in soldering and the technology behind the brain machine, a little kit called the mini-pov. here’s a link to the article that appeared in make magazine about the brain machine. it gives an overview of what goes on when you use this device and instructions for building your own. here’s a link to the make magazine page about brain machines, including a nifty little video with mitch explaining how it all works. caution: don’t use this thing if you’re an epileptic!
mitch was super great and patient with the barrage of questions that came at him – both about brain function and soldering iron functions. in the end, we all had working brain machines to take home with us.
my experiences using the machine so far have been pretty great. i’ve tried it twice since i finished it – once after i made it, and once yesterday morning before beginning my day. i finished yesterday’s session feeling so, so good. usually i feel a bit bothered in the morning – distracted and a little anxious about all the stuff that needs doing. but after fourteen minutes of meditation (the brain machine takes you through a 14 minute meditation sequence), i felt rejuvenated, relaxed, and *happy* – really happy, like i’d just finished an intense round of yoga asana. i wandered into the kitchen to find andy making breakfast for himself, and we had a nice conversation.
the similarities with brion gysin’s dream machine in terms of the effects one gets are quite apparent. this is the twenty-first century version of that. there’s the color fields with tiny dancing 3-d light patterns in front. i get a 3-d oval of bright light that spins quickly – like a comet – in front of a color pattern in the back. and then – this is *really* weird – i get a few moments where everything goes very white, or light light brown. this is weird because most of the time there colors are red/orange/purple. but in the white fields, i’m starting to see light blues/greens and purples. a washed-out rainbow. very very nice.
i mostly see mandala patterns – i’m wondering if other people see images/faces/places?
here’s some pictures mitch took at the party…
xm
I want to go to a moustache party.
And I want a brain machine!