Trippy Report #2: Brainwaves

TLDR

In Trippy Report #2, we'll answer these questions:

• What the holy heck are brainwaves?

• What levels of mind and emotion correspond with your brainwaves?

• How can you become skilled at influencing your brainwaves?

But, before we answer that, it’s time for a fascinating history lesson from the battlefields of Germany.

🚦Too busy to read this? Skim over the bold text below and read the Summary at the bottom. Then, pat yourself on the back.

Brainwaves: A Near-Death Experience Makes History

On a shiny spring morning in 1892, a young German soldier named Hans Berger and his military unit were pulling artillery pieces into position with their horses.

Suddenly, Berger’s horse threw him to the ground underneath one of the wagon wheels carrying heavy artillery.

But, heroically, at the last second, Berger’s comrades stopped the wagon wheels from crushing his head under the weight of the artillery.

Berger escaped death.

However, he had not escaped a life-changing telegram.

To his surprise, he received a telegram later that evening from his father, who had never sent him a telegram before.

Why did his father do that?

The morning of Berger’s accident, his sister—who lived 63 miles away—suddenly became “overwhelmed by an ominous feeling... convinced that something terrible had happened to him” and urged her father to send the telegram.

Berger was perplexed as to how his sister—who, I remind you, was not on the scene—might have picked up on the terror that he felt in his near-death experience that morning.

Was it something in the human brain that allowed her to tune into the faraway signal about his accident?

Until that scary day, Berger was intent on becoming an astronomer.

But after his discharge from the army, he instead decided to become a psychiatrist, so that he could study the mysteries of the human brain.

Surely enough, in 1929—after five years of refining his equipment and skills for measuring electrical activity in the brain—Berger described the first two brain waves ever discovered: alpha and beta.

Unfortunately, Berger’s work was rejected by the scientists of his time, who were “highly skeptical of the possibility of recording anything of significance from the surface of the brain.”

Fatefully, Berger was forced into retirement. And as his health worsened, he sank into depression and ultimately took his own life.

Then, 30 years later, consciousness researchers began to build off of Berger’s brain measurement equipment to investigate the link between the mind and brain.

And today, it is a bonafide fact that the brain produces electrical activity.

So what is this electrical activity anyway?

What Are Brainwaves?

As the neurons in your brain communicate critical information with each other, they send waves of electricity across the brain in rhythmic patterns.

These are brainwaves.

And the amount of time it takes to flow from the front to the back of the brain constitutes one cycle.

Thus, brainwaves are measured in cycles per second or Hertz (Hz) by a machine called an “electroencephalogram” or “EEG”, which detects electrical activity in the brain via sensors placed directly on your scalp.

Brainwaves are also measured in amplitude, which shows how strong those waves are.

Now, there are five basic brain waves that are picked up by a modern EEG.

Each frequency correlates to specific states of consciousness.

Dawson Church—a neuroscientist, bestselling author, and meditation teacher—notes, “When consciousness changes, brain waves change and different neural pathways are engaged. It is a constant dance.”

Thus, brain waves measure the electrical fields generated by the flow of consciousness.

And, according to Eileen McCusick—an author and thought leader in health and human potential who has conducted pioneering research in the new paradigm of electric health and biofield science—brain waves are not confined to the brain.

Actually, she says, brain waves “spread throughout the body via the perineural system, the connective tissue sheaths that surround all nerves… From this perspective, one can visualize the entire nervous system as a giant antenna that both perceives and even projects biomagnetic pulsations.”

Trippy.

But let’s not make it too complicated.

It’s as simple as this: everything you think, do, and feel creates electrical activity in the brain.

So, you might be wondering… what are the different types of brainwaves? And what are the states of consciousness correlated with them?

Brainwaves Correlate to States of Consciousness

There are five major types of brainwaves, starting from the fastest to the slowest, as measured in cycles per second.

• Gamma: 40 - 100 Hz

• Beta: 12 - 40 Hz

• Alpha: 8 - 12 Hz

• Theta: 4 - 8 Hz

• Delta: 0.5 - 4 Hz

Now, let’s dive deeper into each band of brainwaves.

GAMMA: 40 to 100 Hz

Gamma is the highest brain wave frequency.

It is associated with heightened awareness, synaptic efficiency, and peak cognitive function, such as “being in the zone” or in a “flow state”.

Gamma is most prevalent when the brain is synchronizing information from many different brain regions.

For example, “neuroimaging studies have shown that gamma waves synchronize the four lobes of the brain across frequencies and engender whole-brain coherence,” according to Dawson Church.

This process of connection is called “binding” because neurons are physically binding together into a novel network. In the sharp words of Steven Kotler, binding is “literally the physical manifestation of the connection between ideas” and those “aha!” moments of breakthrough insights.

Thus, where there is complex neural (re)organization, you will find Gamma brainwaves.

And trippy enough, Gamma is also associated with feelings of love and compassion, and in states of mystical union.

Neuroscientist Dr. Richie J. Davidson—who is world-renowned for his studies on human emotion, well-being, and the brain—found that monks had 25 times the gamma activity in their brain than that of ordinary people!

For example, the image above depicts a 2 second readout of low and high amplitude gamma. Amplitude, or strength, is measured by the distance from the top to the bottom of a brainwave.

Draw your eyes to the middle, where it says “Deep Meditation Begins”. At that moment, the meditator got locked in. On the right-side, observe how the distance between the peak and trough has grown. This indicates a higher strength of Gamma. And as you can see, amplitude can surge in a mere second.

Moreover, when Richie instructed monks to evoke feelings of compassion, their brains began to create rhythmic coherence, producing the largest flares of gamma brainwaves ever recorded. Unsurprisingly, these monks reported entering a state of transcendent bliss.

So, are all brainwaves conducive to beautiful states? Or could the next fastest brainwave below Gamma be more conducive to terror?

BETA: 12 to 40 Hz

Beta brainwaves are associated with being awake, alert, and attentive. Basically, it is your everyday state of mind.

Caution, though, not all beta brainwaves are good.

Hence Beta is typically divided into two parts:

• High Beta

• Low Beta

High Beta (15 to 40 Hz) is the signature brainwave of anxiety, frustration, nervousness, anger, stress, and overthinking. In other words, High Beta represents that pesky ol’ monkey mind, especially above 25 Hz.

Brutally, the more stressed people become, the stronger their beta brainwaves become (i.e., higher amplitude). This now creates a vicious cycle that is difficult for the unskilled mind to tame.

According to Dawson, “Negative emotions such as anger, fear, blame, guilt, and shame produce large flares of beta in the EEG readout.”

The consequences of this are extreme.

Per Dawson, “This shuts down the brain regions that handle rational thinking, decision making, memory, and objective evaluation. Blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, the ‘thinking brain’ is reduced by up to 80 percent. Starved of oxygen and nutrients, our brains’ ability to think clearly plummets.”

Trippy, yet more tragic.

Low Beta (12 to 15 Hz), on the contrary, represents a calm focused mental state.

For example, your brain is generating Low Beta as you read this newsletter, cook a fine dinner, or write your family a thoughtful card for the holidays.

Low Beta is required for processing trivial information, as well as for linear thinking. Thus, Low Beta is nothing to be feared. In fact, without adequate Low Beta, you’d have a hard time answering the demands of the modern human experience.

But, there has to be more to the human experience than going to work, earning a salary, and cleaning your toilet, right?

Damn right.

So what brainwave could help you unlock your fullest potential?

ALPHA: 8 to 12 Hz

Alpha brainwaves are slightly slower than Low Beta, and are associated with an optimal state of alertness and creativity, as compared to hyper-alertness and frustration in High Beta.

Alpha waves arise when your mind is more relaxed.

Usually, when your inner world (e.g., thoughts, feelings, and emotions) becomes the object of your attention—and more pleasant than the stimuli of the outer world—you start to unwind the monkey mind and produce more Alpha.

For example, simply closing your eyes can produce Alpha brainwaves, but even daydreaming with eyes open can produce Alpha too.

Additionally, heart coherence—a physiological state in which the interval between heartbeats is regular and constant—is associated with increased alpha brain wave activity.

Positive emotions, such as love and compassion, increase coherence. Negative emotions disrupt heart coherence. (In the Compass program, you will learn how to radiate elevated emotions from your hearts, which generates Alpha brainwaves and constructive states of mind.)

Now, here’s a major lesson to drill into your memory.

Scientist Maxwell Cade studied the brain wave patterns of 4,000+ experienced meditators with a device called The Mind Mirror, which measured brain wave activity in both the left and right hemispheres.

What did he discover?

During meditation, the subjects with strong spiritual practices all produced high amounts of Alpha brainwaves, which clearly served as a link between the highest two frequencies of the conscious mind (the thinking mind of Beta and the associative mind of Gamma) and the two lowest frequency brain waves of the subconscious and conscious mind (Theta and Delta, respectively).

Maxwell called this the “Alpha bridge” because Alpha brainwaves create a flow of energy that connects and integrates all levels of mind.

Below is a photo of the Alpha bridge in the brain of an experienced meditator. As you can see, there is strong—and balanced—brainwaves in both hemispheres: large amounts of Delta and Theta, and lowered Beta, as well as plentiful Alpha that provides a connecting bridge across the mind.

And for the observant reader, you’ve already noticed another major lesson to drill into your memory…

Your brain is always producing more than one frequency.

Even if you are meditating in a state of transcendent bliss, you won’t produce 100% Alpha brainwaves.

Rather, your brain is more like a symphony, concurrently oscillating at different frequencies and amplitudes.

For comparison, see the image below of the “normal” mind of a non-experienced meditator. You see very strong High Beta and Low Beta, alongside low Gamma, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. This is the signature brainwave state of anxiety.

So, we’ve covered Gamma, Beta, and Alpha.

Now, what’s on the other side of the Alpha bridge?

THETA: 4-8 Hz

Theta brainwaves are slower than Alpha brainwaves and serve as the gateway into the subconscious mind.

Theta is typically associated with deep relaxation, drowsiness, and REM sleep. In Theta, the storms of thoughts and emotions have subsided.

For example, in the moments before you drift off to sleep and after you wake up, your brain is producing Theta. These are called “hypnogogic” brain states, meaning the transitional state between the conscious and subconscious mind (i.e., awake and asleep).

Brilliant human beings, such as the inventor Thomas Edison, have intentionally leveraged hypnogogic states to access a deeper level of creativity that was out of reach to their High Beta monkey minds.

Additionally, hypnogogic states are used to re-program the subconscious mind because the human brain is more receptive to information when in Theta—as contrasted against the defensive filters and protective mechanisms of the High Beta monkey mind.

Hence, according to Dawson, Theta is the dominant frequency of people under hypnosis.

And most fascinating, Theta is the “signature brain wave during energy healing sessions.”

Let’s double click on that.

He lays it out for us, “During intense healing experiences, we often see high amplitudes of Theta waves on the EEG… If one person is offering healing to another, we see big Theta waves in first the healer, then the healee. The switch often happens at the moment the healer feels his or her hands becoming warm—the subjective experience of energy flow. In one study, a healer and client were both hooked up to EEGs. The healer’s EEG readout showed 14 periods of sustained Theta at the frequency of exactly 7.81 Hz. The client’s EEG shifted to the same frequency, demonstrating entrainment between healer and healee.”

This tells us that the healing energy cultivated in a Theta brainwave state can be transferred to someone else. And moreover, that you can actually entrain someone else to the Theta frequency that you are generating.

The same holds true for any brainwave frequency.

Profoundly fuckin’ trippy, I must say.

But, the trip train doesn’t stop there.

Most people are unaware that every human being is bathed in a pulsing electromagnetic field produced by Planet Earth that resonates at 7.8 cycles per second. This is called the Schumann Resonance, also referred to as “Earth’s heartbeat”.

And as a sharp student can quickly deduce, this oscillation curiously aligns with the low range of Alpha brainwaves and the high range of Theta brainwaves at 8 Hz. As we’ve discussed, Alpha and Theta brainwaves are found in meditative and creative states of consciousness.

According to Eileen, humans tune into the ambient Schumann resonance via our pineal gland, which appears to govern a variety of functions, including melatonin production and the regulation of the endocrine (hormonal) system.

Additionally, Eileen notes, “When astronauts first started going up into space outside of Earth’s atmosphere, they reported getting ‘space sickness’ from pineal malfunctioning, which seemed to be a consequence of not being exposed to this continual background governing frequency [i.e., Schumann Resonance]. When Schumann Resonance generators were placed aboard spacecraft, this issue was mitigated.”

Another clever trick by Mother Earth. It appears that our minds are designed to be entrained with the frequency of her heartbeat.

Now, what happens when our minds are oscillating at the slowest frequency?

DELTA: 0.5 – 4 Hz

Delta are the slowest brain waves, and are associated with unconsciousness, deep sleep (dreamless and non-REM sleep), and renewal. In other words, Delta brain waves are least like waking brain waves.

Additionally, abnormally strong Delta waves are found in meditators, intuitives, and healers—even when they are wide awake.

Furthermore, Delta is also found in people in trance states, such as a composer making music or a young child at play, both of whom are completely absorbed in a creative flow.

Per Dawson, “They’re mostly in Delta, with some Theta and Alpha, and just enough Beta to function.”

And when else might you generate exceptional levels of Delta brainwaves?

Let's turn to a study by Dr. Joe Dispenza.

Over four days in Dr. Joe's advanced meditation retreats, neuroscientists measured the changes in participants’ brain waves.

Their findings?

The participants baseline Delta activity increased by an average of 149 percent—again, in just four days of consistent meditation practice.

In another influential study, the brains of meditators from five different contemplative traditions (ranging from qigong to Zen) were analyzed. Scientists measured the ratio of beta to delta before meditation, during meditation, and after meditation.

Although the meditators practices were diverse—from chanting to movement to sitting still—all meditators lowered their Beta brainwaves and increased their Delta brainwaves.

Thus, the researchers noted a “globally reduced functional interdependence between brain regions,” which suggested that the brain changed in such a way that it dissolved the meditator’s sense of an isolated local self.

Scientists described this brain pattern of Low Beta and High Delta as “the subjective experience of non-involvement, detachment and letting go, as well as of all-oneness and dissolution of ego borders”.

Simply said, each meditator dissolved their ego. Their minds shifted into oneness with the motherfuckin’ universe.

As Dawson remarks, “It’s been fascinating to me to speak to people whose brains show a high amplitude of Delta during meditation. They report transcendent experiences. They describe feeling one with the universe, an exquisite sense of harmony and well-being.”

Clearly, when you consistently practice meditation, your brain starts to generate promising electrical rhythms. That means higher amplitudes of Alpha, Theta, and Delta, and lower High Beta monkey mind.

Now, what on God’s Green Earth should you do with all of this information?

If your High Beta monkey mind is overwhelmed, let’s convert this knowledge into practice.

Entrain Your Brain

So, you now know: your every thought, feeling, and action is producing electrical rhythms in your brain.

Poetically put, these brainwaves are a sort of music that create either noise or melody in your life.

When you change your mind, you change your brainwaves.

And when you change your brainwaves, you create the potential to change your life.

But how exactly do you do that?

There are two strategies:

• Cultivate your internal and active skills

• Leverage external and passive technologies

Common internal strategies include meditation and breathwork. Both of these require active effort and a conscious cultivation of skill.

Additionally, you might enact the discipline to engage in daily self-regulation activities, such as taking a walk between work meetings or closing your eyes for a few minutes after a hard work session on your computer screen.

While the latter two activities might not blast you off into a blissful union with the God of all gods, they will certainly help your brain slow down and avoid the aforementioned pitfalls of High Beta.

Conversely, common external strategies include brain entrainment technology that attunes your mind to your desired frequency.

These technologies do most of the work for you and don’t demand much skill. Notably, a device I use is the BrainTap, which delivers binaural beats, hypnosis sessions, and light through your eyes and ears.

Plus, the most accessible—and my everyday favorite—of external technologies are binaural beats, which you can find for free all over the internet. You can listen to binaural beats while you work, meditate, or sleep. However, if your mind is chattering louder than the beat, it won’t be very effective.

Here’s an extreme example: if you’re butt naked being chased by a salivating saber tooth tiger, it doesn’t matter what brain entrainment technology you're using. See, your survival programming is perfectly capable of overriding your efforts to relax, so don’t expect these technologies to solve your problems.

Now, which route should you choose: internal and active, or external and passive?

Both.

For years, I've used biofeedback devices, such as HeartMath, that help me train myself to access specific states of consciousness, thus producing specific brainwaves.

Biofeedback devices are powerful because they help you actively build your skills. It gives you a "peek under the hood" and allows you to receive real-time feedback. I've also used the Muse meditation headband.

Either way, Dawson delivers a hefty reminder, “A remarkable ability of humans is that we are able to activate or deactivate all of these brain regions by consciousness alone. We can shift our thoughts deliberately with meditative practices or simply by focusing on different stimuli. The brain responds accordingly.”

Simply said, to change your brainwaves, all you need to do is change your mind.

For the untrained meditator, “changing your mind” sounds either impossible or too easy.

However, the opposite is true.

In fact, changing your mind is quite possible.

Although, it’s certainly easier said than done.

Nevertheless, this is a skill you can—and must—train.

What brainwaves do you want to generate?

What states of consciousness do you want to access?

What energy do you want flowing through your soul and cells?

Join The Compass Program

Join my (free) online group program called Create Your Compass, starting in February. You will:

• Develop self-awareness through deep reflection

• Articulate a vision for the person you've always wanted to be

• Create a self-guided musical meditation track with healing frequencies 

• Learn how to re-create yourself through meditation

• Generate heart-brain coherence—using a biometric device from HeartMath Institute that measures your heartwaves in real-time

• Teach yourself how to live

Reply to this email or schedule an informational call with me here. *Remember, the first 3 people to sign up will receive a free HeartMath meditation device to use during the program!

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