707 replies to this topic

[Crowstream]

@whiskeytango

 

It looks like you have the reward thresholds set very high, I usually use auto-threshold with the upper limit configured to 80-90% (the signal goes above it 20-10% of the time). If you use manual thresholds then you will need to keep reconfiguring them as your brainwaves change which is kind of counterproductive to the training.

 

Also, trying to do something can make it harder, at first at least it might be better to just try to relax and observe and be open to anything that happens.

 

I find the quiet reward setup is very difficult to use, but it is good training also.

 

I have not used the HEG life game so dont know much about that  .

[umop 3pisdn]

Sorry for not responding before, school was starting to pick up and I was kind of working out the kinks of the HEG & HRV 'metta' design, but the school term is over now and I've had more time to experiment without papers and stuff hanging over my head.

 

crowstream, you asked if there was a correlation between HEG and HRV. I didn't really think that there was much of one for the a while, but lately I've noticed that when I start getting into a 'groove' (basically light jhana), both of them will shoot up simultaneously. Before realizing that, they actually seemed pretty independent.

 

I've been looking more at some of the unique properties of metta lately, some interesting observations are mentioned here:

 

http://www.dhammawhe...hp?f=41&t=16701

 

Specifically that metta seems to negate the "hedonic treadmill" effect, and that though it is generally classified as an object of tranquility (or focused attention) meditation, it does not activate the attention networks as strongly as other focused attention practices. This is also in conformity with some of the Buddhist commentaries that say that metta will in most cases only lead to light jhana.  Relevant to what we're doing, I find that the Entropy designs very strongly emphasize attentional processes, it's extremely mental and extremely tranquil and I know moment to moment whether I'm being attentive or not. The 'metta' design isn't quite like that or not nearly to the same degree, the benefits are more decidedly emotional.

 

But I think that's why it should be given more emphasis. Personally I find I will become emotionally unregulated before anything else, and more 'insight' like practices (say TAGsync), won't do nearly as much as I might expect them to to bring that material to my attention. But metta will, I think a part of it is that to know if you're doing it 'properly', you have to become more sensitive to how you're feeling in the present moment. Lately I've been locating all of these emotional 'knots' that I've developed over a lifetime, a lot of them based in either disappointment in myself or the world, and all of my time spent doing insight practices didn't really do much to tell me that they were there. I suppose insight practices may have trained me to see them, but it still seems noteworthy to me.

 

I also think I know why metta is so underrated, despite it being mentioned more by the Buddha than even mindfulness of breathing. Cultivating a sincere intent is scary, you feel naked, and doing it for a while you realize just how much you have dulled yourself emotionally just to exist within society and carry around all of your aversions. Through the process strange moods can overtake you, too. I think it's a part of clearing out all of the emotional gunk. I'll often feel a kind of complex sadness (or anger) where I feel heartache. It feels very honest, sometimes even beautiful, but it's painful at the same time. So it can be a really strange process, but I think that's proportional to how beneficial it is. It also makes you feel really safe, and makes social interaction incredibly easy.

 

But personally it has probably been the single most helpful thing in addressing my specific problems. Particularly I think all or almost all of us in modern society are carrying around bundles of self-hatred that we're completely oblivious to, and even a diligent mindfulness practice doesn't seem to necessarily reveal them to you. Lately I think that metta should probably be emphasized a lot more by psychological institutions, maybe even more than mindfulness.

 

On the note of why I got into this in the first place (developing willpower), I've had some encouraging results, and formed a little bit of provisional theory on why it may work better than some other methods. In the vein of metta having more emotional benefits, I think willpower is more of an emotional process. Especially if you view it as being contrary to something like apathy. So I think approaching it as a 'feeling' rather than necessarily a mental thing (like attention) seems like it may be more productive.

 

Personally I find I can locate a very strong feeling of 'intent', strangely in about the area of the celiac plexus. I'm not sure why that is, maybe since it's in the middle the torso, so it seems to have a 'mobilizing' quality (kind of hard to explain). I find I can locate a very sincere and naked, self-located feeling of intention here. I tend to focus on that, as a sort of precursor to metta, and then through a course of a sitting session the 'intent' is converted more and more into a feeling of good-will. This is all really provisional or tentative, but I think it's interesting that you may be able to train intent more or less directly.

 

 

 

Edited by umop 3pisdn, 19 December 2014 - 04:19 AM.

[Johan Pietro]

Beautiful post, umop 3pisdn. Has the flavor of truth.

[hza]

Hey umop, thanks for taking the time to dig into this a little more deeply.  I have a lot of associations with what you've written, but for the time being I need to keep it short, so I just have a couple of quick items:

 

1) in order to avoid asking a dumb question (or something you've already covered) I went out and did some quick searches on "metta," but I didn't come up with a specific meditation practice, just a basic working definition of acceptance and compassion.  Do you concentrate on these feelings during your sitting?  I just wanted a clearer idea of the intent you form when pursuing this specific line of feedback.

 

2) I think HEG and HRV have some correlation too.  I'm finding in my HEG practice that the wider I can cast my net of awareness, be it bodily sensations, sounds, visual field (internal as well as external), etc., makes my HEG ratio go up significantly higher (for as long as I can maintain the effort) than just single-pointed focus as I was instructed to follow.  I naturally fall into an HRV breathing pattern as I do HEG now anyway, but with just the HEG feedback I think there's a lot to be gained in awareness training, well beyond what I had in mind when I started.

 

3) I'm very intrigued by your mention of the celiac plexus.  I hadn't heard that term before, but over the last year or so and particularly in the last few months I've come to regard the Enteric Nervous System as fundamentally important in mental processes, and have been trying to come up with a way to monitor it indirectly via NFB, since direct measurement isn't available with anything I can afford.  I was going to ask you to monitor your gut sensations while working with your emotional awareness anyway, and then I got to your last paragraph and found it very exciting.  I think, briefly, that there's a coordinated stimulus/response interplay of exchanges taking place between the head and the gut whenever strong emotions are felt, and particularly areas where those "knots" you describe can be felt to exert their influence.  

 

My particular interest right now revolves around how personal inhibitions and aversions, for me at least, seem to either originate or resonate strongly in the solar plexus area (the lower dantian in Taoist terms) with a physical sensation of varying degrees of intensity. I wonder which comes first, but haven't been able to nail it down.  A working analogy I have is that my brain is playing emotional chords in my gut like a sort of music (usually not nice music when I notice), or perhaps the other way around.  I think there's great promise in learning to unravel those associations on an as-needed basis.  Like if I'm thinking about going to exercise or get up and do something constructive, I'll feel a constriction in my gut that very quickly "talks me out" of doing it.  Anyway, just wanted to bounce that off you and see what you think.

 

Sorry for not responding before, school was starting to pick up and I was kind of working out the kinks of the HEG & HRV 'metta' design, but the school term is over now and I've had more time to experiment without papers and stuff hanging over my head.

 

crowstream, you asked if there was a correlation between HEG and HRV. I didn't really think that there was much of one for the a while, but lately I've noticed that when I start getting into a 'groove' (basically light jhana), both of them will shoot up simultaneously. Before realizing that, they actually seemed pretty independent.

 

I've been looking more at some of the unique properties of metta lately, some interesting observations are mentioned here:

 

http://www.dhammawhe...hp?f=41&t=16701

 

Specifically that metta seems to negate the "hedonic treadmill" effect, and that though it is generally classified as an object of tranquility (or focused attention) meditation, it does not activate the attention networks as strongly as other focused attention practices. This is also in conformity with some of the Buddhist commentaries that say that metta will in most cases only lead to light jhana.  Relevant to what we're doing, I find that the Entropy designs very strongly emphasize attentional processes, it's extremely mental and extremely tranquil and I know moment to moment whether I'm being attentive or not. The 'metta' design isn't quite like that or not nearly to the same degree, the benefits are more decidedly emotional.

 

But I think that's why it should be given more emphasis. Personally I find I will become emotionally unregulated before anything else, and more 'insight' like practices (say TAGsync), won't do nearly as much as I might expect them to to bring that material to my attention. But metta will, I think a part of it is that to know if you're doing it 'properly', you have to become more sensitive to how you're feeling in the present moment. Lately I've been locating all of these emotional 'knots' that I've developed over a lifetime, a lot of them based in either disappointment in myself or the world, and all of my time spent doing insight practices didn't really do much to tell me that they were there. I suppose insight practices may have trained me to see them, but it still seems noteworthy to me.

 

I also think I know why metta is so underrated, despite it being mentioned more by the Buddha than even mindfulness of breathing. Cultivating a sincere intent is scary, you feel naked, and doing it for a while you realize just how much you have dulled yourself emotionally just to exist within society and carry around all of your aversions. Through the process strange moods can overtake you, too. I think it's a part of clearing out all of the emotional gunk. I'll often feel a kind of complex sadness (or anger) where I feel heartache. It feels very honest, sometimes even beautiful, but it's painful at the same time. So it can be a really strange process, but I think that's proportional to how beneficial it is. It also makes you feel really safe, and makes social interaction incredibly easy.

 

But personally it has probably been the single most helpful thing in addressing my specific problems. Particularly I think all or almost all of us in modern society are carrying around bundles of self-hatred that we're completely oblivious to, and even a diligent mindfulness practice doesn't seem to necessarily reveal them to you. Lately I think that metta should probably be emphasized a lot more by psychological institutions, maybe even more than mindfulness.

 

On the note of why I got into this in the first place (developing willpower), I've had some encouraging results, and formed a little bit of provisional theory on why it may work better than some other methods. In the vein of metta having more emotional benefits, I think willpower is more of an emotional process. Especially if you view it as being contrary to something like apathy. So I think approaching it as a 'feeling' rather than necessarily a mental thing (like attention) seems like it may be more productive.

 

Personally I find I can locate a very strong feeling of 'intent', strangely in about the area of the celiac plexus. I'm not sure why that is, maybe since it's in the middle the torso, so it seems to have a 'mobilizing' quality (kind of hard to explain). I find I can locate a very sincere and naked, self-located feeling of intention here. I tend to focus on that, as a sort of precursor to metta, and then through a course of a sitting session the 'intent' is converted more and more into a feeling of good-will. This is all really provisional or tentative, but I think it's interesting that you may be able to train intent more or less directly.

 

[Crowstream]

@umop

 

Good to hear from you again, these are some interesting insights you have developed  .

 

I am curious about the Entropy design, what kind of attention do you think it is developing? Is it a more narrow and pointed focus or more diffuse? Are you focusing in on some object of meditation or using some technique while doing this training?

What do you feel the effects are overall from the training? Is it cognitively enhancing? 

 

I am curious because trying to understand entropy has become a part of my research, I just read an article where they measured coherence and something called dimensional complexity (which I think is very similar to entropy, but I might be wrong of course). In any case they find increased coherence and decreased dimensional complexity during tasks for more intelligent subjects, but not during rest. So it seems that the brains ability to modulate the level of entropy to appropriate levels for task demands may be an important aspect of intelligence. In the article they also speculate that more intelligent subjects may have higher dimensional complexity at rest, and that this might be a sign of more diverse neural networks being activated, leading to a more creative mode of divergent thinking, at task though you need to only activate the specific networks that are optimal for the task so then it is best to reduce dimensional complexity, which will also increase coherence.

The researchers call this "order to chaos ratio in task-related brain dynamics", you can read about it here if you are interested: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/10533842

 

Some parts of that article seems to discourage entropy training as reduced entropy was related to higher intelligence (but only during task). But it might mean that you should traing entropy so the brain can gain more control of its entropy dynamics, would be interesting to see what you think about this. I am starting to think of it as training the brain to develop more state-flexibility so that you can switch between highly ordered, coherent modes of being when needed but also to be able to rest and be more creative.

 

 

I am also curious, have you tried alpha theta crossover protocols? I have found them to be different, and complementary to my other training. It can be an effective way of addressing these emotional knots. I have only tried 4 sessions so far, the first ones were just a bit relaxing for me but I was having trouble understanding the protocol and learning how to let go, I feel like I progressively learned this and my last session was very productive.

I found that reducing thinking and increasing just being open and feeling my body intensely would increase theta, I then started feeling warm all over my body and I focused in on this sensation, and this was like a key to bringing me deeper down into this state. I started re-experiencing some troubling and painful memories, usually when I think of these it will be from a 3rd person perspective and with low emotional connection, kind of just a cognitive understanding of the event. This time though I was deeply focused in my body and I could re-experience it in a bodily sense, a part of me resisted this but another part willed me on, this kind of felt similar to HEG training actually, it was just a complete determination, in any case I went ahead and for a time it was quite intense, but at the same time I felt calm, relaxed and safe so it was kind of like those old feelings could be dissolved into that relaxed state and I could release it.

After that I have experienced elevated mood and just feeling more at ease in general so I think it did something for me  . Now I think next time I will increase session length and try to go deeper.

[umop 3pisdn]

 

Hey umop, thanks for taking the time to dig into this a little more deeply.  I have a lot of associations with what you've written, but for the time being I need to keep it short, so I just have a couple of quick items:

 

1) in order to avoid asking a dumb question (or something you've already covered) I went out and did some quick searches on "metta," but I didn't come up with a specific meditation practice, just a basic working definition of acceptance and compassion.  Do you concentrate on these feelings during your sitting?  I just wanted a clearer idea of the intent you form when pursuing this specific line of feedback.

 

2) I think HEG and HRV have some correlation too.  I'm finding in my HEG practice that the wider I can cast my net of awareness, be it bodily sensations, sounds, visual field (internal as well as external), etc., makes my HEG ratio go up significantly higher (for as long as I can maintain the effort) than just single-pointed focus as I was instructed to follow.  I naturally fall into an HRV breathing pattern as I do HEG now anyway, but with just the HEG feedback I think there's a lot to be gained in awareness training, well beyond what I had in mind when I started.

 

3) I'm very intrigued by your mention of the celiac plexus.  I hadn't heard that term before, but over the last year or so and particularly in the last few months I've come to regard the Enteric Nervous System as fundamentally important in mental processes, and have been trying to come up with a way to monitor it indirectly via NFB, since direct measurement isn't available with anything I can afford.  I was going to ask you to monitor your gut sensations while working with your emotional awareness anyway, and then I got to your last paragraph and found it very exciting.  I think, briefly, that there's a coordinated stimulus/response interplay of exchanges taking place between the head and the gut whenever strong emotions are felt, and particularly areas where those "knots" you describe can be felt to exert their influence.  

 

My particular interest right now revolves around how personal inhibitions and aversions, for me at least, seem to either originate or resonate strongly in the solar plexus area (the lower dantian in Taoist terms) with a physical sensation of varying degrees of intensity. I wonder which comes first, but haven't been able to nail it down.  A working analogy I have is that my brain is playing emotional chords in my gut like a sort of music (usually not nice music when I notice), or perhaps the other way around.  I think there's great promise in learning to unravel those associations on an as-needed basis.  Like if I'm thinking about going to exercise or get up and do something constructive, I'll feel a constriction in my gut that very quickly "talks me out" of doing it.  Anyway, just wanted to bounce that off you and see what you think.

 

 

No problem, this is really the only place I know to talk about this stuff (in the context of these technologies, that is), it's really interesting seeing all of the directions that this can go in, even though I feel like I'm settling in on a specific approach I will probably be following for a while ('Metta', then Entropy/Samatha without an Object, then TAGsync/'Awareness of Awareness').

 

1) I haven't talked about that, and it isn't a dumb question. I guess why I haven't mentioned it is metta is one of those practices that seems pretty arbitrary in terms of how you approach it. The most common general method seems to begin with a mental or verbal recitation, repeated until you acquire a feeling of metta. Then you focus on the feeling, until it fades, and then you go back to the recitation, and repeat. I think there are some really good or compelling ones out there, but personally I just go with "May I be well, may I be happy, may I be free from suffering", because it's very easy to remember. Basically I just 'say' the words in my head, mindful of their meaning, while trying to project a very sincere intent. The 'near obstacle' is that you might confuse desire with an intent towards metta, so the other thing to be aware of is just doing that in a way that isn't attached to outcome. I think it's actually the sincerity of the intent that keeps it from becoming desire, like if you feel 'naked' as you're intending it, you don't really have any room to be forming any expectations or attachments, at least that's how it feels to me.

 

I do know that some teachers actually will not teach a rote method of metta meditation, the idea being that if it's more of a exploratory practice you can keep adjusting to what works best for a given moment instead of getting stuck with a particular method that may outlive its usefulness. I think there's some sensibility to that, the method I described above is basically just me taking an intuitive shot at metta practice, taking cues from some of the instructions I've read, and trying to get a feeling for what seems to work.

 

2) I find that Entropy training lends itself to a very wide net of awareness, same with TAGsync if you deliberately go in that direction (I try to) and I actually think it makes TAGsync work better, but I haven't really noticed that effect with this design. I haven't tried HRV or HEG with those other two, either. But what I do notice with this design, that's common to basically any time I start going in the direction of samadhi, is the boundaries of my body or awareness in general become very diffuse and there isn't much of a sense of locality. So there is a broadening, but it's not really a strong broad or spatial quality from what I've noticed, like how I might be more likely to characterize those other two. Personally I think a broader focus is actually better for training attention though, at least with the entropy design the quality it seems to locate is basically 'undistractibility', which is different from the very rigid connotations associated with "concentration". If you have a broader focus I think you can see more, like in regards to attention specifically those little 'proto-thoughts' on the periphery of your awareness, that you can then dissolve before they snag your attention.

 

3) From what I have heard, the celiac plexus actually relates to the middle dantian. I know the heart is often said to be the MDT, but one Taoist practitioner whose approach I have a liking for claims that it's actually the celiac or solar plexus (which innervates the viscera), and the heart is a related but separate energy center that is developed afterwards (the process of both celiac plexus and the heart being developed together being 'the mating of dragon and tiger', or something like that). It's actually the same guy that I was referring to on the 'breath harmonics' thing before, he goes into some detail about that, not just anapana/breathing, in this thread. He actually has a lot of really interesting posts across various parts of that forum, you may be interested in his stuff:

http://www.dharmaove...message/4418673

I was also thinking if the MDT is the celiac plexus, and it does innervate the viscera, if given your Taoist interest it might have something to do with the five organs and their association to emotions?:

 

http://www.universal...icle/smile.html

 

It may be a coincidence, but I know in the Yogic system the solar plexus and heart chakras are supposed to be the decidedly 'emotional' ones, and it seems like those two might agree across the two systems (Taoist and Yogic), because otherwise the systems have a lot of differences and seem more or less different.

 

It's strange though how much I agree with your observations. My inclination isn't really to go for the 'energy body' practices in general, because ordinarily they seem sort of tenuous to me. I tend to understand them as being cases of 'deferred cognition', or things like the enteric nervous system, etc, that all makes sense to me. But I only begin looking into them when my practice starts taking me in a direction where they become somehow relevant. It's kind of like what I mentioned about metta and that one teacher not recommending a 'formal' or rote method but rather remaining open to seeing what works, realizing that it may change. My worry with interoceptive objects like that is that I may center my practice around something inconstant or intangible, that I can't get a hold on later on and then I have to draw up a brand new map all over again. But it really seems like there's something to it this time.

 

For me I've always been pretty indolent, and a bit of a coward, or too eager to convince myself away from any kind of exertion or difficulty. In retrospect when that would happen there would be a feeling of unease in the celiac plexus. And placing a particular kind of awareness there (strong, sincere intent towards metta), makes me feel relatively courageous. This is a bit of a turning point for me, so I'm going to continue to see where this goes. It's interesting, because Entropy and TAGsync were relatively much more powerful for me, but this seems more beneficial for my individual temperament, so while I try to do all three every day, I find that if these days I'm going to fit only one of them in, it's this.

 

@umop

 

Good to hear from you again, these are some interesting insights you have developed  .

 

I am curious about the Entropy design, what kind of attention do you think it is developing? Is it a more narrow and pointed focus or more diffuse? Are you focusing in on some object of meditation or using some technique while doing this training?

What do you feel the effects are overall from the training? Is it cognitively enhancing? 

 

I am curious because trying to understand entropy has become a part of my research, I just read an article where they measured coherence and something called dimensional complexity (which I think is very similar to entropy, but I might be wrong of course). In any case they find increased coherence and decreased dimensional complexity during tasks for more intelligent subjects, but not during rest. So it seems that the brains ability to modulate the level of entropy to appropriate levels for task demands may be an important aspect of intelligence. In the article they also speculate that more intelligent subjects may have higher dimensional complexity at rest, and that this might be a sign of more diverse neural networks being activated, leading to a more creative mode of divergent thinking, at task though you need to only activate the specific networks that are optimal for the task so then it is best to reduce dimensional complexity, which will also increase coherence.

The researchers call this "order to chaos ratio in task-related brain dynamics", you can read about it here if you are interested: http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/10533842

 

Some parts of that article seems to discourage entropy training as reduced entropy was related to higher intelligence (but only during task). But it might mean that you should traing entropy so the brain can gain more control of its entropy dynamics, would be interesting to see what you think about this. I am starting to think of it as training the brain to develop more state-flexibility so that you can switch between highly ordered, coherent modes of being when needed but also to be able to rest and be more creative.

 

 

I am also curious, have you tried alpha theta crossover protocols? I have found them to be different, and complementary to my other training. It can be an effective way of addressing these emotional knots. I have only tried 4 sessions so far, the first ones were just a bit relaxing for me but I was having trouble understanding the protocol and learning how to let go, I feel like I progressively learned this and my last session was very productive.

I found that reducing thinking and increasing just being open and feeling my body intensely would increase theta, I then started feeling warm all over my body and I focused in on this sensation, and this was like a key to bringing me deeper down into this state. I started re-experiencing some troubling and painful memories, usually when I think of these it will be from a 3rd person perspective and with low emotional connection, kind of just a cognitive understanding of the event. This time though I was deeply focused in my body and I could re-experience it in a bodily sense, a part of me resisted this but another part willed me on, this kind of felt similar to HEG training actually, it was just a complete determination, in any case I went ahead and for a time it was quite intense, but at the same time I felt calm, relaxed and safe so it was kind of like those old feelings could be dissolved into that relaxed state and I could release it.

After that I have experienced elevated mood and just feeling more at ease in general so I think it did something for me  . Now I think next time I will increase session length and try to go deeper.

 

Thank you crowstream. This thread is the place to be, imo.

 

When using Entropy I take a very diffuse focus, it sort of feels like occupying a 'mental field'. But it's empty or essentially void of content, and I don't really make it that way, I just find it, sort of like it's already there. I don't use an object at all. I think the attitude with Entropy training in regards to attention is that of 'undistractibility', and I think that's actually a better perspective to view attention training under. Because 'concentration' has a very top-down and powerful connotation, where you are trying to actively fill your awareness with an object, and I think this approach can actually obscure your volitions about what you're actively doing, and those volitions can be directly undermining your purpose. With this, everything is out in the open, because you aren't really 'doing' anything, so anything you might do to over-complicate the process becomes conspicuous. You're not necessarily consciously attending to anything, like even the spacious emptiness doesn't present a strong object of any kind, it's sort of just the stage that it takes place on. All you're really doing is noticing when your mind gets on a train of thought (marked for me by a reduction in entropy), then you just let go of that train of thought, and locate your mind again at the 'stage'. You just do that over and over, it's weird because the mental effort you're applying is very relaxed, most of the you're just 'letting go' of trains of thought, so it becomes really relaxing even though it requires a fair bit of vigilance. As you keep this up and your mind settles out, you can begin to 'anticipate' thoughts before they emerge as distractions that catch your attention. They're kind of like proto-thoughts, that you can notice the 'rumblings' of before they manifest into anything. This gets easier as your mind settles out, because the tempo that you can notice stuff at increases as your mind 'slows down'. So then if you keep this up, and notice the thoughts before they emerge, and let go of those, then your mind can relax even more, and this is generally when jhana starts emerging for me.

 

I found there to be some very impressive cognitive benefits. I discovered this type of training basically in the middle of this past school term, and what I'd notice after the days that I'd train is that I could pay attention to a whole lecture continuously. I'd notice my lapses in attention as they were happening, or briefly afterwards, and there was never the sense that I'd 'lose' my attention or have a complete lapse, I'd retain a continuity of attention I'm otherwise not used to. My attention was also very broad, I could pay attention to the lecturer, and everything happening around me (like the students in other desks looking around), all at once. I felt just really in possession of all of my faculties.

 

I've kind of given up trying to find studies on entropy that I can actually make sense of. Partly because it is a pretty complex mathematical derivation and my maths are poor, and I know some of the studies calculate it differently, so I don't really know how they compare in application or results, either.

 

But what I think the benefit of entropy is, is sort of the ability to 'untask'. I could see this perhaps not having the greatest application during tasks, but rather inbetween (or priming for) them. I think this is also why I find it to be very synergistic with TAGsync. It's kind of hard to explain, though, because in my experience I don't think it would necessarily present a problem on task, either, except that in a sense the two states are mutually exclusive. Like entropy is more a state of readiness or 'skillful apprehension', which just by definition stands in contrast to a state of action or 'deployment'. What I like about this protocol is that it clearly defines the sort of mental hinge between 'readiness' and 'deployment', and actually brings it under a degree of conscious control (because it usually isn't!) It's kind of hard to articulate, though.

 

But personally entropy training doesn't make me worry, because the skill-based part of training actually seems the most transparent of all of the stuff I have experience with, I find I always know what I'm doing when I'm training, and I have to be deliberately doing it or training doesn't go anywhere, so it's not really going to 'drive' my brain anywhere I don't want it to go. I would just try it for a bit and see if you can get a knack for the 'skill' portion, and then just see what effect it has. For me it's ostensibly good, if you have a really good session it is completely fascinating seeing how much you stay awake, while your mind essentially falls asleep. What I mean is your thinking just sort of progressively shuts down after a while, but you're still entirely conscious. It's a very interesting experience, extremely peaceful, and honestly I think it's a helpful mode of training for almost anything you may want to pick up, because the effect is that it's like it polishes your mind and makes it 'shinier', or it's sort of like a shower for your brain, it's kind of hard to explain though.

 

I have tried alpha-theta crossover protocols, but it was a long time ago when I didn't know what I was doing. If it's anything like HEG training, I just didn't know how to leverage benefit from it back then. That seems like it would be an extremely good compliment to what I'm doing right now, though, I think I'm going to look into them again.

Edited by umop 3pisdn, 20 December 2014 - 06:18 AM.

[Crowstream]

Wow great explanation umop, that is very interesting  . I will probably start experimenting with entropy again in a few weeks, right now I am just doing brain trainer to evaluate the effects. I am not sure if our designs are of similar quality though, I guess you have the NorthStar Neurofeedback one, I have been using this free one that I found but I am not sure if it is as good as the NSN one. Maybe I will just buy the NSN one as it seems to be quite powerful and useful, it seems to be a good state to be able to get in to.

 

I am starting to think of neurofeedback as sort of a way to optimize physiological regulation in the brain, and usually regulation in the body will have an ebb and flow to it, sort of like the peaks and troughs of a wave, then it makes sense to work at both ends of the spectrum so to speak and perhaps entropy and TAG Sync could work at opposite ends. I think TAG Sync trains phase synchrony between different areas of the brain, which means they are bound in a network, this will increase coherence and I think it helps the brain to become locked in, to perform some task... Entropy might be diffusing this, to decrease the dominance of certain network connections. Over time perhaps you could increase both abilities, making the peaks and troughs bigger so to speak and increasing the overall flow of the system  .

 

I agree that entropy is very hard to make sense of, it seems they are always using some different measurement and you dont exactly know how it relates to other concepts... We dont even know if the entropy design is actually training entropy in the brain, all we can know I guess it that it does seem to do something useful, same with TAG Sync I guess, or any other design. Thats why I find your experiences with it so useful  .

[umop 3pisdn]

I'm not a big fan of the free design, I think the beta frequency bins aren't weighted right as I found that training with it would make me uncharacteristically excitable or irritable. The higher frequency bins are both spanning 10Hz while the other ones are 5Hz wide, which if anything I think you'd want tighter control over the higher frequencies. I changed the bins and I thought it made it better, basically making them all 5Hz wide, with the extra/backup gamma bin you can go up to 35Hz which seems like it should be an adequate spectrum, and for me this did seem to solve the arousal problem. I think the NSN one is a lot better, though, he also has some additional measures built in like brain rate which is a weighted mean frequency of brain activity, which is good for monitoring overall arousal levels. The designs in general inspire a lot more confidence from me, and he doesn't charge very much for them.

 

Though I made a minor change to the NSN design, I just added in a 2-42 Hz Wideband Inhibit (I think that's the range that entropy is trained in? I'm going from memory) into the 'AND' connective so entropy has to be above threshold and overall amplitude below threshold at the same time for the feedback to be triggered. The rationale being that entropy and a wide band inhibit should be two different measurements of sort of the same essential phenomenon (though entropy is more important, since everything is made proportional), but doing that seemed to tighten up the feedback response just a bit in a way that I appreciated.

 

I think you might have the right idea. One phenomenon I notice with entropy training is kind of 'anti-conditioning' effect, but I've only really noticed that effect in areas of anxiety or compulsion where that is actually welcome. Like when certain areas of your mental makeup are made rigid and you lose a degree of choice over them, a really interesting effect is I'll notice that there's just a gap or space where they used to be, the compulsion is just gone. I think it's more suspension than permanent removal, though, but the effect is kind of uncanny.

 

Honestly, I have a lot to say about entropy For one I think that both Entropy Training and TAGsync, at least at Frontal and Parietal sites, is essentially identical to the two component parts of Mahamudra meditation. By coincidence I found that the method I used for developing entropy which I described in my last post is the same as the practice of "Samatha Without an Object" in Mahamudra. In Mahamudra following the development of skill in that meditation practice,  you use the mental quietude you develop to advert your awareness to the 'field of awareness' that contains all phenomena of experience (which TAGsync seems to point to for me). Once you develop that, you can retain awareness during any activity, because you're not necessarily paying attention any given phenomenon, but rather the medium or screen that all of those lights and colors are projected onto. Granted that's only one very specific skill (developing a kind of 'awakeness', I guess? hard to think of a word for it), but it seems like a meaningful sort of 'master skill' on the basis of living or developing a solid foundation for being aware regardless of whatever. More relevantly maybe to what you were saying, I think it's interesting that two modes of training that seem objectively opposite actually compose two halves of a meaningful whole of meditation practice, at least as far as I can tell at this point. So there's probably room for them to meet on a rather deep level, just probably only on the level of an acquired skill, not really when running these designs because it would probably be too contradictory for the explicit training goals. At least that's why I'm training them in sequence.

Edited by umop 3pisdn, 21 December 2014 - 07:39 AM.

[hza]

@umop, do you have a recommendation for a book that gives a decent rundown on the different types of meditation states and techniques?  I don't have a lot of time to browse through websites gathering data here and there, but if you know of someone reliable who's put together a synopsis, I'd appreciate a pointer.

[umop 3pisdn]

@umop, do you have a recommendation for a book that gives a decent rundown on the different types of meditation states and techniques?  I don't have a lot of time to browse through websites gathering data here and there, but if you know of someone reliable who's put together a synopsis, I'd appreciate a pointer.

 

Honestly I don't, but my favorite single resource is probably the dharma overground forums:

 

http://www.dharmaove...uest/discussion

 

They have a wiki, too, but I think it's mostly on a particular book ("Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha"), the author tries to take a very broad scope, though, including other traditions and not just Buddhist practices, but it's generally in a Buddhist liberation/enlightenment framework so that's always kind of there:

http://www.dharmaove...est/dharma-wiki

 

It's still a really daunting resource to make use of though. Like personally what I'd usually do is if I'd have a particular question I'd want to figure out, I'd search the topics to see if there was anything relating to it. Often I'd learn things unrelated to what I was expecting, and I'd have to dig through a lot of topics because there isn't really an established English vocabulary for this stuff, so it is pretty time consuming. Unfortunately I don't really know of an alternative.

Edited by umop 3pisdn, 21 December 2014 - 07:54 AM.

[rock_zaozz]

@Crowstream , @hza or @Opaquemind ,,,, Im getting very good in raising Alpha thetha , i heard a lot of dings (sound reward) ,,, but when i switch to gamma , i really cant raise it , I have done 3 sessions ,,, any tip on this ?? 

[hza]

If you've only done 3 sessions, I wouldn't worry, just stick with it.  

[macropsia]

Finally pulled the trigger and purchased a Q Wiz and the tag protocols. I should be able to find time to run my first session in the next few days.

Forgive me if this is obvious, but which of the electrode connections correspond to reference, reading and ground? And do written instructions exist anywhere for TAGx1/ILF?

I have yet to have my consultation with Dailey, but I'd like to see where I can get on my own so as to get the most out of it.

 

Thank you everyone for having written on the subject; I think this would be so much more daunting without.

[Meggo]

reference: black and white electrodes

 

ground: green electrode

 

red/blue: active channel 1+2

 

yellow/ brown: active channel 3+4

 

ILF instructions somewhere in the thread i think

[Crowstream]

If you bought the x1 protocol then I think you will probably also receive some written instructions, if not then perhaps you can ask him about it.

 

With the ILF protocol you will sadly run into some limitations currently in bioexplorer, the filters will not go low enough. You can get very low though and I think you can still use it to train and get some benefits, but it is not like the Othmer protocol.

 

The Othmers have reported that their results improved as they kept getting into lower frequencies, for many years they used settings that are faster then what you can get to in bioexplorer now so I believe the training can still be effective, it just wont be exactly like the Othmers do it, and perhaps there is some added additional benefit to that, that we cant access with this right now. Hopefully bioexplorer will add some new filter settings so we can explore the ILF and ULF ranges, since the Q-wiz I think is capable of that.

[Bogumił Hrabal]

Can somebody tell me, if I can using q-wiz or neurobit optima 2 create my own protocol based on the recordings of my desired mental states (reached after many brain-boosting activities, lectures, physical exercise, playing the piano, reading a nice book)?

[macropsia]

If you could identify characteristics of these states, you could try to emulate them, but there's no promise it would make you feel the same, or that your ability to display those markers independent of their original context would even involve the same circuitry. There's the problem of identifying sites to train, and then the problem of isolating the 'state' from the 'artifacts' (and that's hardly a clear line) or processing and movement related noise.
Besides, brain waves are at best shadows or epiphenomena of infinitely more varied electrochemical goings on - no more than summations of electrical changes in the brain as overheard through the skull and scalp.
These are indeed the aspirations that informed the pioneers of biofeedback, but for all we know pursuing any given marker may be as pointless as dressing like a monk to be a better meditator or painting your car a fast colour.
Not trying to dissuade you (to the contrary!), but the question of relating the essence and accidents of bio-consciousness is hardly an easy one.

[umop 3pisdn]

I agree. I think with EEG neurofeedback and state-regulation, you have more success looking at extremely global and essential phenomena. Anything too complex or varied would call for a resolution that the EEG doesn't have. But I think that's actually a happy coincidence, because extremely global or essential experiential phenomena are the hardest to put your finger on. It's like trying to point to space, it shouldn't be that hard because it's literally always there, yet there's no solid landing pad for your attention to settle on. In this way a 'broad' picture, or skeletal abstraction (given the good temporal resolution of the EEG) probably works better than something more precise for giving insight into some essential aspects of experience, because you really only need so much information relayed to you (enough to prompt a shift in perspective where you suddenly notice that you're pointing at space). When I was first getting into TAGsync I was interested in neurofeedback to help with meditation, and I was practising mindfulness of breathing. Mindfulness of breathing is still too specific or complex to work the best with TAGsync, and instead what works better is adverting your awareness to the field of awareness itself (Dzogchen Trekcho practice, or Mahamudra meditation). Ironically this is a really hardcore and difficult practice, more so than mindfulness of breathing, because you're not working with anything 'solid', yet it's profoundly simple because you're simply adverting to a basic or natural state of experience ("rigpa"), and not really 'doing' anything or going through any specific motions or contrivances at all. Ironically if you were looking at brain process in a much more fine grained or specific way, it would probably be a lot harder to get this image to come out. So EEG neurofeedback can be great for a lot of surprising things, but in a training paradigm I think you're looking more at trying to capture the essences of things rather than the specifics. The essence of 'attention' (which Entropy works well for), or the essence of 'awareness' (which TAGsync works well for). It seems like it should be a lot harder than that, because these are sought after faculties that can powerfully shape our experience and lead to experiences that are extremely potent or might even be called 'mystical', but neurofeedback will point to it well enough to serve as a good teacher on how to work with them, if you decide to use it that way. There's still a huge learning and skill component, but it takes a huge amount of guesswork and doubt out of it and makes it really fun and efficient.

Edited by umop 3pisdn, 13 February 2015 - 05:17 AM.

[Crowstream]

@Umop

 

I totally agree about that interpretation of TAG Sync, I experienced this very strongly in my last session. I have not studied mahamudra meditation (I am going to now though I think  ) but the effects were very clear to me. I felt the sense of really understanding how I could make the "phase reset" bell ring, and I felt like I could do this at will almost. I have experienced the feeling of consciously influencing the phase reset before but not this strongly, it all had to do with my awareness, and as you say awareness of awareness. It is kind of like a mirror reflecting itself into infinity. Awareness is not a thought, and I am not sure if it is even a feeling, we take it for granted for the most part I think so it is hard to describe what awareness is exactly.

I was wondering, do you experience this effect only while training theta-alpha or do you also think it is the case with theta-gamma or alpha-gamma?

 

Also do you experience this awareness as having any particular location? Or is it spread out?

[umop 3pisdn]

@Umop

 

I totally agree about that interpretation of TAG Sync, I experienced this very strongly in my last session. I have not studied mahamudra meditation (I am going to now though I think  ) but the effects were very clear to me. I felt the sense of really understanding how I could make the "phase reset" bell ring, and I felt like I could do this at will almost. I have experienced the feeling of consciously influencing the phase reset before but not this strongly, it all had to do with my awareness, and as you say awareness of awareness. It is kind of like a mirror reflecting itself into infinity. Awareness is not a thought, and I am not sure if it is even a feeling, we take it for granted for the most part I think so it is hard to describe what awareness is exactly.

I was wondering, do you experience this effect only while training theta-alpha or do you also think it is the case with theta-gamma or alpha-gamma?

 

Also do you experience this awareness as having any particular location? Or is it spread out?

 

That's exactly it, it's really interesting, there isn't really a conventional 'muscle' associated with it, sometimes it seems like you should be able to try harder and have success, but it doesn't really work that way. It's more a kind of 'noticing', or a mirror reflecting itself like you said.

 

Most of my experiences are just using Alpha-Theta, I haven't made any meaningful observations about other training setups. I think that it might all be more or less the same, though.

 

Strangely, I don't experience it as having location at all, just a sense of 'luminescence'. Often my samatha practice will have more of a sense of location or space (usually broad or spacious, and essentially empty), but when I do the awareness practice 'on top' of that, the spatial perception breaks down, yet doesn't really go anywhere. Like nothing really changes, my samatha practice still imparts a sense of 'spaciousness', but it's like the experience of awareness doesn't really recognize space as such in any meaningful way, so it isn't really there.

Edited by umop 3pisdn, 14 February 2015 - 05:21 AM.

[VastEmptiness]

Hey guys, my Q-wiz EEG/HEG setup finally arrived and after some very nice sessions on my brain-trainer plan (had the amazing opportunity to get an assessment by PVD in person), i'll start on TAG-Sync today. I took a long break from actual meditation (Zazen) ever since I got to Brazil, been only doing Holosync (Binaural Beats) sometimes, but I'm looking to get back seriously now, experimenting with the TAG Sync Design and then maybe adding binaural beats again, depending on results. The Holosync stuff has a very intense effect. Will have to see if it enhances what TAG-Sync does or maybe even disturbs it's functioning. I love the fact to have quantifiable feedback now already.

My daily training plan for the next two weeks will involve:

 

- around 60 minutes of various brain-trainer designs, according to assessment
- every second day uptraining, then downtraining HEG on all 3 sites in the morning (slowly increasing over time, the first days left me with some overtraining symptoms)

- every evening 40+ minutes of TAG Sync

- either before or after that downtraining HEG for around 5 minutes each site (still experimenting here, but it might help with sleep, maybe even with TAGsync)

+ supplements, ketogenic diet and excercise as usual

Going over Douglas site, i wondered about the following: 

 

 

How is transcranial direct current stimulation used in these situations? Two channel transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is often used as a pre-treatment, often with anodes both prefrontally and around Oz and cathode(s) on the arm(s). tDCS has been shown to enhance network connectivity, to improve glucose tolerance, and to generally enhance cortical functioning when applied as described in many studies.

Did one of you use tCDS in this combination? I know many people on this forums try around with mixed results, but this sounds like another shortcut to the shortcut that TAG-Sync is.

Edited by VastEmptiness, 20 February 2015 - 12:17 AM.

[hza]

My daily training plan for the next two weeks will involve:

 

- around 60 minutes of various brain-trainer designs, according to assessment
- every second day uptraining, then downtraining HEG on all 3 sites in the morning (slowly increasing over time, the first days left me with some overtraining symptoms)

- every evening 40+ minutes of TAG Sync

- either before or after that downtraining HEG for around 5 minutes each site (still experimenting here, but it might help with sleep, maybe even with TAGsync)

+ supplements, ketogenic diet and excercise as usual

 

That's a really heavy training schedule.  Dailey has cited inflammation in the brain as a temporary side-effect of neuroplasticity from EEG training, and has recommended more than once supplementation with NAC (n-acetylcisteine) to help mitigate the effect.  If you're seriously going to pursue a daily regimen like that, it'd probably be a good idea to get your hands on some first if possible.

Did one of you use tCDS in this combination? I know many people on this forums try around with mixed results, but this sounds like another shortcut to the shortcut that TAG-Sync is.

 

I did 30 days of daily tDCS once in conjunction with n-back, but never as a complement to TAG.  I don't have time to do anything these days, but I'll try to keep it in mind next time I start up.  In general (and in theory), tDCS can be used to speed up just about anything involving a learning curve or new neural connections, so yes, it would be a shortcut to TAG proficiency if you're one of the people who gets noticeable improvements from tDCS.  TAG isn't really a shortcut to anything though, except perhaps developing certain kinds of meditative states.  But afaik weak or undeveloped neural connections in the brain networks can stay that way for life without targeted intervention such as TAG provides, so in that sense TAG is very much a form of therapy, and not a short cut at all.

[VastEmptiness]

Appreciate the quick answer!
 

That's a really heavy training schedule.  Dailey has cited inflammation in the brain as a temporary side-effect of neuroplasticity from EEG training, and has recommended more than once supplementation with NAC (n-acetylcisteine) to help mitigate the effect.  If you're seriously going to pursue a daily regimen like that, it'd probably be a good idea to get your hands on some first if possible.

 

Very interesting. However going for another med that I don't really know much about isn't so attractive to me right now. Will look into that though. Probably I'm underestimating TAG Sync in a way too. For meditation I guess the more the better (did retreats of 10 days, felt amazing after that), might be different with TAG. Thanks for the warning either way, I tend to overdo things like this (which is a blessing and a curse).

 

What would you suggest? Cycling Brain-trainer/TAG Sync daily? Theres really no need for me to train that much, it's just that I'm having alot of time and motivation for the next two weeks. Also, if I want to go for neuroprotection what else would be advisable? Piracetam I guess?

 

The brain-trainer plan itself uses 4 days of "adjustments" according to the assesment and then on the fifth day there is a set of more psychotherapeutic designs that consist of going into meditative/alpha states and then down (somewhat dissociated) into memories (which is interesting because thats basicly how hypnotherapy works); serving as a way to integrate those into the new-built neural networks. TAG-Sync might just do the same also?

 

 

 

TAG isn't really a shortcut to anything though, except perhaps developing certain kinds of meditative states.  But afaik weak or undeveloped neural connections in the brain networks can stay that way for life without targeted intervention such as TAG provides, so in that sense TAG is very much a form of therapy, and not a short cut at all.

Shortcut to meditation that's what i meant. If it was just that it would already be of incredible worth if you look at the effects of traditional meditation.

 

As for a shortcut to therapy we will see. Since good psychotherapy is mostly the guidance to effective self-regulation anyway, NFB might be a "shortcut" here as well. However I believe there is alot of things we cannot do with a computer (like experiencing a healthy, supporting relationship without having to be in a certain way; and with it updating unhealthy/involuntary sets of transference), I also believe there is alot of things we cannot do without a computer. I would really like to contribute to this question, but - as you might notice - I first need to learn/experience alot more about the NFB side to be able to compare.

 

Keep in mind that shortcut in my language has a very positive connotation; the whole thing of having to suffer through it, work/sweat/bleed doesn't serve most people well in my experience (Its a relict of puritanian work ethics, deeply embedded in the mode capitalism, i guess). I find it ridiculous how many people i meet that sat 3-5 years in psychoanalysis that felt like they hadn't gained of it. Compare that to statistics on solution-focused counseling that tend to use 3-5 sessions(!) for regular clients and 8 week programs in hardcore psychiatry (look up Steve de Shazer's work, absolute basic for most coaching techniques today). Just as ridiculous as people sitting for 5 years in Zen with back and leg pain just to find out they've been actually rising their stress levels while sitting there "accepting their suffering". 

Edited by VastEmptiness, 20 February 2015 - 06:17 PM.

[VastEmptiness]

After reading this http://www.cortexerc... recidivism.pdf and then looking further into effects and uses of NAC, i'm sold. Seems like something anybody should take, but especially when training. The pharmacy here has it cheaply as a solution for bronchitis with NAC being the only active ingridient. Not too bad since I'm having a bronchitis anyway xD Will be using 600mg every evening now for 16 days. Could be useful to stack with L-Glutathione, L-Glutamic Acid, L-Glycine? I'm using Glycine for sleep, Glutamic Acid is on it's way (same purpose) and maybe I can get some Glutathione as well. Thanks for the tip, hza.

 

 

Other substances with neuroprotective features directly related to current models of Parkinsonian neuropathology include "panax ginseng and ginsenoside, ginkgo biloba and EGb 761, polygonum, triptolide from tripterygium wilfordii hook, polysaccharides from the flowers of nerium indicum, oil from ganoderma lucidum spores, huperzine and stepholidine" . 101, salidroside from Rhodeola Rosea 102, green tea polyphenols (EGCG) 103,104,  curcumin, from turmeric 108, resveratrol from organic grapes 109, and common supplements such as melatonin 110,111,112,113,114, vitamin D3 115, coenzyme Q10 116,117, and N-acetyl-cysteine 118,119,120,121,122.

Source, DD: [http://www.growing.c...ocs/QEEG_01.pdf]

 

Good to know that my stack contains D3, Melatonin, Q10, Rhodeola and Gingko anyway. Actually I wasn't gonna take Gingko any longer because I felt no effect, but I might just after reading this. Is inexpensive here anyway.

Edited by VastEmptiness, 20 February 2015 - 09:49 PM.

[VastEmptiness]

Introducing Ken Wilber

 

Since TAG-Sync training is closely connected to the topic of meditation, I would like to contribute what felt like the most inspiring source of understanding what meditation really is. The works of Ken Wilber is what brought me from a materialistic a-religious worldview into actually training Zen meditation, going to retreats, working with shamans, etc. and considering myself a spiritual practitioner. That journey over the last 5 years included several peak experiences ("Kenshos", spontaneous, meditative and drug-induced) and deep transformative experiences on an identity level (mostly in therapy). His writings were able to trigger all that, since he was the first person that was able to explain the whole process without excluding the intellectual understanding of it - far from it actually, if you go into reading some of his stuff. Since my Bachelor's consisted mostly of Psychoanalysis (Lacanian) and Developmental Psychology (all of it) and those two build the basis for his early works, it was easy for me to connect to his thinking. I was actually able to track my transitions through "his" (he's really just collecting/connecting) developmental models and it gave me a very precise understanding what is going inside myself.

 

Why do I feel this is relevant to TAG-Sync practice? Well, first of all - from my understanding so far - what we're doing with TAG-Sync is accelerating and/or returning to the natural mode of development of mind, so a result of that would be going up vertical levels in his models. It might prove very useful for any of you, to see where you at, and what the next stage includes. Also, having gone "all the way", Wilber delivers a very precise map of experiential meditative stages (he's a practitioner of Zen and Tibetan meditation since his early twenties) and their integration into his line of thought (or more or less every line of thought, you get the impression reading his works). According to him, meditation is the only method proven on a big scale to fasten vertical development through the permanent stages. Psychotherapy works for the integration of split-off material on a horizontal level (taking more parts of you up on the journey) and the stabilisation of the level. And also there is always the direct, temporary way out of the small self through "states". From what i understand so far, TAG-Sync might help with all those 3 categories (experiencing transpersonal states, loosening stages for the next to appear and integration of traumatic material), which are essential to the development of mind.



I highly recommend to any of you reading his more recent "Integral Spirituality". For a deeper understanding the excellent introduction/biography by Frank Visser "Ken Wilber - Thought as Passion" helps alot in understanding the complexity of his models. They're mostly integrative so if you're into any field of human sciences you will probably find those works in there. http://www.amazon.co...al spirituality / http://www.amazon.co...sser ken wilber Also there is a lot of audio/video material by him on either Youtube and Piratebay.

 

Ken Wilber hooked up to an EEG

 

And to bridge the topic even further, here's a video of the guy hooked up to an EEG squishing all activity except Delta Interesting too that he mentions that other profound meditative states are rather linked to Alpha-Theta activity than Delta.

 

Let me know if this topic of an "integral understanding of development" is of any interest to you and you feel this is the right place for it. It's along with anything related to psychotherapy and systemic thinking one of my fields of expertise and I'm very happy to contribute.

-VE

Edited by VastEmptiness, 21 February 2015 - 04:17 PM.

[Crowstream]

@VastEmptiness

 

tDCS - I have tried this but not in combination with TAG Sync. I was a bit disappointed about tDCS so I stopped using it, maybe it was the tDCS kit I was using was not the best (it was very cheap). I might try it again with TAG Sync to see if I can get some effects, but not sure what site I should use it on.

 

Daily training plan - looks a lot like what I have been doing lately, I havent followed it at all times because it is very time-consuming but every time I have it has been really great, I have not experienced any kind of overtraining effect. I am careful about my diet so I try not to eat any inflammatory stuff, feel like I have a pretty good handle on this. I am not taking any supplements like NAC so dont know what that would do, but I think it is possible to go without it. I am taking some nootropic stacks every now and then, like today I am on noopept, I have done neurofeedback and had a good workout and I feel awesome  .

 

Ken Wilber - Great to hear you are into Ken Wilber, I have been a fan of his work for some years now, but I had never heard him talk about EEG stuff (that I can remember at least) so that is a really interesting finding  . The mind mirror was developed by Maxwell Cade, a physicist and advanced meditator, he was also an early researcher into EEG and neurofeedback. I can recommend his book: http://www.amazon.co...e awakened mind

I found a mind mirror design for bioexplorer for free, I think perhaps in the bioexplorer yahoo group. I used it a few times to get a sense of my general brainwave pattern but then I got into TAG Sync and brain trainer so kind of forgot about it  .

It looks like Ken Wilber has taken the mind mirror research further, I dont think I have seen those patterns mentioned in the awakened mind book, perhaps what they call the "lesh" states.

I have not read the Integral Spirituality book but that seems really great! I am going to read it now  . I agree that Ken Wilber is a very important author for understanding neurofeedback and TAG Sync, I think he has really succeeded in linking western and eastern thinking/psychology in an interesting way. I think his work suggests that we should be trying to map these stages and states and then using that information to train ourselves, I think meditation could really be taken to the next level like this. I have read a lot of research on the neuroscience of meditation, one problem I think is that often the research is basicly just doing statistical analysis on a group level. I think a problem with that is that you loose a lot of information. Like here in this video for example it is pretty easy to see that he is changing the brainwaves by going into different states, but it probably wouldnt be statistically significant  , I dont know, maybe if he stayed like that for a few hours  . I guess for him it is pretty easy to see the effect of these states, he doesnt need a 100 person study to tell him the statistically significant result of a state like that. Maybe the best way to study things like this is to just be a meditator yourself with neurofeedback gear, like he is doing here and then you can make your own meditation maps.

 

The TM movement has done some interesting studies on the effects of meditation on the brain, I found this study in particular to be very interesting: http://www.sciencedi...165168405002100

Basicly they showed that the "transcendent state" during TM meditation was correlated with increased zero-lag phase synchrony in the alpha band, they also propose a theoretical framework for interpreting that.

 

I think this shows that you cant just look at amplitude, like the mind mirror does but you must also study synchrony. I think this supports TAG Sync  . Perhaps some combination of using TAG Sync and mind mirror to study the neural correlates of these states might be a good approach. Umop has also mentioned the Entropy design being close to concentration/samatha meditation which is also very interesting. I have been trying to get ahold of this design but it has been a bit hard to get in touch with the creator for me so I dont have it yet...

 

I am interested to hear more about what you think the implications of Ken Wilbers work on neurofeedback is, what comes to mind for me is perhaps mapping out states, training to get into them and then mastering them, that will most likely accelerate development so new stages can unfold so I guess you would have to keep practicing for a while to see what the long-term effects are.

 

[VastEmptiness]

Well, theres a lot of points to connect in Wilbers work. What comes to mind first is on the one hand seeing EEG training in a bigger picture, since it really only is an UPPER-RIGHT-technique in the AQAL model and an integral transformative practice would ask for more quadrants to be involved (psychotherapy comes to mind, but also the manifesting of the changework in society, other topic though). What feels like the most important thing is to - as a practitioner - to have a Map of where you at and where you can go. Developmental levels can do that just as the map of meditative states. Also they bring - as you pointed at - the option to map out these stages further with EEG methods. I will go through it again, but what went on as theoretic discussion in the two TAGsync threads reminded me so hard on the changes in mental patterns described by Wilber.

 

Effects of TAGsync vs. traditional Meditation

 

Also what Is most interesting to me is comparing the (subjective, not measured primarily) experiences of advanced meditators with those of TAG-sync users. Following Wilber it's likely we go through the same stages, but possibly faster. However there is the addition of therapeutic effects which according to him basicly doesn't happen through meditation. I remember him saying "You can sit on your zafu for years and never integrate your shadow AND you can sit in psychotherapy all years long and never experiencing Satori." - There is alot on discussion about enlightened assholes (think abusive gurus, theres a hell lot of them), who according to Wilber are rightfully called enlightened, but as he says Satori leaves the Ego unchanged. An enlightened neurotic is still a neurotic. Even in that he says, split off material will grow with you through the stages, getting worse and worse along the way.

 

So what interests me here is: What is there difference in the effect of TAGsync vs. various forms of Meditation (Wilber is a good source of telling differences between those) and If i practice meditation also, will I get a different effect than just becoming independent of the gear? Also for me personally highly interesting how TAG-sync compares to other forms of psychotherapy in it's effects.

 

Of course while we look at meditation there is a huge amount of data, while TAG-sync will be down to some anecdotal, and heavily interesting experience

 

Stages of meditation

Following the subject of meditative stages and subjective experience:

 

This all relates to the main types of meditation as he holds:

(1) waking awareness - related to the neocortex, thinking mind, alpha/beta acitvity

(2) meditation on form (think mantras, imaginery, trance) - related to the mammal brain, feeling mind // related to dreaming, delta activity and also the experience of lucid dreaming

(3) meditation without form (think zen, one pointed attention, open awareness meditation) - related to the brain stem, being mind // related also to deep, dreamless sleep, which according to wilber can be experienced consciously by very advanced meditators as well (and they seem to show alpha/beta activity during dreamless sleep!), theta?

(4) non-meditation (the nondual, zen calls this practice shikantaza, just sitting) - the ultimate found beyond meditative practices, satori, buddha-mind, no measurement, the ultimate

 

Wilbers Map of stages to Satori ("Dark Nights") should be highly relevant here as those mark milestones along the way and every practice find's its place there. There's basicly four steps that i remember:

 

(1) Odipus-Complex (Freud's work) - letting go of the attachment to the parents, learning to be independent with all the burdens that it brings (still one of the main and important topics of psychotherapy)

(2) Apollo-Complex (basicly what every meditator experiences as trouble in the beginning) - letting go of the narrative mind or let's say calming the Neocortex to not get in the way anymore

(3) Vishnu-Complex - letting go of all the bliss, great feelings, imaginery and archetypal experiences that can be found in meditative states as they're just another layer of finite illusion. Its very easy to enter this state through psychedelics or tranceworks/hypnosis, but it's much harder to integrate any of the experience.

(4) Satori - letting go of the Nothingness/Emptiness found behind all the images, letting go of any object whatsoever, including Emptiness. Satori as the final realization that the Self was always there and as the only thing not a single moment absent. Satori is no state in that model. The true Self is the background on that all experience emerges. I love this quote "If your God is a state, then when that state slips, your God slips with it." -KW*

(5) Would be the integration of experience of the ultimate as manifestation into relative/finite experience. Whatever that might mean (Think Gandhi, Buddha, here).

 

 

So what interests me here is, do TAGsync etc. practicioners experience these stages? What is the subjective experience over time within the meditations? Do you guys visualize or do your find yourself in an empty space? What is the predominant brain activity while you do it? (obviously synchrony, but what about the other waves?)


Also: What role play supplements/nootropics/psychedelics in the development of mind/meditation? And can we measure their effects in the training? What have been your experiences here (I remember Opaque talking about Celebrolysin being synergetic). This excellent commentary of Wilber about Ayahuasca comes to mind. 

*

As well as this excellent paper. http://buddhism.lib....-ADM/stolar.htm
 

Edited by VastEmptiness, 22 February 2015 - 11:47 PM.

[Crowstream]

@VE

 

Integral approach - I think neurofeedback is very interesting since it is sort of an integration of 1st person experience "phenomenology" and objective data (in AQAL terms upper-right  ). I think that is very rare, usually objective data is ignored by meditation practitioners (and 1st person experience ignored by scientists) so just by practicing this we are broadening our horizon a bit and gaining a more comprehensive understanding. I think it is also important as you say to think about integrating other ways like psychotherapy and social transformation. One way might be creating meditation circles with shared neurofeedback, where the reward comes when all brains are in sync with each other   perhaps we could more easily develop a mutual understanding that way. Would also be an interesting experiment in conciousness, many traditions claim that there is only one consciousness and if that is the case then each person is essentially tuning in to the same thing.

 

I agree on the similarities between TAG Sync and how Ken Wilber describes development, as "transcend and include" basicly. I feel like for me TAG Sync has helped me transcend thinking (though not completely), in the thoughtless state my experience of self becomes more subtle, thoughts feel much more distant, as sort of contained within a vast space of awareness. 

 

Effects of TAGsync vs. traditional Meditation

 

I dont know much about this, I was not practicing meditation before TAG Sync, I plan on taking up meditation now though. I think TAG Sync has really made me more interested in looking into this. I think that probably TAG Sync can complement a meditation practice, but there are probably unique benefits to both and they may be synergistic. There are many different kinds of meditation also, while TAG Sync for me at least seems to cultivate a specific mental state, so different meditative practices may have other beneficial effects that TAG Sync does not have.

 

I do believe TAG Sync can have therapeutic effects, although it is hard to speculate on this. I think it can promote healthy ego development, I certainly feel less neurotic now, but it is hard to judge my own level of maturity. There is some theoretical support for why TAG Sync might do this, for one neuroticism is correlated with decreased cross-frequency coupling and TAG Sync uptrains this. In Daileys words it increases signs of neurocognitive maturity  .

The best thing might be to also do psychotherapy, I am sure there are unique benefits to this also, it would be interesting to combine since I think TAG Sync could make issues surface faster and perhaps be easier to integrate.

 

Stages of meditation

 

I think TAG Sync is more like a formless meditation, I feel like it is somehow connected with the quality of my attention and awareness, but that doesnt really have form, it is more de-localized and cant be easily defined. These are more difficult meditations, I think I would not be able to do it without the feedback, when I have tried just meditating I will focus on my breathing which is a gross/body level awareness, TAG Sync is much more subtle though since awareness itself is not a physical process.

Perhaps my experience will develop and change, Wilber seems to suggest that the experience of meditation depends on your level of development so maybe TAG Sync is also an unfolding practice that may lead to even subtler levels of experience.

 

As for the complexes, I would say for me at least the apollo-complex has been the more dominant one, during sessions I find I can now easily get beyond thought, and this has slowly spread to my everyday life so I am less filled with a constant thinking mind, and finding myself more relaxed into an open, spacious awareness.

 

I think I am attaching myself more and more to the blissful experiences, but have not had much imagery or archetypal experiences. Satori and nonduality I can sort of "understand" from a thinking mind level, but really I dont understand it at all  .

 

So what interests me here is, do TAGsync etc. practicioners experience these stages? What is the subjective experience over time within the meditations?

 

I do not visualize, I feel like I am entering more into an "actionless" state that is only self-aware. I will still experience occasional thoughts but over time they have started feeling less and less important, I pay very little attention to them now, its like they are held in a larger space of awareness, its like a larger "pool" where the ripples they create are smaller. I feel like visualizations are similar to thoughts, they are like graspings at the conceptual mind level. Feelings will arise that are increasingly peaceful and blissful, but I think this is not the main goal but rather like an effect. The main point for me seems to be creating loops of self-awareness, seems to correlate with the phase resets so I use them as guides to shift my being. I will feel a sort of spacious awareness that extends way beyond my body, but I feel like awareness itself is beyond space.

The brainwaves will be very high amplitude theta and alpha, over time becoming more continuous and stronger, also the frequency "spread" becomes larger, so usually I will have a thick line of activity at theta and alpha, centered mostly in the low alpha range. Theta has not increased as much, but lately I think it has increased and spreading to lower frequencies.

I will sometimes also have a fair bit of beta activity, triggering some of the inhibits, not sure if this is a good thing or not, usually its when I am more active and thinking. I think Daileys interpretation of this is that it is a sign of dysmaturation, although I have seen meditation studies finding increased beta activity in meditators, Ken Wilber seems to correlate this with a more "contemplative" rather than "meditative" state.

Thats pretty much it, not much activity in other bands.

 

What role play supplements/nootropics/psychedelics in the development of mind/meditation?

 

I have some experience with this but not much, I think noopept works pretty well in combination. I am really curious about trying neurotrophic mushrooms  . As for psychedelics, would be interesting to try, one problem I have had with psychedelics is that the experiences can be very hard to integrate, maybe TAG Sync could help with that. I did try some changa (DMT+MAOI) with TAG Sync which was an interesting combination  , I did bring back a lot more of that experience than I would otherwise,it is a pretty extreme psychedelic that can really take you into some weird and alien spaces   so it is especially difficult to integrate in any meaningful way.

 

I will take a look at that buddhism and psychedelics paper  .

 

 

[VastEmptiness]

Oh thanks, this is all really interesting to me, will be happy to be able to compare to my experiences. I agree that this sounds more likely like a meditation without form, which from my understanding is more advanced anyway. I really liked the paper, i think Opaque posted it somewhere. It's hard to find really progressive thinking in areas as traditional as buddhism. Most meditators believe drugs to be something by the devil

Also something that I'm interested in is the combination of NFB&BFB in one protocol. DD seems to have done that in the Infiniti protocols. (http://www.tagsynchr...om/whatsnew.htm) Can the Q-wiz receive HRV signals? I have an EmWave2 on the way.

 

 

TAG Sync for Thought Technology’s BioGraph Infiniti has new features.

 

Combining EEG, temperature and skin conductance training:During regular 2 channel synchrony training drops in skin temperature or increases in skin conductivity set off a yellow light in the middle of the display. It can also sound an audible alarm or pause video feedback. The role of the anterior cingulate in GSR (galvanic skin responses) and in the salience networks makes its monitoring and training during neurofeedback a possibility.Phase reset candidates trigger alerts:You can individually set thresholds for reward 1 (e.g., theta) and reward 2 (e.g., alpha) so that sudden large simultaneous increases in synchrony can be noted.

Heart Rate Variability (HRV):HRV is a very important topic in discussions of global broad-band synchrony (GBBS) such as TAG Sync (x1 or x2). There is a special pacemaker cell that is found only in the heart and in the thalamus (cf. Buzsaki). The HRV resonant frequency of 0.1 Hz (= 6 per minute). Phase-amplitude coupling between the nested frequencies from 6/minute (0.1 Hz) to 40 per second (40 Hz) is so significant that it correlates with system-wide states of hypersympathecotonia and hyperparasympathecotonia. Fight or flight and freeze reactions affect the EEG spectral power distribution in alpha and theta ranges. Such reactions also alter slow wave sleep activity whose structure reverberates throughout the following day. Such reactions affect the imposition of 0.05 Hz (20 sec long) resting state oscillations on tests of variables of attention

 

Edited by VastEmptiness, 23 February 2015 - 06:08 PM.

[Diego55]

would like to know, for someone who just started with EEG and bioexplorer HASP, are there any manuals, video tutorials (preferably for free) ? I recently bought HEG nir through brain-trainer.com, but i also managed to get 2 channels pendant EEG with bioexplorer and other equipment... I got it as a rent, but a guy who rented it to me has no time to introduce me to it. I am looking for something like step by step guide.