Sound design for bodymind optimisation
People, including myself, and not only in yoga class, often says random sounding things such as “expand your consciousness”. When one critically asks what that actually means, it can be hard to say. To make a cover image for a music project called “Enhance Consciousness” may seem even worse! Thinking a little about sound, and light, as vibration helps a little.
Sound vibrates the air around us, vibrating through our bodies with disruptive or beneficial effect
Frequencies, high or low sounds, dense or fine, fat or thin, regular, irregular and so on, have different effects on the body because it resonates or vibrates the nervous system at different pitches and modulations.
We interpret the sounds we hear with our brains, a process that stimulates the brain and nervous system in specific ways – much as a specific part of the brain is connected to, for example, primal reflexes, and another part to the autonomic nervous system. Thoughts, emotions, work and meditation all affect our brain and nervous systems. This means we can use certain sound frequencies, bodywork and the mind to cause disruption or chaos in the bodymind, or to harmonise the inner world.
We can expand our consciousness and focus our abilities to generate beneficial states of mind. I have been experimenting with the effect of sound frequencies for many of my ambient music productions, and there are lots of studies on Binaural Beats music and brainwave patterns. I always reason it is best to find out for oneself what works for one, or not: watch the short video I made to explain how Stereo Binaural Sound Design works in my Youtube Binaural Beats Projects & Binaural Beat Music Playlist. Or use the free stream player below, or buy and download from the store, in the same player.
Simplistically speaking we hear with two ears, have a left brain and right brain. A stereophonic sound creates a 3D sound picture, with sounds to the left, right and centre, as well as foreground and background, higher, above, and lower, sounds. High frequency sounds or refined sounds such as wind chimes in contrast to bass beats stimulates different awareness responses. Exposure to a full spectrum of sound dimensions, or specific frequencies, entrains the brain to form holographic, dimensional layers of holistically, horizontal and vertical integration of energies, as all sound frequencies are nothing but energy waves.
Of course it can also be useful to slip on a set of headphones with some pumping hypnotic house music on the player. Experiment with different genres and sounds, if you’re interested. Essentially when I talk about enhancing consciousness I mean that you want to create a clear, focussed mind, a relaxed body with even breathing, you want to be free from thinking and emotions. Whether you get it from silence, or a pulsating beat is immaterial. Main thing is to be discerning about how the music you use lets you feel, and that one way of understanding “enhancing consciousness” is that it is about going deeper, or wider, than thinking and emotions.
Blessed and happy experiencing!
Johann
