I-doser

I have been playing with this software.

A brief introduction to what it does: It creates two different frequency and very complicated wave to generate beats, and the beats will change your brain activity into the results you want. Sound a bit dangerous, but in fact it won't be able to do much without your cooperation, so do not need to fear about damaging your brain. What you can hear will be hisses along with beeps. Just turn the volume down to a level that you can't hear the hisses but can hear the beeps. The beeps are more like machinenary working in background, like washing machine and air-con.

The program comes with two kind of "drugs". Yes, they called it drugs, and they really have some doses that simulate drug effects, which of course I won't recommend.

The main thing that the program attracts me is that it can generate alpha brain wave, which is useful for studying and thinking. I played the "alpha" dose three times yesterday night, and each session is 30 minutes long. At first I can't feel any different, and I was busy chatting and surfing net. I did notice a bit clearer of mind, but not really obvious. The strongest effect is after the three period finished, I suddenly felt extreme hungriness. Only at that time, I knew it worked successfully. I didn't even use my brain much, but at that time I just felt like I have been studying hard for exam for more than 3 hours.

Then I tested "Lucid dream", which is used for have a clearer dream. Sad to say, no effect on me. Maybe the only effect is to make me sleep more better.

This morning, I tested "French Toast", which is used for morning boost. Didn't work well also.

I think maybe my brain activity is just too strong to be changed. That's why for my case, I need a lot more sleeping time that others. No kidding. Anyway, I did feel something for those doses rated "VERY strong". For "moderate" like "alcohol", all I can feel was just a bit warm and slight increase of heart rate.

Anyway, good software to try out, and of course don't get addicted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats

Binaural beats may influence functions of the brain besides those related to hearing. This phenomenon is called frequency following response. The concept is that if one receives a stimulus with a frequency in the range of brain waves, the predominant brain wave frequency is said to be likely to move towards the frequency of the stimulus (a process called entrainment).

The stimulus does not have to be aural; it can also be visual (e.g. Dreamachine). However, using alpha frequencies with such stimuli can trigger photosensitive epilepsy.

Directly using an infrasonic auditory stimulus is impossible, since the ears cannot hear sounds low enough to be useful for brain stimulation. Human hearing is limited to the range of frequencies from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, while the frequencies of human brain waves are below about 40 Hz. To account for this, binaural beat frequencies must be used. (Actually, rhythmic sounds such as a metronome could be used if fast enough, but since they do not affect the same areas in the brain as binaural beats do, binaural beats advocates claim that the latter are more effective.)

When the perceived beat frequency corresponds to the delta, theta, alpha or beta range of brainwave frequencies, the brainwaves entrain to or move towards the beat frequency. For example, if a 315 Hz sine wave is played into the right ear and a 325 Hz one into the left ear, the brain is entrained towards the beat frequency (10 Hz, in the alpha range). Since alpha range is associated with relaxation, this has a relaxing effect.

I did some research on this software, with main concern on the safeness. As what I can find, nothing show that this is bad, except causing epileptic seizures in some people, much as bright flashing lights can. That's all.

However, critics are everywhere. If you wonder, those critics are not about whether this software is safe, but rather questioning whether it works or not. And it just seems that all critics can't feel a cent of the effect, and every other that believe it can work will feel the effect, which including me. I think simply because those critics are not believing in this, so when they were trying the software, they will unconsciously force their brain to not cooperate, and thus will not feel anything at all.

I also found an article saying how to maximize the effect. Still, I don't think it's wise to try prohibited drugs, as mentally addiction is even harder to cure than physical addiction.