Making More Effective Binaurals

Making More Effective Binaurals

Many hypnotists use binaural beats to enhance the effectiveness of their hypnotic materials.  However, most of us fail to use these tools as effectively as we might either through laziness or lack of knowledge.  In this blog post, I will be exploring some ways to make your use of binaural beats in file hypnosis more effective than the methods you may have been using so far.

What Are Binaural Beats?

In 1839 Heinrich William Dove discovered that two tuning forks of almost the same frequency presented to opposite ears could produce an auditory illusion of a beat at the frequency difference between the two tones.  For example, a tuning fork at 100Hz paired with one at 105Hz would produce the auditory illusion of a beat in the center of the subject's head happening 5 times per second (5Hz).  Over the course of the 19th and early 20th century this was regarded as an interesting, if not particularly useful, perceptual phenomenon. Learn more about the history of Binaural Beats research at BinauralBrains.com



In 1973 when Gerald Oster wrote “Auditory Beats in the Brain” there had been very little research into the effect of binaural beats on the brain. Working with EEG machines, Oster tested the hypothesis that binaural beats could produce a widespread neural entrainment at a particular frequency, and thereby produce a change in consciousness.  Modern research has confirmed with 99% certainty that Binaural Beats do in fact lead to brainwave entrainment and perceptual variation including altered states of consciousness like a hypnotic trance.

Though the exact mechanisim by which binaural beats produce entrainment is not as well known as we might like, the general idea is that when the brain combines the signals from both ears to produce a perception of sound direction, the two wave-forms interfere with each other in their neural representation just like they would in air producing a perceived beat which the neurons in the brain entrain to, coming over time to fire in synchronization with the interference.

How Do I Make a Binaural?

Binaural Beats are actually amazingly easy to make even with very limited analog technology.  All you really need are two sine waves with a known frequency difference that's suitable for hypnosis.  In the old days, this was often done with a pair of analog oscilators and an osciloscope; thouch you can easily accomplish the same thing with a midi synthesizer set to produce a sine wave at a pair of frequencies.

There are a number of common computer and cell phone based programs that can produce various kinds and qualities of binaural beats.  You can find a good free cell phone app to try binaurals for yourself at Binaural Beats Therapy on Google Play; if you want to make your own royalty-free binaural tracks for hypnosis files you can use the free (general public liscence) Gnaural program  which allows you to set up a variation in frequency over time.

Gnaural for Windows in action,

Gnaural can be a bit intimidating at first, but once you read the official tutorial  and get through the learning curve, it's actually pretty powerful.  Double click anywhere on the line to make a new inflection point and then use your mouse to drag the point to wherever you want it to be on the graph.  You can then right-click and fine-tune your point so that it falls on exactly the right frequency and timing.  There's also a good online tutorial from BinauralBrains and a few videos on YouTube to teach you the software.

MyNoise.net Binaural Generator

There is also an online binaural generator at MyNoise.net which is very powerful, letting you manipulate several different bands of brainwave frequency at the same time. This makes a musical sounding binaural which can be played like an instrument with sliders. However, though this website is wonderfully intuitive and is very easy to use, they claim copyright on all of their sounds and have been known to file DMCA takedowns on people who use their site to make files, so use at your own risk.

The Naive Hypnotic Use

Most hypnotists make a very crude sort of use of binaural beats, typically using only either a constant entrainment at a fixed frequency, or a slow decline to a particular frequency followed by a flat line at this frequency with a rapid increase at the awakener at the end of the file.

Fixed frequency at a common trance-state level like 7Hz is not at all uncommon and can enhance the effectiveness of trances somewhat, because the brain naturally slowly drifts towards the frequency of the binaural beat and then stays there once entrained.  However, this method provides little or no control over the subject's mental state by the hypnotist and can result in the subject going deeper into trance sooner than the hypnotist intended or not coming out of trance correctly to the awakener.

For clarity I have colored the falling sections in red and the rising ones in blue throughout this blog.

A more effective simple use of binaurals is to provide a ramp down through the induction followed by a flat line at a suitable hypnotic frequency (somewhere between 4.5-7hz depending on how deep you want your subject to go) followed by a more rapid ramp up through the awakener.  This can provide an effective means of controling the user's brainwave frequency without too much effort on the hypnotist's part.

More Advanced Methods

Stairsteps

If you are willing to put slightly more work into your binaural, you can improve its effectiveness by taking advantage of the fact that the brain actually takes a little time to entrain to a binaural at a particular frequency, so if you stairstep down by leting the brain entrain at a particular frequency plateau for a little while (30 seconds to a minute) and then dip down to another frequency and then stay there for a while, repeating until the desired brain frequency is reached.  This makes your binaural somewhat easier on the subject's brain and gives you an even closer control over the entrainment during particular parts of the trance.

The Sawtooth

Download the Gnaural file for the Sawtooth here

Another more advanced pattern is the sawtooth, where instead of all the steps on the staircase being flat, some of the steps actually slope upwards, followed by an even steeper descent.  This is usually used in conjunction with a tense-and-relax induction, where the tensing phases are acompanied by a very slight rise in the frequency followed by a steep drop.

The theory behind the sawtooth pattern is that by raising the brainwave frequency somewhat during the tense phase induces a faster drop through the relaxation phase, this gets your subject deeper into trance faster than simply stairstepping down directly.

Script Based Binaurals

Up to this point we have been talking about simple patterns that can be minimally connected to the content of the script and still work.  That's useful if you want to make a single file that can go under a number of trances.  However, for the most effective possible use of binaurals,the best thing to do is to record your script and time it out such that the plateaus of the stairsteps correspond with bits of the patter where you're not particularly pushing the subject further into trance, the sawtooths correspond with the places where you're bringing the subject up a little to take them further down, and the slopes correspond to the parts where you are directly suggesting that the subject go deeper into trance with the slope of the line corresponding roughly to how far and fast you want them to drop.

Once you've gotten to the part of the file where the suggestions are, you can choose to just leave your subject at a plateau through the suggestions (typical of a suggestion part with no deepeners or other hypnotic tricks) or, if your script has a reinduction or deepener, you can go down to a high plateau (I have found 6.8Hz works great for the upper plateau) where your subject is suggestible but still conscious through the first set of suggestions, then have a downslope or stairstep down through the reinduction to a lower plateau at something like 4.5Hz, where your subject is minimally able to consciously engage but isn't quite likely to fall asleep.

So, What Frequencies should I use?

There's a lot of hooey going around about various frequencies of binaural beats.  The "spiritual" community has long lists of supposed correlations which you can use for reference.  For hypnotic purposes, the exact frequency is seldom as impotant as the general frequency range and the slope of the change in frequency over time.

Some common plateau frequencies useful for various  hypnotic tasks:

1. 11.0 - 10.6Hz Relaxed but alert, a good frequency range for pre-talk.
2. 9.5 - 8.6Hz  Low alpha, a good range to sweep through in early induction, pausing on 8.6 leaves the user able to visualize intensively while feeling relaxed and de-stressed.
3. 7.5 - 7.0Hz Maximum creativity in visualization, highly suggestible.  Spiritual feeling.
4. 6.8 Hz The Schuman Resonance, not far from the middle of the Theta range at 6.5Hz, maximum conscious suggestibility is roughly here.  
5. 5.5Hz Inner Guidance A frequency at which the subject is still conscious, but their mind is starting to disengage, subject is usually unable to maintain a mental monologue below here. A very good frequency for change work suggestions. 
6. 4.5Hz Deepest Meditation frequency, this is where Bhuddist Monks go when they meditate; basically no conscious thought and roughly the minimum frequency for remaining conscious with your mind turned off on a sustained basis.
7. 3.7 Hz - Genital Buzz: This is where the hands-free orgasm is.
8. 2.5 Hz - Pain and Insomnia relief. These frequencies can kill pain and induce a deep sleep, in the context of a hypnotic induction this is usually for when you want to take your subject so deep they black out.  

Case Study: "Failing to Resist Trance Trainer"

Download the Gnaural file for Failing to Resist here 

Above you can see the chart for my Failing to Resist Trance Trainer file, which I will explain for you here.  The file starts with a couple of minutes of synchronization at 12Hz which corresponds to the patter at the front of the file before the induction proper starts, this is followed by a long slow slide at approx. 1Hz/min through the early part of the induction with a faster drop to a plateau at 8.6Hz after the first major trance suggestion where it stays for almost a minute so that the subject's brain can be assured to have synchronized before we proceed down again for two more steps.

Then we get to the resistance part of the script and you see a set of 3 sawtooths as the subject is instructed to open and close their eyes, having more and more difficulty each time.  Notice the particularly rapid drops in frequency on the back side of the sawtooths, especially the long, steep drop at the end of the third sawtooth that corresponds with the subject being told that further resistance of this kind is futile.  The slope gets less rapid over time until it stabilizes again at about 4.5Hz for the early part of the first set of suggestions until the deepener, where it briefly sawtooths up and slides down to 3.4Hz (where there happens to be a nice genital sensation) for a while as I go on about how erotic hypnosis is; followed by another trigger-based deepener where the subject is intructed to "go so deep you black out" and the brainwaves are allowed to plateau there for a while so that the subject can be well and truly blacked out; then allowed to slowly rise again through the safety part of the first part of the trance and then a steep rise through the count-up to the first awakening.

This is a trance trainer file, so the first awakening is followed by a trigger back into trance which is accompanied by a steep drop on the binaural to a plateau at 4.5Hz, which is the frequency at which the trigger was set and so is the frequency that I want to train my subject to get back to (this is roughly the frequency at thich Tibetan monks meditate, and is also about as deeply entranced as I can keep a subject for a prolonged period without him going to sleep.) So I leave it on that plateau for about 4 minutes through the setting of a new set of triggers, then use those triggers to make the subject go blackout deep again before I bring him up a second time and test whether my subject can resist the trance, followed by a new trigger, a second set of suggestions, a deepener, more suggestions and a rapid slope up through the count up at the last awakener.