Autism Thoughts

Where to begin? *Blink*

It is no secret that I am blessed beyond measure with something most people do not have, which is: FREE TIME. I have been wanting to put that to good use for a while now.

Sooo....

As some of you may know, I have recently been doing research (as in: lots of research, as in: many hours a day research) into the areas of brainwave entrainment and guided imagery. Separate, I believe they would both be a good therapy for autism. However, if there was a way to combine them together (which our current 21st century technology nicely provides, and at a minimal cost!), it could possibly be even better.

One of the many things I have read is that one half hour of your brain in the “theta” state (3 to 8 hz) can be equal to four hours of sleep. Thus, theoretically, if you could place your brain in that state for one half hour or more, then you would need up to four hours less sleep a night.

You would literally have what everyone says they need, which is “more hours in the day.”

So last night, I decided to give this a try. The results were far from what I expected.

A couple of years ago, I purchased a Proteus. Of course right after I got it, I started writing programs for it, one of which is available on my site in the download section. (For those worried, the program has been tested. It is safe to use, and even effective.) But at the end of the day, I found the programming language to be very weak and bare bones. There were things I wanted to do with the Proteus that just didn’t seem possible. I was discouraged by this and set the Proteus aside for a while.

Recently while cleaning house, I came upon it again and began to wonder if there was something out there that would do what I wanted. I searched the net and found this programming language ... which is Proteus compatible.

Despite the high price, I immediately purchased it and started playing around. This came with several program samples that had been testing using an EEG, and a few of those programs put you into Theta for a while.

The downside to using this is you need to interface a CD player directly into the Proteus. This is awkward and cumbersome at best, and means there are three wires to get tangled up, and believe me, they do get tangled!

The upside is this program does everything I want, and so much more, and the possibilities are pretty much endless. Even better, the Proteus is just an option. All you really need is a regular CD player for these programs to work.

So I found a 50 minute program that was Deep Theta, and I hooked everything up, started the program, and relaxed to let it to its thing.

What I didn’t know (and this was purely a matter of inexperience, I am sure) was the PoS $12.00 Wal-Mart brand CD player was not able to keep up with the complex programming embedded on the CD. I had to stop the program before it was finished, 36 minutes into the 50 minute program.

This left my brain in a state of complete disarray. It was like part of it was lagging two or three steps behind. Every time I moved or had a thought, I had to wait while a part of my brain caught up to the other part and the rest of me.

I was in a situation where I was literally out of sync with my own self!

I am now convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that brainwave entrainment is absolutely real, and possibly just a tad dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.

First rule of entrainment: If you start a program, be sure you can see it it through to the bitter end!

The more I research, the more I experiment, the more I learn, the more I do know what I am doing. Practice makes perfect!

When I woke up this morning (and a heck of a time I had getting to sleep!), the problem was still there, though it wasn’t quite as bad. I reasoned that if I wanted to be “back to normal” again (or normal for me, anyway), I was going to have to run the program again, and this time see it through to the end.

Since I had to go to Wal-Mart anyway, I purchased a higher end Sony Walkman CD player while I was there. The first thing I did when I got home was put some batteries in it and wire it up to the Proteus.

This time there were no problems.

When it was over, my head was back to normal. And I felt like I had just woken up, even though I was never asleep! It remains to be seen if I sleep less tonight.

Meanwhile I have been reading some amazing stories related to guided imagery. I had no idea this concept actually had some science behind it. People are being healed of cancer and chronic pain, just by the power of their own mind. (It was the chronic pain aspect that got me interested in this. I am forever searching for a way to deal with my own constant pain. And, being ever the advocate, the autism side is never far from my mind...)

So naturally I got to wondering; what would happen if we made a CD that first placed the brain into the “alpha” state (say … around 14 hz?) then gently brought the volume down on that entrainment to where you could still hear it, but just barely, then over top of this, read a guided imagery script, followed at the end by gently ramping the volume up on the entrainment, taking it to the appropriate place in line with the imagery?

That’s powerful stuff. I don’t think it has ever been done before.

It seems too obvious for no one to have done it by now. I am afraid that I will find some reason why it won’t work and then my bubble will be burst.

Bummer.

But so far I am enjoying the journey and if nothing else, I am getting quite the education.

I have some ideas guided imagery wise for autism therapy I would like to explore. Hopefully I will be able to find people to test some scripts for me along these lines.

By the way...something I have noticed that I find very interesting...

True and clinical guided imagery falls exactly in line with Biblical Scripture. :)

Anyone who may be interested in these technologies, separate or combined, is welcome to join my personal online autism support group, Neurointegrity. This is where I will be doing and posting most of my work with both guided imagery and brainwave entrainment.

More on this later…