More Information About Specific Types of Protocols

This section explores the reasoning behind the use of certain protocols. It does not include education on how to run specific protocols or training sessions. For information on that, please see (INSERT LINK HERE) or, if you have one, speak with your training supervisor.

THESE SHOULD BE LINKS TO THE CONTENT OF THIS PAGE:

Alpha Training

Alpha-Theta Training

Bipolar Protocols

Coherence Training

Default Mode Network

HEG: The Life Game

Squash and Squish

TAG Sync (Theta Alpha Gamma Synchrony)

Two-Person Synchrony Training

Alpha Training

If someone doesn’t produce alpha, train up 9-13 Hz–and train alpha coherence–in the parietals.   All this, of course, assumes that you’ve already checked for other issues related to fast wave blocking and worked on those, since alpha and beta are antagonists–they block each other.

Alpha Theta Training (A/T)

For most people, Alpha Theta Training is recommended every five sessions. It is a protocol designed to produce a pathway from the subconscious to the conscious, and trainers use it for everything from addictions to peak performance. It is especially used to “lay in” training achieved in the previous four sessions.

Why Do Alpha Theta Training

6-8 Hz theta seems to be the frequency that most relates to memory, visualization, and access to the subconscious. We train for 7 Hz crossovers in alpha-theta training and ideally take the client as an observer to the entrance to his own subconscious mind.

When you are producing more alpha, you are in the observer state; when you produce more theta at 7 Hz, you are standing at the entrance of your own subconscious. Going down into theta and staying there is likely to lead to drowsiness and perhaps sleep. Staying in alpha is just meditating. But if you can go into the observer state, then dip down into your subconscious (home of memory and emotion with a language of imagery), then come back up, then dip down again, etc., you are crossing over, becoming an observer of your own history, feelings, etc.

Site to Train

Alpha theta training is conducted at two locations, O1 and P4. Use O1 referenced to A1 for a more visual experience; use P4 linked to A2 for a more physical/kinesthetic experience. O1 often results in more visual “trips” where P4 often involves more physical sensation to the memories and experiences.

How to Respond to Music in Alpha Theta Sessions

There are multiple pieces of music that play in our alpha theta sessions. You may advise your clients or yourself: “During the first piece, just let the mind be still and pay attention to that while the piano is playing. For the second piece, when the girl starts her chant, either visualize something you’d like to have in your life in as much detail as possible, or mentally replay a video of you doing something you don’t want to do but keep doing. But change the script in the movie in your mind, so you respond in some other way. Once you’ve visualized, then just go wherever your brain takes you, but remain aware of it. Once the male voice chants and then the violin begins to play. The violin is telling you that you’re on your way back, just a few more minutes.”

What You’ll Hear During A/T Training

The Pachelbel Canon is a 60-beat baroque piece which has been shown to be effective in increasing alpha levels in the brain. The instruction while the “piano is playing” is to disengage your mind from your thoughts: just watch them. When a thought comes in, don’t fight it and don’t ride it. Just notice it is there, as you notice the music and your body.

The Chant of Metta is a beautiful prayer–a blessing song sung in sweet childlike voices. When “the girl begins to sing” the client is to begin her visualization. After they have finished the visualization, then we tell them let your brain go where it goes.

Chant is a male voice, more of a primitive feel. Some see it as darker, scarier. The instruction here is just to continue your voyage, go where you go.

Finally the Meditation on Thais, the violin piece, tells us that we’ve turned for home. The music will end, we’ll open our eyes (when ready) and recall what we choose. The higher frequency violin line tends to draw the brain toward faster speeds as well.

Training More Than Plan Indicates

Once every five sessions is ample. However, if alpha theta training seems to be helpful, you can do one session per week through the first couple of circuits of block training.

Falling Asleep During Training

Alpha theta is designed to guide the brain to a hypnagogic state–and help it stay there. Stage 1 sleep is characterized by a reduction in alpha/beta and increase in theta. It’s also called the twilight state. If you have ever been hypnotized, you probably had trouble telling if you were awake or asleep, because the state is between the two.

I’ve rarely seen a person fall asleep training SMR or Alpha Theta, though it has certainly looked like it from time to time. Often when I’m watching a program on YouTube that my wife will come in and tell me that I was sleeping, when I can tell her what has been happening in the program. It looked like sleep but was not.

The Importance of 3Hz

There is a 3 Hz graph line because when a client is moving into an abreactive state the 3 Hz activity spikes up; it is usually rapid and not a slow spike. Since delta is often the place where dissociative experiences are buried, a sudden burst of delta 3 Hz can indicate that the client has dropped out of theta and gone down to a place where there may be trauma being re-activated. On the other hand, it’s not unlikely that all of us have dissociated material and that one of the deeper results of good alpha theta is allowing that material to be integrated.

Uncomfortable Reactions

If you have uncomfortable reactions to alpha theta training, you can suggest to your brain several times a day during the 3-4 days preceding an A/T session that you would prefer that it bring up material that is less upsetting to you (though usually brains do that on their own). Also, remember the powerful ability to prepare a visualization to carry into the session. If there is a behavior or habit that you would like to change, visualize yourself in detail going into a situation that would normally trigger that behavior (or has recently done so), but change the script. When you get to the point in the visualization where you would normally do X, take a breath and smile and do Y instead. See yourself doing it. Once you have run through the visualization once or twice, your brain will normally begin bringing up material of its own, and you can drop the visualization. You are carrying a new program into your subconscious–an image-based program, since imagery is the language of the subconscious–and dropping it there. Repeat these several times over several sessions, and you’ll be surprised how the patterns begin to change automatically.

Another thing to mention is that the first goal of A/T is to move into the still/present observer state, where you are watching what is happening within and around you–that’s alpha. The visualization will help carry you down into theta (the 7Hz visualization and memory state), but if you can go there as an observer, that distance will help you deal with what the brain brings up without falling into it quite so hard.

One thing that I find very helpful–absent a therapist you can talk with after the session–is to either write or (even easier) get yourself a little digital recorder. After the session, you may choose to keep your eyes closed and just dictate what you remember, how you felt, any connections that come up for you, etc. Some people prefer to get up and go out for a walk and do the same thing. As with dreams, in many cases moving the imagery and memories into language helps to integrate the left and right sides of the experience and remove its more primitive power.

It’s no surprise that all that stuff is down there deep, and probably you are well aware that it will have to be integrated for you to be able truly to let it go and move past it, but alpha theta training should not be a frightening or seriously painful process.

Bipolar Protocols

What is a Bipolar Protocol

Any time you train in a channel, you are training the difference between the active and reference electrode signals. The fact is that you are training the pyramidal neurons close to the line between the active and reference sites whose axons happen to be pretty much parallel to the line. In a sense you are always training an area and not just one spot, because that’s what’s being read.

A bipolar montage, like C3/C4, is active at both ends of the training area. You can reduce the difference between them in, say, theta by increasing theta at the lower site, or decreasing it at the higher, or doing both, or moving them both down or both up. You have no way of knowing how brain activity is being changed to meet the training challenge, but sometimes bipolar montages do things that monopolar montages don’t. That’s why we use them. It’s hard to say, but we have no idea how a bipolar montage is working; we just know it sure is working!

In contrast, a monopolar montage, like C3/A1, trains to reduce or increase the difference between the two sites in whatever frequencies you choose. But you know that A1 (the left earlobe) isn’t going to change, because there’s little EEG there! So you can say you are training C3. But the reality is that you are training that same line. It’s just that there’s not much activity at one end of it.

BAL4C RH Bipolar/FRE4C RH Bipolar – 4 Channel Right Hemisphere Bipolar

How To: https://provider.brain-trainer.com/resources/bal4c-rh-bipolar

This particular design, the BAL4C RH Bipolar, is a type of bipolar training that trains a combination of effective bipolar montages. They are:

C4/T4 (reducing fast/increasing slow differences between the sites) often very helpful for reducing physical hyperactivity.
Fp2/T4 (reducing fast/increasing slow differences between the sites) often very helpful for reducing racing thoughts.
T3/T4 (reducing all differences between the sites) for emotional stability
P4/T4 (reducing fast/increasing slow differences between the sites) often very helpful for reducing sensorial sensitivity.

I do not generally use this protocol for slow-brained children or adults, but those with fast activity often respond very well to it. The protocol is automatically triggered on the plan (with an *) by one or more items on the Client Report relating to the issues the protocol trains.

Note that this protocol is training right hemisphere linkages–except for the classic T3/T4–to reduce excessive activation over the right, which keeps that hemisphere from functioning effectively.

The Bach Fugues have been shown to activate the right-hemisphere’s ability to function more integratively and dealing with complexity/novelty instead of the more rules-based and habitual strategy of the left. One explanation for this is that in the fugues, Bach works with multiple “voices” playing different lines that operate in counterpoint. The complexity overwhelms the left hemisphere.

If you happen to be training with BioExplorer, I chose videos that not only play the music but also provide a visual representation of the voices. I don’t train in the way outlined. I turn off Music and leave on Video (in BioExplorer the video player is loaded with the three videos/audios). I ask the client to keep eyes open, listen to the music and watch the video. I explain that in the beginning, where most pieces start with a single voice, he can see how the visual matches the audio, moving up and down and using longer or shorter notes. Then, when the second musical voice appears, the video adds a second line of a different color, and the client can follow how they work together, etc. I tell people it’s not about understanding, but about seeing and hearing and letting the brain make the connection, just enjoying the music.

I usually use the design for about 6 minutes–two of the shorter fugues (about 3 minutes each) or the Great Fugue, which is about 6 minutes. I run them with BxShadow. I usually use them with eyes open, at least to begin. Leave the Video feedback on, but turn OFF the music feedback. There is music in the video, and adding the MIDI feedback often makes the sound more confusing and unpleasant.

I explain to the client that she will hear the music, starting with a single “voice”, and I invite them to watch the visual and see how the length of the notes is shown in the width of its visual representation and the pitch by its height. The visual music follows the audible music. Once they get that, then I ask them to notice how there are different voices, each with a different color, and how they produce different melodies and how the melodies work together in counterpoint.

After someone has gone through perhaps all three (two sessions), then I may ask them to try closing their eyes and listening to how the voices work together.

This is a very powerful protocol for bringing the right hemisphere, when it is way over-activated, into a more appropriate state. Music is a right-hemisphere domain, and tasks which are complex and don’t have any simple rules (left hemisphere) that apply to them use the right hemisphere. The combination can bring an overheated brain into a very different space very quickly. I prefer to feed it a bite or two at a time to minimize the potential for it to rebound.

Since this protocol is generally triggered in the plan by the Client Summary, it will often appear even when the brain is already very slow. I have not found it to be as powerful in those situations. I might use it once, just to see how the client reacts, but I often drop it after that with a slow brain.

Bach Fugues playlist

Using different videos as feedback

You can certainly use other pieces of music. One warning, though: My sister was a professional musician (pianist/organist). When I used the BAL4c RH bipolar design with her, I was startled by her response. She began to criticize the way the piece had been played, the tempo, etc. compared to the way she liked to play it. In other words, instead of activating her right hemisphere, she ended up processing it rationally (left-hemisphere) and critically. That’s the opposite of what we would ideally hope to do with that protocol.

Coherence Training

Coherence just means the relationship is stable. It could be in phase (zero phase angle), 180 degrees out of phase (peak lined up with trough or anywhere in between. Coherence speaks to stability of the relationship. Phase speaks to the timing. Synchrony is when the timing relationship between two signals is consistently the same and the firing and recharge periods line up.

Generally, we expect to see low coherences in faster brainwaves and higher coherences in slower brainwaves.

Fastwave Coherence

High fastwave coherences tend to be related either to excessive sensitivity or to locking up the function in an area (to avoid sensitivity). In the parietals, which should be working independently to help process sensory information, when fast wave coherence is too high, sensory integration is slow or incomplete. In the frontals this pattern often relates to rigidity in thought, inability to switch tasks smoothly, etc.

Coherence and amplitude tend to run pretty closely together. One of the simplest ways to train down coherence is to train down beta amplitude.

High fastwave coherences could easily be related to a level of tension in the client (anxious, trying really hard to sit still, etc.) or electromagnetic noise in the environment, since coherence simply measures the degree to which signals in different places appear to be linked (i.e. connected to one another or coming from the same third place. You do your best while conducting an assessment to minimize these, but I often see high fastwave coherence readings in an assessment that I consider suspect,. Unless all coherences are high in all frequencies at all sites, I usually put a coherence protocol in the training plan if the symptoms/training goals suggest it might really be there (rigidity in thought, anxiety, getting stuck in patterns, etc.) The rule is the same as with anything else in the assessment (e.g. hot temporals that “aren’t there” when you go to train them): move on to the next option.

If you find a client who really does have high fastwave coherence values (EC or EO), you’ll find out why we train them: it often makes a very big difference for the client to reduce them.

Low coherences

Neurons that can’t shift into the coherent relationship in alpha are likely never really letting go of beta, trying to burst back into it at intervals when there is no task, and thus not able to simply link up to the sub-cortical generators that produce the alpha rhythms.

That would certainly lead to them being “tired” or anxious, both of which could have an effect on attention and processing.

Multiband Coherence Designs

The idea of training is not necessarily that the feedback will teach your brain something new; rather it is designed to reflect when the brain moves toward a more desired state. It’s a mirror. So the idea of MBC down is–much like most other trainings–to find that place in yourself where your mind is still and you are present/aware–the observer–of what is going on within and around you.

I personally prefer the Manual protocols for Multi-Band Coherence. The auto ones change the targets to fit what the brain is doing–training the software to follow the brain. It’s not uncommon for a trainee to experience lots of feedback, but there no movement in the brain.

With the Manual versions, I ask the client to get into as quiet and still a place as possible, then I click the A=>M button at the bottom of each of the 4 thresholds on the trainer screen, which sets the manual targets (M) to where the auto-threshold thinks they should be (A). Then I play with the bars a bit, dragging them up or down, until I find a value where most or all of them are scoring (see the number just below the threshold bargraph) 40-60% or more. If possible, I set all 4 targets at that level, though sometimes I’ll have to set one at a different level either because it is much more successful at staying down or has a much more difficult time (and needs a higher target.)

That way, instead of getting 75% feedback, no matter what your brain does, you get feedback on one or more of the bars as they manage to shift below the threshold. As you are already doing, just watch and listen, recognizing when you hear all 4 tones plus the deep bass tone that you are doing very well. Usually over a series of sessions, you’ll be able to move lower and lower with the targets–and sometimes you may have a session where you manage to stay below all of them most of the time.

Remember that you never set them below 40. If your brain is able to stay below 40 in a frequency, that feedback should stay on all the time. When you can set them all at 40 and score well, you’ve made very solid progress.

Because rigidity in fast-wave synchrony forms a kind of frame which​ ​locks the brain’s homeostasis, it’s not uncommon that people who don’t shift coherence much have a hard time shifting their activation patterns.​

Coherence and “Phase Resets”

I’ve recently heard or read people talking about “resets” rather as if the brain where a computer operating system and we could generally reset the whole system. A lot of people talk about harmonizing the brain and balancing it, as well.

My understanding of a phase reset is that it is something that happens in an oscillatory system, usually in response to some stimulus. It’s not a thing you do to a whole brain or to produce a stable state of phase synchrony. When two sites are required to work together to perform a task, there is a momentary shift in the phase curve to allow them to link up (like your phone ringing and you answering it).

Outside of some specific frequencies during cortical resting states (and specific task-related linking) most of the brain’s activity isn’t in phase most of the time. So as cool as “in-phase” and “synchrony” sound, they aren’t necessarily expected long-term states.

When you train to change the relationship between two homologous sites, like C3/C4 or T3/T4, the most common protocol is to reduce the difference in all frequencies and increase it in SMR. If you train to decrease the difference in amplitude, the argument goes, one way the brain can meet the challenge is to move the waveforms out of phase. And that makes sense, except what is the waveform from 2-11 Hz or from 19-38 Hz. Those aren’t frequencies, they’re rather broad bands of frequencies, so the chances of their being in phase in the first place are basically nil.

When you train to increase the difference in 12-15 Hz, you could achieve that by moving the two sites out of phase. Once again my response is very simple: If the client responds positively to that protocol-as many do–does it matter what the effect on phase was?

Exacerbating Low Coherence

If you are exacerbating the situation, whatever it may be, then the client won’t respond well to the training. If the client responds to the training, I guess exacerbating was what was needed. Since most bipolar montages train to REDUCE the difference in slow frequencies (thus theoretically moving the two sites more into phase)…isn’t that what you wanted anyway?

Get used to not knowing “why” something works in training. Think of all the high-powered academics and brain scientists who published for decades as an absolute surety that you are born with all the neurons you will ever have. Not fun to suddenly have to swallow that…oops, yes…well, it seems neurons ARE added to the brain throughout our lives. At least a trainer has the reward of seeing people with whom he works change their lives in positive and lasting ways–even if he can’t “explain” exactly how or why it happened.

Rocking During Coherence Training

The idea of what we call rocking simply is that a brain which tries to keep coherence high often has trouble figuring out how to make it go down. Starting off by training it UP, the direction it already wants to go can pull it out of its comfort zone but on the upside, which is easier for it to do. Then, after 2 minutes, switching to DOWN training coherence asks the brain to go from too high back down, and it often then goes down lower than it’s accustomed. After 2 minutes of that, you train it back up for two minutes, then back down (and keep training down). This creates a kind of momentum and helps break up the stuck-point in the brain, so it often results in the client being able to do what they couldn’t do training straight ahead. People up north probably know about rocking a car to get out of being stuck in snow; in the south being stuck in mud. Same concept.

If you are supposed to be training down, then once you get it going down, forget the rocking. That’s just to break free of any stuckness. You might rock your car back and forth to get out of a snowdrift, but once you are driving, you don’t need to keep doing it.

Default Mode Network (DMN)

The DMN protocol trains to increase synchrony in Theta, Alpha and Gamma between sites in the front and back of the brain–especially related to the so-called default-mode network (what your brain is doing when it’s not doing anything), and it is related to self-awareness and knowledge of oneself–some say to empathy as well. It’s not necessarily a peak state protocol, though a solid default mode network may be a precursor to the peak state.

The DMN is described as “what the brain is doing when it is not doing anything.”   It’s the brain’s resting state.

It appears that the ability to synchronize between Fz and Pz helps to link the brain’s inner and outer awarenesses, which is a good thing.

Synchrony in theta, alpha and gamma are all commonly trained, and clients often report feeling calmer and quieter after such a session.   You can train eyes closed or open.

There are many different EEG patterns that can relate to anxiety or depression or anger.   You’re welcome to try training the default mode network and not worry about what else is going on in the brain, but in many clients I’ve worked with, clients don’t produce coherence between Fz and Pz, because their brains are stuck in patterns like a R/L reversal of beta or hot temporal lobes or high fastwave coherence in the frontal lobes. Some clients even show high fastwave coherence between Fz and Pz or normal levels of alpha, theta and gamma synchrony in those sites.

I’ve found it generally helpful to train the DMN as I would any other area. It depends on the client and on what is already there.   As other issues start to respond, then the DMN training seems to work better as well.

LIFE

The LIFE Game is for use with HEG. See (INSERT LINKS HERE) for more information on HEG training.

Baseline setting

The QWIZ shows you when the baseline is ready. The yellow HEG light stops blinking when the baseline has been selected. If it stops blinking before you are ready to start training, press the link button beneath the green electrode plug on the front of the Wiz. That will restart the baseline calculation.

One trick I use before starting to climb or dive Is to get myself into the opposite state first. While I’m waiting for the yellow light to stop blinking I go into a focus state before I’m going to dive.

There are three values I watch, because they show me different things, and I can often help the client see how he or she is progressing with one or more of them in each session.

1. The percent increase (or decrease) from baseline shows me how well the client is able to activate or de-activate. Early in training, most clients will rise and fall, remaining more or less around the baseline. As training proceeds and they begin to build improved perfusion systems and state control, they are able to rise further, or dive deeper.

2. The percent change from highest climb to deepest dive appears to be a very good measure of the client’s range–ability to shift from maintaining closed focus to maintaining open focus.

3. The Average AI Points per minute are an excellent measure of ability to sustain a state. The client must produce 1/2 second of ratio values increasing/maintaining (or decreasing/maintaining) in order to reach an attention index of 100. Having reached it, he must maintain it for an additional period (half a second) in order to score an AI point. It’s possible, if the client sustains without a drop (see attached) to score a point every half second. However any value that doesn’t equal or improve on the prior one drops the Attention Index, so the climb or dive must be maintained again for half a second to return to 100 and start scoring again. This is the reason sometimes the client can produce a whole string of lifeforms, while others they produce one at a time with pauses between them.

The Average AI Points allow us to measure comparable values regardless of session length. Many clients will start early sessions achieving 0, 1 or 2 AI points. Since the points can be scored climbing or diving, getting a higher score requires that the client learn to do both well and sustain both. Values in the middle 20’s are very good.

The client Scores points by staying in climb or dive mode over a period, as explained above. Each score places a life form on the screen. But the number of points scored changes based on what type of life form–and that changes based on percent change from baseline. In climbing, the lowest climbs produce rabbits, which give 5 points each. When the percent increase rises further, dogs (10 points), lions (15 points), horses (20 points) and elephants (25 points) are added. The same is true in reverse, when diving, for fish, turtles, sharks, dolphins and whales.

I suppose if you want to watch one value, use the score. The greater the rise, the greater the value of the animals placed. The more stable the rise, the more animals placed in a given period. The only problem is that, as one increases the training periods, the score will tend to rise just as a result of time–even though it becomes harder to sustain a high AI points, the longer the session.

It’s perfectly possible for the client to raise/maintain only 2-3% above the baseline but hold it quite effectively, producing a higher AI points per minute, but obviously the percent change will be very low, and the score as well.

There are 3 things that I track in HEG training (though I always remind the client that DOING the exercise–focusing on it–is more important than the score you got. Some times/days your PFC is stronger, other times the blood is elsewhere. Just like working out any part of your body–sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder, to do the same exercise, but the exercise always helps if you work on it.

I watch the % change from the baseline as a measure of the client’s ability to activate and de-activate that day. AI Points/minute rise as the client is able to sustain the target state (climbing or diving). The Range from highest climb to deepest dive is a good measure of the client’s progress in both areas.

If you have been saving your sessions and clicking on the button before each to identify the site (Left, Right or Middle), you should be able to graph them all automatically.

AI points/minute (Stability): When you score an AI point, if you are climbing and out of the water (or diving and in the water) you will hear the “shing” sound and see an animal added to the landscape. If you are climbing but are in the water (or diving but are out of the water) you won’t get this feedback, but you’ll hear a click. You can score AI points even if you are NOT scoring Game points. AI points are a measure of you brain’s ability to SUSTAIN the desired state.

In each second,LIFE samples your HEG signal 10 times/second. If each measure is equal to or greater than the last (climbing) or equal to or less than the last (diving) for a second, the AI graph on the trainer screen will reach the top–AI of 100. Then, if you continue for another half second without going the wrong direction, you score an AI point. You may have seen times in your training where you placed a whole series of animals on the landscape one right after the other. That happens when you manage to climb or dive without a break for multiple half-seconds. The moment the brain shows a change in direction–even 1 step–the AI drops down, and you have to sustain the climb or dive for a second again to be able to start scoring AI points. So, for example, if you climb steadily for 10 readings (1 second) and reach an AI of 100, then sustain for a half second, then miss a step, then you maintain for another second to reach AI 100 again, you’ll score 1 AI point in 3 seconds. If you get to an AI of 100 and keep climbing without a drop for the next two seconds, you’ll score 4 AI points in 3 seconds.

There are two graphs at the bottom of the trainer page you can look at after the session is over to see how steadily you were able to maintain the desired state.

Game points/minute (Control): Obviously the more stable your brain’s ability to climb or dive, the more animals you will place each minute. But animals also have point values. As you begin, you’ll place (for example) rabbits on the screen–each worth 5 points. If you go up and down a lot, indicating a weakness in your perfusion system that supplies your neurons with blood, you may find yourself always placing rabbits–only rabbits. But as you climb further, you start to place dogs, then lions, then horses, and finally elephants. Each dog is worth 10 points, lions 15, horses 20 and elephants 25. The higher (or deeper) you go, the more Game Points you score for each AI point. So Game Points/Minute is a measure of how strongly you were able to activate or de-activate AND how consistently you were able to maintain the state.

Both AI points and Game Points are divided by the number of minutes of training, so they can be compared in a 1 minute segment and a 10-minute segment.

Range: As you are climbing or diving, in addition to the “shing” sound when you score a point, you may also hear a “ding”. If you are watching the screen, you’ll see a little flag (if climbing) or Life Preserver (if diving) appear on the landscape and briefly you’ll see a numeric value. This tells you that you have reached a new high or low for that session. The third measure for you performance is how high you are able to climb when climbing, and how deep you are able to dive when diving. These are measured against the climbing or diving baseline.

The ideal is that you are able to shift quickly back and forth from concentration to consciousness (climbing to diving) and that you are able to sustain each state when in it. Range measures the highest percent above the baseline you achieved when climbing to the deepest percent below baseline when diving. The greater this range, the more effectively your prefrontal cortex will be able to function.

Closed Focus / Open Focus

These are two states which are natural and (ideally) constantly shifting. When we are simply aware of what is going on around us (and within us), without trying to do anything, that’s open focus. When we shift into doing–focusing and processing–that’s closed focus. Just because someone has difficulty sustaining the closed focus state doesn’t necessarily mean he will be good at open focus.

Training is about flexibility, about ability to sustain. Do all three sites, both types of training, in every session.

Low Left Side Ratio

Using the gym analogy, you would not necessarily stop working your right arm, even if it were stronger than your left. The goal is not to make everything the same. It is to exercise everything. If you decide only to train one side or the other, you run a much greater risk of creating imbalances and reversals.

The baseline doesn’t mean much. If you are using a Peanut or Pendant with LIFE, the baseline will be all over the place. If you are using the WIZes, all of them should be set to around 100.

Client instructions

I tell my clients essentially the same thing to begin:

There’s a place inside of you where your mind stops thinking, stops “trying”, stops judging if you are doing it “right” or not. It’s a place where you are still and in the moment, not thinking about the past or the future or thinking at all. You’re just HERE and NOW. The LIFE game gives you a mirror so your brain can try things (not your mind), just as it did when you first learned to ride a bike. When you are close to that place in yourself–or you pass through it briefly–the brain on the screen will dive or climb and put animals on the screen. Then your brain will know it is getting closer.

What many people don’t get about LIFE is that both climbing and diving are the same place in your head. They are both stillness and presence in this moment. The difference is that when you focus your eyes on a single point and achieve that state, you will climb. When you defocus your eyes (or close them) you will dive.

One is called closed-focus (concentration); the other is called open-focus (consciousness).

I teach my clients to breathe out very slowly and count the seconds and see if they can empty their lungs in 7 seconds then let the air be drawn back in (and count to usually 3 seconds). Once they learn to do this, they keep their minds busy counting and their attention is focused on the movement of their breath. I ask them just to pay attention to the game then as they breathe. Do they climb better when breathing in or breathing out? Do they dive better with eyes closed or eyes partly open but not “watching” anything?

These are first few sessions. Once they find the feeling within themselves, then, like the dancer at the barre, they can move ahead at their own pace.

Climbing and Diving

If you start climbing and set your baseline, then go down for a while, it can be very frustrating (same if you are diving and start by climbing a ways), because you can go in the right direction but not get back into the range where you get feedback for a long time.

In a case like that, I keep hitting the Capture Baseline button if it’s early in the session, so any movement in the correct direction results in feedback. I’ll often pause the session if it is a clear problem (I’ve reset several times), and I’ll point out to the trainee, “Gee, in the beginning, before you were trying to climb/dive, you were doing much better. Since you started trying, you’ve been going the wrong direction. So maybe what you think is concentrating/being still is not really what it is. The game will tell you when you find the right thing in YOUR brain, so let your brain test out several things–always remembering that a still mind, relaxed state and focused/defocused eyes will probably be closer to the right direction.”

In diving, you can click Dive Now multiple times, and I believe it won’t reset the timer. Capturing baseline does reset the timer, so I do that only in the first minute or so if the client is going nowhere.

No feedback=no learning.

Sudden signal increase

Actually, when the brain jumps very suddenly (shows the parachute) that’s almost always related to either a bad baseline or artifact–the client moving his/her head around.

I would start both of these by teaching them the breathing/counting process I’ve described previously and have them work with EC on the diving only mode until they learn what diving feels like inside their heads.  Then I’d tell them that climbing is the same state, except they need to focus their eyes.

Don’t think, don’t “try”, don’t judge how well you are doing.  Just pay attention.

Squash and Squish

The Brain-Trainer Squash designation uses 2-38 Hz, so you train down the whole band. If the brain is dominated by 23-38, for example, that frequency is most likely be be affected by the Squash, but the Squash also protects against other frequencies surging up as the high-beta goes down.

The Squish is a mini-Squash. It combines 2 channels of signal at a selected frequency (23-38 is one option) and trains down the total.

The frequency (FRE) designs allow trainers to do squishes, squashes and windowed squashes (with open or closed windows), including using different bands in the 2 channels, in a single design that uses buttons

Sum Difference (Sum Diff)

In simplest terms, I use Sum Difference when there is a strong differential in a group of frequencies between homologous sites and there are one or more frequency bands that show excessive activation. Training down the sum trains down the activity in both channels, training down difference reduces the asymmetry. You can also use a bipolar montage to achieve the same effect.

The sum difference designs allow you to choose the bands that are most asymmetrical for your difference training and those which are most out of line with the rest of the brain for the sum training. You can use any combination of the options.

The Sum Difference protocol trains down the total activity at two sites in one frequency band and trains down the difference between the two sites at another (could be the same or different band at the same time. A person with a lot of activity in the very fast (19-38 Hz) band who also has much more on the right side than on the left could train down the sum of the two (reducing overall fast activity) and, at the same time, train down the difference in that frequency between right and left, making them more alike.

I produced this approach as an option to 1C bipolar training. As has often been mentioned on the list, bipolar training has the potential problem that as we train down T3-T4 we have no idea whether the brain is responding by reducing the side that is too high or training up the side that is low. By training in two channels, you can see what is happening. And it is argued that training down T3-T4 doesn’t necessarily reduce the total of the two, whereas Sum Difference is challenging the brain to do that as well and giving us information as to whether that is happening or not.

When your assessment shows two sites that have a large asymmetry in one or the other in specific frequencies, for example, a lot more high beta in CH2 than in CH1, you could train to reduce the DIFFERENCE between the two sites. Then you would look at the histograms page and see if there is a frequency band (for example 2-6 Hz) where both sides are very high. You could train to reduce the SUM of the two sites in that frequency.

TAG Sync (Theta Alpha Gamma Synchrony)

Alpha, theta, and gamma synchrony are desired states, but a bit less than half the assessments I see already synchronize. It would be like training a cheerleader to jump up and down. The assessment will show your synchrony eyes-closed, eyes-open and at task between each site pair in theta, alpha and gamma (and the other frequencies as well). There are alpha synchrony, gamma synchrony, one-band synchrony for delta, theta or alpha, two-band synchrony for alpha and (you choose) theta or gamma. Same as TAG sync in terms of what it does.

Two-Person Synchrony Training

This is not something done very often, but training two people together to increase their brainwave synchrony can be done. Keep in mind, though, that there’s a big difference between doing alpha training or alpha theta training with two people and doing synchrony training. You’ll need something that allows you to send the same stereo signal to each of two headphones at the same time.

Alpha training–or any frequency-band training–is easily be done with the FRE2C design. Hook up one person in channel one and the other in channel 2 and, as suggested, have them hold hands (or in some other way maintain contact between their bodies) with the ground on one of them.

Using the standard FRE2C protocol, you could set frequencies different for each of them. For example, if one has very slow alpha, you could train up 9-13, and the other with fast alpha could train down 13-38 and up 6-13. One potential problem is that the feedback gets a bit unclear, since I may be hearing feedback related to my partner’s brain rather than my own and vice-versa (e.g. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to, but she’s not, so the feedback gives my brain a wrong message.

If I were going to do this, I’d probably do FRE2C with inhibit and reward bands for each based on their brains. 2-9 inhibit and 13-38 inhibit with 9-13 reward would be ideal for both eventually to increase their alpha levels. That design would allow you to track each one of them for slow and fast inhibits and reward activity separately, though the feedback would be combined.

As you may have noticed, doing synchrony training within a single brain is not easy, and doing it between two brains is much more difficult (for the brains). I would use CON4C Alpha Sync. That trains coherence and phase within each brain (CH1/CH2 and CH3/CH4), and it trains between them (CH1/CH3 and CH2/CH4). Each link has its own MIDI sound, so hopefully the brains can begin to sort out which is which, and a melody line which provides information on the total response. I wouldn’t try gamma training between two brains.

As for outcomes, having the two trainees perhaps feel closer at the end of training is cool, but consider asking them to sit side-by-side, holding hands and just listen to some nice 60-beat Baroque Music like Pachelbel Canon, Air on a G-string or others with eyes closed for 20 minutes and see if you get the same result. They don’t need to pay you to do that, and I’m guessing the effect would be largely the same.

The synchrony training, if they are actually able to begin to sync up from time to time, could be much more powerful.