10 ms·

A phone app called Lumenate claims to alter the brain’s rhythms (2021)

189 points by greenSunglass 4y ago

b3morales 4y ago
I'm surprised there was no mention of binaural beats, which are used in a similar way. I'd expect them to be complementary to the visual stimulus that this app provides. Though only experimentation would tell for sure.
MrYellowP 4y ago
99% of what he wrote is unrelated to what he should have written about, but this is no surprise given that it reads like it's written by someone who, not once in his life, experienced a high. Because he had barely anything to share about the experience (which means he definitely was NOT high), he filled the article with as much as he can about everything around what he should be talking about.
- TrainedMonkey 4y ago
  Modern journalism is much more about selling the story rather than listing the facts and citing evidence. He did state that he experienced Altered State of Consciousness and that at least some students in 19 strong study did too. The result is unsurprising to me because that is a known property of meditation. The app itself combined traditional audio meditation techniques with a visual component, so the real question is what visual component adds to the experience. Given that audio stimuli works to help induce meditation, it is highly likely that there is a way to tie in a visual component in a synergistic way. As someone who dabbles in meditation I would like to see a study with a lot more people split into 3 groups: control group who are put in same environment without anything, group with audio component only, and a group with both audio and video component. P.S. in additional to audio stimuli there are many other techniques that can induce ASC: concentrating really hard (this one is for flow most of us are familiar with), smells, walking, breathing patterns (including breathing super rapidly and over oxygenating), dancing, yoga/exercise routine, etc.
- jalino23 4y ago
  what is it like to experience a high?
  - loves_mangoes 4y ago
    Many people have tried to describe it and report their experiences. See https://www.erowid.org/ https://www.erowid.org/ for a large collection
    - fluoridation 4y ago
      While these are worth a read, IMO if language was sufficient to properly communicate the experience it would not be worth having.
  - travisjungroth 4y ago
    It's incredibly broad. I'm not trying to quibble, but it depends on what you mean by "high". There are two major overlapping groups of experiences you could be talking about. There's the euphoria and energizing high associated with stimulants (see Jones, Casey 1970). Then there's the psychedelic high. The second one is what's being talked about here. (Again, these experiences aren't distinct but it would more clear if they each had their own word). The experience of a psychedelic high is incredibly broad. It's like asking "what's it like to experience a vacation?". It might be relaxing if you're on the beach in Barbados. It might be exhilarating if you're skiing in the Alps. It might be serious work if you're cave diving in Tulum. Then there's the individual experience. Do you feel relaxed and free from your job? Do you feel stressed because you can't stop thinking about it? Fighting with your family? Connecting with them? Lonely? Content? In defense of the person you're replying to, someone could give you an impression they've never been on a vacation by the way they talk about it. It's not that their experience is different than yours, it's just that what they're saying doesn't seemed to be informed by any sort of experience at all. Even though psychedelic highs are incredibly broad, there are a few common (usually opposing) themes. The first is hallucinations. These are perceptions that aren't real, or more generously, outside of consensus reality. If the paint on the wall looks like it's flowing, it won't to anyone else in the same room. At least not in the same way. You could feel a snake wrapping around you, but a video recording wouldn't show one. Then there are delusions, which are beliefs disconnected from reality. You believe you're Jesus. You believe someone is out to get you. You believe nothing bad could possibly happen to you. You could feel complete boundary dissolution. Everything is one. Or, strong separateness. You're talking to the parts of yourself as distinct, external parts. Or are communicating with a spirit. Faded memories can come back, or you can have trouble remembering anything. Fearlessness or fear, heart rate increase or decrease, peace or terror. Decreased motor control is the only thing I can think of close to universal, but it isn't. There are reports of people having temporary increases in motor function, often in an area that is deficient due to physical trauma. Anyone who answers your question with a few simple declarations is like answering "what's it like experiencing a vacation?" with "You take a break from your job, go somewhere sunny with your family, have a nice time doing fun and relaxing things, then feel refreshed when you go back to work". It's not even an oversimplification. It's a sample presented as a summary. Suitable for a telling a 3-year-old what "vacation" means, but certainly not right. This page is great if you'd like more examples, and examples are the best you're going to get: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Subjective_effect_index https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Subjective_effect_index
labrador 4y ago
I haven't tried the app but I know from experience that ymmv. For example, ASMR videos on YouTube do nothing for me, but some people say they experience frisson. I am susceptible to trypophobia and avoid any pictures with patterns of holes like that.
josephpmay 4y ago
This sounds to me more like hypnotism, where you're using external stimuli to induce a specific brain wave state, rather than hallucinogenic tripping, where you're inhibiting some of your brain's filtering mechanisms to see phenomena and form connections that would normally be filtered out. Honestly, this sounds more useful, at least in app form. Not a great article, but I'll definitely be trying it out myself.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > inhibiting some of your brain's filtering mechanisms to see phenomena and form connections that would normally be filtered out. I think it's more like inhibiting some of the functioning of your brain by clogging a type of receptor, so your sensations are severely distorted and you have to work around the damage by processing input using other pathways.
  - braingenious 4y ago
    GP’s description is accurate. Traditional psychedelics work by inhibiting the reticular activating system(1), which indeed is important for cognitive filtering. Phrases like “clogging” and “damage” aren’t particularly scientific or accurate. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_formation#Ascending_reticular_activating_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_formation#Ascendin...
nwh5jg56df 4y ago
[dead]
jtode 4y ago
I built a copy of the dreamachine once - I had a Re/Search book about Burroughs, Gyson, etc, and there were lots of pictures, possibly there were even measurements, I don't recall. Anyways, I just got some thick paper and cut out the holes, the hardest part was finding a working record player that did 78 in the late 90s. It wasn't nothing, but it also wasn't much. I also remember trying out a more fun device at the third Lollapalooze where you lay with your face to the sun and the thing fit over your face like a snorkel mask, with a little plastic tube you blew into and which spun a thingy and did the same effect. What was neat about that one was that you could control the intensity of the visuals by blowing harder or softer, by tilting your head for more or less light, etc - more interaction makes better fun. A more capable than me friend even had a go at an electronic version with LEDs, but it was also more boring. I wish I had bought the snorkel mask.
- kwatsonafter 4y ago
  Adding the breath to the equation is really smart. Thanks for sharing. Brion Gysin is one of my favorite artists.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  Had a lot more fun making a dreamachine than using it. Kinda a big shrug.
fallingfrog 4y ago
Wanted to try it, but it asks for you to sign in via google or Facebook etc, and I can’t think of any non-pathological reason it would need you to do that.
- gnuj3 4y ago
  You must have had closed eyes when you tried to sign in as you can register using just an email.
  - tomduncalf 4y ago
    Or Sign In with Apple on iOS devices which also hides your email from them
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  Same here on the subject of having to sign up/log in - although it does offer the option to log in using an email address. I do not want an application with the specific intention of changing my state of mind to be connected and transferring personally identifiable information to some remote mothership in any way so thanks but no thanks - no neurocannula for me.
mgdlbp 4y ago
Very similar to last year's post on the hallucination-inducing 15 Hz red/black 'Ganzflicker', https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27669211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27669211 Direct link to fullscreen flicker: (warning) kerblooee.github.io/ganzflicker
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  Yeah, there's serious study on this. Like, my dad did the Ganzfeld experiment back in the 80s with the ping pong balls over the eyes with red LED's in them... There's even serious scientific study on it [1] looking into the differences of the effect between people with mental imagery vs aphantasia. Here's another study which looks at fMRI scans of people with the goggles on [2]. This Vice commercial-for-an-app-as-an-article doesn't even touch on any of that, which is pretty weak even by the journalistic standards of this publication. I'm sure I've seen older Vice articles that weren't just an ad for an app which delved into this more seriously. I've tried both white and red light myself and found the red light you linked to be a LOT more evocative. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34172274/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34172274/ [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75019-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75019-3
  - mgdlbp 4y ago
    Tbf OP does link to research of its own[3] by a team with "a relationship" to the app. [1] is actually what last year's submission is based on. Following the references, there's quite a number of papers on flicker-induced entoptic phenomena. [3] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/511766v1.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/511766v1.full
    - jamal-kumar 4y ago
      Thanks for pointing that out. It's really cool, have you tried it before? I seemed to get imagery of animal-like faces, like morphing between intricate and defined portraits of owls and wolves from what I recall, like what you might see on one of those tshirts. It seems like it might be great for coming up with interesting illustrations, or other creative process stuff as mentioned in the article (I'll give it credit at least for mentioning Margaret Atwood and her liking it as a tool for these reasons as I'm a big fan of her work)
olyjohn 4y ago
I'm not sure if this is related, but one time while tripping balls, we got a kaleidescope and put up to a CRT that was displaying only static. Looking through it was the craziest feeling that I had ever gotten while tripping. We even filmed it with our phones and watched it again and it did the same thing. It was like we all got sucked into the visual. You could almost feel it pulling you in. But it created other crazy visual feelings too. You could see the individual RGB pixels in the CRT all lighting up randomly. Highly recommend if you're gonna trip balls. Haven't tried it sober though to know if it could have the same effects.
- flycaliguy 4y ago
  Can you do a Show HN with some more technical details?
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    Probably not worth a full Show HN. Just get an old TV turn it on so a dead channel so you just get "snow" on the screen. Get a cheapie Kaleidoscope and put it near or up against the glass. Look through it at the CRT and enjoy the show. Helps a lot if the room is dark too.
- adv0r 4y ago
  I think that for a non native english speaker, I'll head to Duckduck go to search for "Tripping balls" as a verb
  - zalebz 4y ago
    probably should just head to UrbanDictionary for looking up slang
  - lgas 4y ago
    "having a quite powerful psychedelic experience"
    - yesenadam 4y ago
throwaway290 4y ago
Another subscription-based app. I'd get it if I could buy it, even if I needed to pay more.
- eafkuor 4y ago
  Yes! I'm so sick of this trend. Why does everything need to be subscription based nowadays?
  - rusk 4y ago
    Because it reflects the costs involved in keeping an app up to date on an ongoing basis
    - hansword 4y ago
      Right, right, because these subscription apps never close down and leave all their customers with nothing...
    - tsol 4y ago
      This implies that I want to pay for an app to stay up to date. I do not. Obviously this would be more expensive, which is why I would only do that when I'm confident that I'll continue to use it. Unfortunately there usually isn't any option
    - throwaway290 4y ago
      I don't expect to pay for minor bugfixes. If there's a major change, get a new app out and give a discount to previous version owners if you feel like.
Yenrabbit 4y ago
Tried it out (sceptically). Quite a fun experience - hallucinations in the 'visual artefacts' sense. I doubt it's comparable to a drug trip (maybe those with experience can comment) but it is a somewhat pleasing way to zone out and be mindful.
- dinkleberg 4y ago
  I did the same, and likewise was pleasantly surprised. I’ve never experienced something quite like it. Signed up for a month, will see if it helps me stick to a meditation practice better than usual (I’m very off and on with it).
- semicolon_storm 4y ago
  The problem with reproducing a hallucinogenic trip is there's a whole mental/headspace side of it that they can't hope to reproduce. The visual aspect isn't even half of it. It's like an app saying it can make you drunk by giving you blurry cross-eyed vision. Are you seeing the same thing a drunk person might see? Sure. Is it comparable to being drunk? No.
  - kfarr 4y ago
    Yes similar to "beer goggles" (yes it's a real thing) they showed us in college to try to prevent drunk driving. We put on the beer goggles and played Mario kart. But it wasn't like being drunk.
    - appletrotter 4y ago
      That's not what this is supposed to be like at all though. Not if you trust their explanation of how it works.
- bambax 4y ago
  Complete fail on my part. No hallucinations or visions of any kind. I just saw a simple flash that appeared greenish (I would have thought it would rather be in the reds...?) The music is repetitive and rather upsetting; the tone of the speakers annoying. I read (most of) the article but I'm still not sure what it's supposed to do. Didn't seem to do anything to me.
tipsytoad 4y ago
I've had my fair share of psychedelics so I was pretty skeptical going into this, but it actually worked pretty well although I would call it a more like a trance than a trip. It can't alter mental state anywhere nearly the same way as acid though - really the most significant part not just flashy light patterns. Still very cool can't wait to try next trip :)
gpas 4y ago
Similar to roXiva[0] but for mobiles. Imho the "competitor" website does a better job at explaining the science behind the product. [0] https://roxiva.com/ https://roxiva.com/
ChuckMcM 4y ago
If you can find it, consider the movie "Looker" with Susan Dey in it. The guy who wrote it had been looking at influencing brain state with flickering lights.
14 4y ago
I have to pass on this one. The first thing it makes you do is sign up for an account. I have better things to do then another sign up. I’m willing to pay a fair price it pass when I need to sign up and agree to their terms of service.
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  Not sure if it addresses your issues with signing up or not, but on Apple devices you can “sign in with Apple” which is one touch and hides your email address from them. No need to even create a password.
sacrosanct 4y ago
I’ve tried it and can confirm it works, at least for me. I even tried it listening to binaural beats (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/binaural-beats https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/binaural-beats) to enhance the experience. It’s certainly useful, and I like the way if it feels too intense, you just move the strobe away from your eyes. Something you can’t do in the thralls of a shroom trip. With actual drugs you’re stuck in that state and have to wait it out!
tomduncalf 4y ago
Those of you in London or Belfast (and next up Edinburgh) can try out a large scale immersive version of what I assume this is (strobe lights causing you to see crazy colours and patterns) with a soundtrack by (electronic music producer) Jon Hopkins: https://dreamachine.world/ https://dreamachine.world/ I thought it was fun, definitely worth a visit and quite an impressive effect. I think the London tickets are all gone but the site says there are usually walk-ups due to people not turning up.
- squiggy22 4y ago
  Thanks for posting this. In Belfast here totally going.
  - tomduncalf 4y ago
    Oh awesome, I hope you enjoy it! I vaguely know some of the people behind it and I know they put a huge amount of work into making it a great experience.
- csdvrx 4y ago
  Uh, careful there, I tried something like that at home and found myself lying on ground a few hours later with no idea what had happened inbetween (my best guess is a seizure!)
  - tomduncalf 4y ago
    Oh yeah, there’s a health disclaimer you have to sign and I can imagine some people do have issues that they were not aware of until trying so obviously take care
aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
Didn't do anything for me... Saw the light flashing with different frequencies through my eyelids and that's it. Maybe some vague geometric artifacts like zebra stripes and such, depending on the flashing frequency, but didn't feel anything. If this is what shrooms supposed to do, then it's very much overblown.
nicoty 4y ago
The app doesn't work on my Android device (it's stuck on the "Welcome to Lumenate" screen after signing in). I'm not sure exactly how this app is supposed to function, but assuming it's just similar to something like a stroboscope, it's a bit ridiculous that I have to sign up for an account to use it, when free and open-source alternatives like https://f-droid.org/packages/co.garmax.materialflashlight/ https://f-droid.org/packages/co.garmax.materialflashlight/ already exist.
- colordrops 4y ago
  Same, also crashed during signup.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 4y ago
Related: check out this movie, younger HN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looker [1981] "During his investigation, Roberts discovers some advanced technology that the Digital Matrix corporation is using to hypnotize consumers into buying the products they advertise. He also discovers a light pulse device, the Light Ocular-Oriented Kinetic Emotive Responses (L.O.O.K.E.R.) gun, that gives the illusion of invisibility by instantly mesmerizing its victims into losing all sense of time." :)
__alias 4y ago
Hah! Back in 2010 when I was a teenager and before I had tried drugs of any kind I became fascinated with something called I-doser, which are "binaural beats" marketed as audio drugs. They basically offered mp3 files which would emit sound waves which would allegedly mimic certain drugs. After reading success reports on forums, I tried a few and from memory it did slightly put me into a meditative state but nothing more.
- TecoAndJix 4y ago
  Around that time I used something called the BrainWave Generator https://www.bwgen.com/ https://www.bwgen.com/ along with files for astral projection/OOBE to try and train myself to lucid dream (did not work for me). Lots of trippy sensations listening to that stuff, though!
  - dmix 4y ago
    Same, it's full of new age bullshit but those binaural meditation MP3s were really effective for meditation. Way more than other guided ones I found.
  - tehlike 4y ago
    same two apps i used. Never worked.
- mlsquare 4y ago
  That’s funny, I remember finding those online around the same time. I wonder if it was the same thing?
- ewindal 4y ago
  What a time to be alive. We pulled that exact thing out on a school trip, and two of my classmates were so affected they literally collapsed. Placebo is kinda crazy. The entire thing doesn’t actually work, of course, but that scene did make me doubt, a tiny bit.
henearkr 4y ago
Wow, I had no idea this would be so intense (1st session). I suspect that the sound and music has a pretty high impact, even independently to the binaural tech. I think that because in my experience I can be pretty easily moved in a movie theatre too, especially if the soundtrack is well engineered (but yet, in a movie theatre there is the effect of flickering light too!! so that can also be a big part).
motohagiography 4y ago
Just the other day I was on about making a training data set of hypnosis videos from youtube to feed into an ML model that learns the basic hypnotic triggers from the corpus of videos, and then generate ones of its own - sort of like GPT does with text or DALL-E does with images and video, but these would essentially enable me write a botnet agent that has evolved the capability to hypotize humans, and a way to feed text based suggestions into it via a normal botnet C&C protocol. However I got a new job I really like, so it has taken all the spare cycles I would have had for it, but if anyone else is interested in literally taking over the world shoot me a DM.
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  Oh so like media and porn? /s but not so /s I suspect this is exactly what state actor technology exists at and is deployed in various receptacles throughout.
- dmix 4y ago
  A huge part of meditation and hypnosis is concentration, sound isolation, wearing headphones, being calm etc. It's still a really interesting idea, just the mass hypnosis part.
jmpman 4y ago
I built some binaural beat headphones plus stroboscopic eye glasses when in my early 20’s. Incredible effect. However I’ve tried it again since in my 40’s, and the effect seems minimal. Maybe brain changes?
- sol2070 4y ago
  Same with me. In my 20's I adapted a dream machine with a LP player, and experienced fractals very colorful, clear and complex. With this app, now in my 40's, it was only the flickering, with some suggestions of forms and some nice body feelings. I thought that maybe the frequency was too low, or the flash of my phone was weak. I will try later this other app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tp77.StrobeAd https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tp77.Strob...), that allows to specify the HZ frequency. I remember that the optimal rate for me was 12 HZ.

189 points by greenSunglass 4y ago

I'm surprised there was no mention of binaural beats, which are used in a similar way. I'd expect them to be complementary to the visual stimulus that this app provides. Though only experimentation would tell for sure.

MrYellowP 4y ago

99% of what he wrote is unrelated to what he should have written about, but this is no surprise given that it reads like it's written by someone who, not once in his life, experienced a high. Because he had barely anything to share about the experience (which means he definitely was NOT high), he filled the article with as much as he can about everything around what he should be talking about.

TrainedMonkey 4y ago
Modern journalism is much more about selling the story rather than listing the facts and citing evidence. He did state that he experienced Altered State of Consciousness and that at least some students in 19 strong study did too. The result is unsurprising to me because that is a known property of meditation. The app itself combined traditional audio meditation techniques with a visual component, so the real question is what visual component adds to the experience. Given that audio stimuli works to help induce meditation, it is highly likely that there is a way to tie in a visual component in a synergistic way. As someone who dabbles in meditation I would like to see a study with a lot more people split into 3 groups: control group who are put in same environment without anything, group with audio component only, and a group with both audio and video component. P.S. in additional to audio stimuli there are many other techniques that can induce ASC: concentrating really hard (this one is for flow most of us are familiar with), smells, walking, breathing patterns (including breathing super rapidly and over oxygenating), dancing, yoga/exercise routine, etc.
jalino23 4y ago
what is it like to experience a high?
- loves_mangoes 4y ago
  Many people have tried to describe it and report their experiences. See https://www.erowid.org/ https://www.erowid.org/ for a large collection
  - fluoridation 4y ago
    While these are worth a read, IMO if language was sufficient to properly communicate the experience it would not be worth having.
- travisjungroth 4y ago
  It's incredibly broad. I'm not trying to quibble, but it depends on what you mean by "high". There are two major overlapping groups of experiences you could be talking about. There's the euphoria and energizing high associated with stimulants (see Jones, Casey 1970). Then there's the psychedelic high. The second one is what's being talked about here. (Again, these experiences aren't distinct but it would more clear if they each had their own word). The experience of a psychedelic high is incredibly broad. It's like asking "what's it like to experience a vacation?". It might be relaxing if you're on the beach in Barbados. It might be exhilarating if you're skiing in the Alps. It might be serious work if you're cave diving in Tulum. Then there's the individual experience. Do you feel relaxed and free from your job? Do you feel stressed because you can't stop thinking about it? Fighting with your family? Connecting with them? Lonely? Content? In defense of the person you're replying to, someone could give you an impression they've never been on a vacation by the way they talk about it. It's not that their experience is different than yours, it's just that what they're saying doesn't seemed to be informed by any sort of experience at all. Even though psychedelic highs are incredibly broad, there are a few common (usually opposing) themes. The first is hallucinations. These are perceptions that aren't real, or more generously, outside of consensus reality. If the paint on the wall looks like it's flowing, it won't to anyone else in the same room. At least not in the same way. You could feel a snake wrapping around you, but a video recording wouldn't show one. Then there are delusions, which are beliefs disconnected from reality. You believe you're Jesus. You believe someone is out to get you. You believe nothing bad could possibly happen to you. You could feel complete boundary dissolution. Everything is one. Or, strong separateness. You're talking to the parts of yourself as distinct, external parts. Or are communicating with a spirit. Faded memories can come back, or you can have trouble remembering anything. Fearlessness or fear, heart rate increase or decrease, peace or terror. Decreased motor control is the only thing I can think of close to universal, but it isn't. There are reports of people having temporary increases in motor function, often in an area that is deficient due to physical trauma. Anyone who answers your question with a few simple declarations is like answering "what's it like experiencing a vacation?" with "You take a break from your job, go somewhere sunny with your family, have a nice time doing fun and relaxing things, then feel refreshed when you go back to work". It's not even an oversimplification. It's a sample presented as a summary. Suitable for a telling a 3-year-old what "vacation" means, but certainly not right. This page is great if you'd like more examples, and examples are the best you're going to get: https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Subjective_effect_index https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Subjective_effect_index

labrador 4y ago

I haven't tried the app but I know from experience that ymmv. For example, ASMR videos on YouTube do nothing for me, but some people say they experience frisson. I am susceptible to trypophobia and avoid any pictures with patterns of holes like that.

josephpmay 4y ago

This sounds to me more like hypnotism, where you're using external stimuli to induce a specific brain wave state, rather than hallucinogenic tripping, where you're inhibiting some of your brain's filtering mechanisms to see phenomena and form connections that would normally be filtered out. Honestly, this sounds more useful, at least in app form. Not a great article, but I'll definitely be trying it out myself.

pessimizer 4y ago
> inhibiting some of your brain's filtering mechanisms to see phenomena and form connections that would normally be filtered out. I think it's more like inhibiting some of the functioning of your brain by clogging a type of receptor, so your sensations are severely distorted and you have to work around the damage by processing input using other pathways.
- braingenious 4y ago
  GP’s description is accurate. Traditional psychedelics work by inhibiting the reticular activating system(1), which indeed is important for cognitive filtering. Phrases like “clogging” and “damage” aren’t particularly scientific or accurate. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_formation#Ascending_reticular_activating_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_formation#Ascendin...

nwh5jg56df 4y ago

[dead]

jtode 4y ago

I built a copy of the dreamachine once - I had a Re/Search book about Burroughs, Gyson, etc, and there were lots of pictures, possibly there were even measurements, I don't recall. Anyways, I just got some thick paper and cut out the holes, the hardest part was finding a working record player that did 78 in the late 90s. It wasn't nothing, but it also wasn't much. I also remember trying out a more fun device at the third Lollapalooze where you lay with your face to the sun and the thing fit over your face like a snorkel mask, with a little plastic tube you blew into and which spun a thingy and did the same effect. What was neat about that one was that you could control the intensity of the visuals by blowing harder or softer, by tilting your head for more or less light, etc - more interaction makes better fun. A more capable than me friend even had a go at an electronic version with LEDs, but it was also more boring. I wish I had bought the snorkel mask.

kwatsonafter 4y ago
Adding the breath to the equation is really smart. Thanks for sharing. Brion Gysin is one of my favorite artists.
germinalphrase 4y ago
Had a lot more fun making a dreamachine than using it. Kinda a big shrug.

fallingfrog 4y ago

Wanted to try it, but it asks for you to sign in via google or Facebook etc, and I can’t think of any non-pathological reason it would need you to do that.

gnuj3 4y ago
You must have had closed eyes when you tried to sign in as you can register using just an email.
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  Or Sign In with Apple on iOS devices which also hides your email from them
the_third_wave 4y ago
Same here on the subject of having to sign up/log in - although it does offer the option to log in using an email address. I do not want an application with the specific intention of changing my state of mind to be connected and transferring personally identifiable information to some remote mothership in any way so thanks but no thanks - no neurocannula for me.

mgdlbp 4y ago

Very similar to last year's post on the hallucination-inducing 15 Hz red/black 'Ganzflicker', https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27669211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27669211 Direct link to fullscreen flicker: (warning) kerblooee.github.io/ganzflicker

jamal-kumar 4y ago
Yeah, there's serious study on this. Like, my dad did the Ganzfeld experiment back in the 80s with the ping pong balls over the eyes with red LED's in them... There's even serious scientific study on it [1] looking into the differences of the effect between people with mental imagery vs aphantasia. Here's another study which looks at fMRI scans of people with the goggles on [2]. This Vice commercial-for-an-app-as-an-article doesn't even touch on any of that, which is pretty weak even by the journalistic standards of this publication. I'm sure I've seen older Vice articles that weren't just an ad for an app which delved into this more seriously. I've tried both white and red light myself and found the red light you linked to be a LOT more evocative. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34172274/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34172274/ [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75019-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75019-3
- mgdlbp 4y ago
  Tbf OP does link to research of its own[3] by a team with "a relationship" to the app. [1] is actually what last year's submission is based on. Following the references, there's quite a number of papers on flicker-induced entoptic phenomena. [3] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/511766v1.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/511766v1.full
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    Thanks for pointing that out. It's really cool, have you tried it before? I seemed to get imagery of animal-like faces, like morphing between intricate and defined portraits of owls and wolves from what I recall, like what you might see on one of those tshirts. It seems like it might be great for coming up with interesting illustrations, or other creative process stuff as mentioned in the article (I'll give it credit at least for mentioning Margaret Atwood and her liking it as a tool for these reasons as I'm a big fan of her work)

olyjohn 4y ago

I'm not sure if this is related, but one time while tripping balls, we got a kaleidescope and put up to a CRT that was displaying only static. Looking through it was the craziest feeling that I had ever gotten while tripping. We even filmed it with our phones and watched it again and it did the same thing. It was like we all got sucked into the visual. You could almost feel it pulling you in. But it created other crazy visual feelings too. You could see the individual RGB pixels in the CRT all lighting up randomly. Highly recommend if you're gonna trip balls. Haven't tried it sober though to know if it could have the same effects.

flycaliguy 4y ago
Can you do a Show HN with some more technical details?
- olyjohn 4y ago
  Probably not worth a full Show HN. Just get an old TV turn it on so a dead channel so you just get "snow" on the screen. Get a cheapie Kaleidoscope and put it near or up against the glass. Look through it at the CRT and enjoy the show. Helps a lot if the room is dark too.
adv0r 4y ago
I think that for a non native english speaker, I'll head to Duckduck go to search for "Tripping balls" as a verb
- zalebz 4y ago
  probably should just head to UrbanDictionary for looking up slang
- lgas 4y ago
  "having a quite powerful psychedelic experience"
  - yesenadam 4y ago

throwaway290 4y ago

Another subscription-based app. I'd get it if I could buy it, even if I needed to pay more.

eafkuor 4y ago
Yes! I'm so sick of this trend. Why does everything need to be subscription based nowadays?
- rusk 4y ago
  Because it reflects the costs involved in keeping an app up to date on an ongoing basis
  - hansword 4y ago
    Right, right, because these subscription apps never close down and leave all their customers with nothing...
  - tsol 4y ago
    This implies that I want to pay for an app to stay up to date. I do not. Obviously this would be more expensive, which is why I would only do that when I'm confident that I'll continue to use it. Unfortunately there usually isn't any option
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    I don't expect to pay for minor bugfixes. If there's a major change, get a new app out and give a discount to previous version owners if you feel like.

Yenrabbit 4y ago

Tried it out (sceptically). Quite a fun experience - hallucinations in the 'visual artefacts' sense. I doubt it's comparable to a drug trip (maybe those with experience can comment) but it is a somewhat pleasing way to zone out and be mindful.

dinkleberg 4y ago
I did the same, and likewise was pleasantly surprised. I’ve never experienced something quite like it. Signed up for a month, will see if it helps me stick to a meditation practice better than usual (I’m very off and on with it).
semicolon_storm 4y ago
The problem with reproducing a hallucinogenic trip is there's a whole mental/headspace side of it that they can't hope to reproduce. The visual aspect isn't even half of it. It's like an app saying it can make you drunk by giving you blurry cross-eyed vision. Are you seeing the same thing a drunk person might see? Sure. Is it comparable to being drunk? No.
- kfarr 4y ago
  Yes similar to "beer goggles" (yes it's a real thing) they showed us in college to try to prevent drunk driving. We put on the beer goggles and played Mario kart. But it wasn't like being drunk.
  - appletrotter 4y ago
    That's not what this is supposed to be like at all though. Not if you trust their explanation of how it works.
bambax 4y ago
Complete fail on my part. No hallucinations or visions of any kind. I just saw a simple flash that appeared greenish (I would have thought it would rather be in the reds...?) The music is repetitive and rather upsetting; the tone of the speakers annoying. I read (most of) the article but I'm still not sure what it's supposed to do. Didn't seem to do anything to me.

tipsytoad 4y ago

I've had my fair share of psychedelics so I was pretty skeptical going into this, but it actually worked pretty well although I would call it a more like a trance than a trip. It can't alter mental state anywhere nearly the same way as acid though - really the most significant part not just flashy light patterns. Still very cool can't wait to try next trip :)

gpas 4y ago

Similar to roXiva[0] but for mobiles. Imho the "competitor" website does a better job at explaining the science behind the product. [0] https://roxiva.com/ https://roxiva.com/

ChuckMcM 4y ago

If you can find it, consider the movie "Looker" with Susan Dey in it. The guy who wrote it had been looking at influencing brain state with flickering lights.

14 4y ago

I have to pass on this one. The first thing it makes you do is sign up for an account. I have better things to do then another sign up. I’m willing to pay a fair price it pass when I need to sign up and agree to their terms of service.

tomduncalf 4y ago
Not sure if it addresses your issues with signing up or not, but on Apple devices you can “sign in with Apple” which is one touch and hides your email address from them. No need to even create a password.

sacrosanct 4y ago

I’ve tried it and can confirm it works, at least for me. I even tried it listening to binaural beats (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/binaural-beats https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/binaural-beats) to enhance the experience. It’s certainly useful, and I like the way if it feels too intense, you just move the strobe away from your eyes. Something you can’t do in the thralls of a shroom trip. With actual drugs you’re stuck in that state and have to wait it out!

tomduncalf 4y ago

Those of you in London or Belfast (and next up Edinburgh) can try out a large scale immersive version of what I assume this is (strobe lights causing you to see crazy colours and patterns) with a soundtrack by (electronic music producer) Jon Hopkins: https://dreamachine.world/ https://dreamachine.world/ I thought it was fun, definitely worth a visit and quite an impressive effect. I think the London tickets are all gone but the site says there are usually walk-ups due to people not turning up.

squiggy22 4y ago
Thanks for posting this. In Belfast here totally going.
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  Oh awesome, I hope you enjoy it! I vaguely know some of the people behind it and I know they put a huge amount of work into making it a great experience.
csdvrx 4y ago
Uh, careful there, I tried something like that at home and found myself lying on ground a few hours later with no idea what had happened inbetween (my best guess is a seizure!)
- tomduncalf 4y ago
  Oh yeah, there’s a health disclaimer you have to sign and I can imagine some people do have issues that they were not aware of until trying so obviously take care

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago

Didn't do anything for me... Saw the light flashing with different frequencies through my eyelids and that's it. Maybe some vague geometric artifacts like zebra stripes and such, depending on the flashing frequency, but didn't feel anything. If this is what shrooms supposed to do, then it's very much overblown.

nicoty 4y ago

The app doesn't work on my Android device (it's stuck on the "Welcome to Lumenate" screen after signing in). I'm not sure exactly how this app is supposed to function, but assuming it's just similar to something like a stroboscope, it's a bit ridiculous that I have to sign up for an account to use it, when free and open-source alternatives like https://f-droid.org/packages/co.garmax.materialflashlight/ https://f-droid.org/packages/co.garmax.materialflashlight/ already exist.

colordrops 4y ago
Same, also crashed during signup.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kazinator 4y ago

Related: check out this movie, younger HN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looker [1981] "During his investigation, Roberts discovers some advanced technology that the Digital Matrix corporation is using to hypnotize consumers into buying the products they advertise. He also discovers a light pulse device, the Light Ocular-Oriented Kinetic Emotive Responses (L.O.O.K.E.R.) gun, that gives the illusion of invisibility by instantly mesmerizing its victims into losing all sense of time." :)

__alias 4y ago

Hah! Back in 2010 when I was a teenager and before I had tried drugs of any kind I became fascinated with something called I-doser, which are "binaural beats" marketed as audio drugs. They basically offered mp3 files which would emit sound waves which would allegedly mimic certain drugs. After reading success reports on forums, I tried a few and from memory it did slightly put me into a meditative state but nothing more.

TecoAndJix 4y ago
Around that time I used something called the BrainWave Generator https://www.bwgen.com/ https://www.bwgen.com/ along with files for astral projection/OOBE to try and train myself to lucid dream (did not work for me). Lots of trippy sensations listening to that stuff, though!
- dmix 4y ago
  Same, it's full of new age bullshit but those binaural meditation MP3s were really effective for meditation. Way more than other guided ones I found.
- tehlike 4y ago
  same two apps i used. Never worked.
mlsquare 4y ago
That’s funny, I remember finding those online around the same time. I wonder if it was the same thing?
ewindal 4y ago
What a time to be alive. We pulled that exact thing out on a school trip, and two of my classmates were so affected they literally collapsed. Placebo is kinda crazy. The entire thing doesn’t actually work, of course, but that scene did make me doubt, a tiny bit.

henearkr 4y ago

Wow, I had no idea this would be so intense (1st session). I suspect that the sound and music has a pretty high impact, even independently to the binaural tech. I think that because in my experience I can be pretty easily moved in a movie theatre too, especially if the soundtrack is well engineered (but yet, in a movie theatre there is the effect of flickering light too!! so that can also be a big part).

motohagiography 4y ago

Just the other day I was on about making a training data set of hypnosis videos from youtube to feed into an ML model that learns the basic hypnotic triggers from the corpus of videos, and then generate ones of its own - sort of like GPT does with text or DALL-E does with images and video, but these would essentially enable me write a botnet agent that has evolved the capability to hypotize humans, and a way to feed text based suggestions into it via a normal botnet C&C protocol. However I got a new job I really like, so it has taken all the spare cycles I would have had for it, but if anyone else is interested in literally taking over the world shoot me a DM.

pyinstallwoes 4y ago
Oh so like media and porn? /s but not so /s I suspect this is exactly what state actor technology exists at and is deployed in various receptacles throughout.
dmix 4y ago
A huge part of meditation and hypnosis is concentration, sound isolation, wearing headphones, being calm etc. It's still a really interesting idea, just the mass hypnosis part.

jmpman 4y ago

I built some binaural beat headphones plus stroboscopic eye glasses when in my early 20’s. Incredible effect. However I’ve tried it again since in my 40’s, and the effect seems minimal. Maybe brain changes?

sol2070 4y ago
Same with me. In my 20's I adapted a dream machine with a LP player, and experienced fractals very colorful, clear and complex. With this app, now in my 40's, it was only the flickering, with some suggestions of forms and some nice body feelings. I thought that maybe the frequency was too low, or the flash of my phone was weak. I will try later this other app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tp77.StrobeAd https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tp77.Strob...), that allows to specify the HZ frequency. I remember that the optimal rate for me was 12 HZ.