Psychoacoustics
From the rhythmic beats of indigenous drums to the delicate tones of Tibetan bowls, sound therapy has evolved and translated across cultural boundaries for centuries. Ancient Wisdom traditions know the benefits of using sound medicinally to supersede the mind and influence the body and nervous system. In yogic traditions that use chanting and manta, sound is vibration and vibration is the essence of all things.
Today, we can use the body, sound, vibration, and intention to reach deep within the human psyche to alter states of consciousness, access beliefs, and shift emotional patterns. Psychoacoustics is the science of how humans perceive and understand sound. It includes the study of the mechanisms in our bodies that interpret sound waves as well as the processing that occurs in the brain when we listen.
“Rhythm is a means of organizing sound into specific energy formulas to harmonize the mind and body. Chanting, rhythmic breathing and drumming form an ancient technology for directly synchronizing the mind/body complex, creating conditions for psychological and physical healing.”
- Layne Redmond
Harmonizing the Mind, Body, and Heart Through Modern Acoustics
To know we are safe, we must fist experience safety in and through our body. Our sense of safety is built in the first years of life and is shaped by our early experiences, environment, and relational interactions in our formative years. Today, modern acoustics allow us to interact with our felt sense of safety in the body and re-pattern ourselves out of states of threat into states of safety. Acoustic programs like the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP), developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, are an emerging acoustic medicine that targets the ventral vagal system and supports pro-social behavior and nervous system re-tuning.
As a sound healer, I use modern acoustics as a sound healing tool to illicit deep states of parasympathetic responses that support explorations of consciousness similar to breath work or psychedelic processes. In our sound lab we combine the SSP’s specifically filtered music with somatics, movement, and intention to interact with the neurological systems that are responsible for our ability to socially engage, attach, and bond. During a 7-week sound lab journey we contact, reclaim, and reconnect to the deeper parts of our consciousness to heal our early relational imprints, and re-establish a greater connection to our sense of self. In this process of inner child healing, we reclaim our joy, creativity, and personal power.
Sound as Medicine
The therapeutic application of sound has been well-established in many non-Western cultures. Some of the earliest detailing of ‘sound healing’ in a formal sense is probably from the indigenous Australians (40,000 years ago), who used ancient didgeridoos in healing rituals. Similarly, the ancient Egyptians also utilized sound healing, with pyramids designed to create sound chambers. From Tibetan singing bowls, shamanic drums, and vocal chanting, there’s a form of sound healing to be found in every culture worldwide and throughout history.
Sound therapy works with vibration. When we consider that everything is a vibration, you can tune your body like you tune an instrument. Different instruments, vocals, or sounds can be set to certain frequencies. Sound therapy works with the principles of resonance and entrainment, finding the areas of dissonance in the body and entraining the bodily systems into a more harmonious expression.
Sound as Medicine
The therapeutic application of sound has been well-established in many non-Western cultures. Some of the earliest detailing of ‘sound healing’ in a formal sense is probably from the indigenous Australians (40,000 years ago), who used ancient didgeridoos in healing rituals. Similarly, the ancient Egyptians also utilized sound healing, with pyramids designed to create sound chambers. From Tibetan singing bowls, shamanic drums, and vocal chanting, there’s a form of sound healing to be found in every culture worldwide and throughout history.
Sound therapy works with vibration. When we consider that everything is a vibration, you can tune your body like you tune an instrument. Different instruments, vocals, or sounds can be set to certain frequencies. Sound therapy works with the principles of resonance and entrainment, finding the areas of dissonance in the body and entraining the bodily systems into a more harmonious expression.
Here are a few key words that are associated with somatics, movement principles, and psychoacoustics: vibration, resonance, magnetism, and cymatics.
Vibration
Vibration is a relational concept that speaks to our inherent capacity to condense and expand in a rhythmic fashion at our most basic level of existence.
Resonance
Resonance refers to the interaction in our vibrational fields and how we attune or do not attune to certain patterns.
Magnetism
Magnetism involves the degree of energy drawing us together or apart.
In addition, psychoacoustics studies may address concepts like brainwave entrainment, frequency, and the balancing of left and right brain hemispheres.
Brainwave Entrainment
Brainwave Entrainment refers to the capacity of the brain to naturally synchronize its brainwave frequencies with the rhythm of external stimuli.
Frequency Following Response
Frequency Following Response suggests that brain waves are directly linked to mental states of consciousness. There are different types of brainwaves: delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves. Relatively slow delta waves are emitted during sleep, faster theta waves are emitted during meditation, and beta waves (the fastest) are emitted when we are problem-solving or focusing on particular tasks.
Balancing the Brain’s Left and Right Hemispheres
Balancing the Brain’s Left and Right Hemispheres suggests that the left and right sides of the brain are very different. The left side of the brain is associated with logic and problem-solving. The right side of the brain is associated with creativity. In most people, the right or left side of the brain is dominant. Psychoacoustics works on both sides of the brain to develop areas where we might be weak and improve communication between the hemispheres.
Here are a few key words that are associated with somatics, movement principles, and psychoacoustics: vibration, resonance, magnetism, and cymatics.
Vibration
Vibration is a relational concept that speaks to our inherent capacity to condense and expand in a rhythmic fashion at our most basic level of existence.
Resonance
Resonance refers to the interaction in our vibrational fields and how we attune or do not attune to certain patterns.
Magnetism
Magnetism involves the degree of energy drawing us together or apart.
In addition, psychoacoustics studies may address concepts like brainwave entrainment, frequency, and the balancing of left and right brain hemispheres.
Brainwave Entrainment
Brainwave Entrainment refers to the capacity of the brain to naturally synchronize its brainwave frequencies with the rhythm of external stimuli.
Frequency Following Response
Frequency Following Response suggests that brain waves are directly linked to mental states of consciousness. There are different types of brainwaves: delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves. Relatively slow delta waves are emitted during sleep, faster theta waves are emitted during meditation, and beta waves (the fastest) are emitted when we are problem-solving or focusing on particular tasks.
Balancing the Brain’s Left and Right Hemispheres
Balancing the Brain’s Left and Right Hemispheres suggests that the left and right sides of the brain are very different. The left side of the brain is associated with logic and problem-solving. The right side of the brain is associated with creativity. In most people, the right or left side of the brain is dominant. Psychoacoustics works on both sides of the brain to develop areas where we might be weak and improve communication between the hemispheres.
Contemporary sound healing often uses modern technology like music or tuning forks to introduce specific coherent frequencies into the body-mind system to influence change.
The law of entrainment is the basis of sound healing when applied to the human body. The physics law of entrainment shows us how strong and powerful vibrating forces can be to influence weaker vibrating forces. Think of a tuning fork that is used to invite an instrument that is out of tune to come into more alignment and harmony.
Surprisingly, our body and mind work in the same way as a musical instrument. When our thoughts, emotions, and physiology are not in harmony we feel it in our nervous system and health because our body if out of tune or in a state of “dis-ease”. We can use sound and vibration to interact with any pattern of stress that is held in the body to bring it out of stuck-ness and into more flow and harmony. Usually, these stuck places have to do with unprocessed emotions or places that we are not inhabiting due to trauma or pain. Sound and vibration can use the law of entrainment to gently coax the body and mind into a new pattern that supports health and restoration.
Embodied Movement
Similarly, movement or dance has been used cross-culturally across time to celebrate rites of passage, to grieve, or to cleanse the body and soul of the individual and collective pain.
Embodied Movement practices offer an opportunity to explore the embodiment of our cells, our body systems, and movement patterns to increase awareness, perception, and consciousness. Movement methods such as Emily Conrad’s Continuum Movement, Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen’s, BodyMind Centering, or Gabrielle Roth’s 5 Rhythms all focus on deepening the inherent wisdom of the body and the enhancement of consciousness through the body. Paula is trained in Dan Leven’s Shake Your Soul and Journey Dance which she has offered as a form of embodied movement practice in private settings and in various treatment centers.
Embodied Movement
Similarly, movement or dance has been used cross-culturally across time to celebrate rites of passage, to grieve, or to cleanse the body and soul of the individual and collective pain.
Embodied Movement practices offer an opportunity to explore the embodiment of our cells, our body systems, and movement patterns to increase awareness, perception, and consciousness. Movement methods such as Emily Conrad’s Continuum Movement, Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen’s, BodyMind Centering, or Gabrielle Roth’s 5 Rhythms all focus on deepening the inherent wisdom of the body and the enhancement of consciousness through the body. Paula is trained in Dan Leven’s Shake Your Soul and Journey Dance which she has offered as a form of embodied movement practice in private settings and in various treatment centers.
Curious About How Sound Works?
Check out this video on Cymatics...