(1)
Swingle Clinic, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Many neurotherapists provide clients with various adjunctive self-administered treatments to facilitate the therapeutic process. These adjunctive complementary treatments include relaxation exercises, self-hypnosis, energy psychology routines, lifestyle modification recommendations, subliminal affirmation devices, cranial microamperage stimulators, audiovisual stimulators, and therapeutic harmonics. The reason for prescribing these procedures, of course, is that they potentiate the therapeutic process.
I have been particularly interested in the use of therapeutic harmonics, and I have been doing research in this area for several decades. One such harmonic (OMNI) is a blend of several carrier frequencies providing a dominant 10 Hz overriding frequency that is embedded in a filtered pink noise at between –15 and –25 dB(C). The effect of the OMNI harmonic is that it suppresses EEG Theta (3–7 Hz) amplitude (Swingle 1996) and has been found to markedly accelerate the neurotherapeutic treatment of common attention deficit disorder (CADD) (Swingle 2001). The OMNI harmonic has been used by thousands of clients and is marketed by several companies. The data on this harmonic are very consistent. The suppressing effect is about the same with males and females [provided the sound pressure levels are presented at gender-specific levels; see Swingle ( 1992)], but differs with age. For clients over 18, the suppression of Theta amplitude is about 30 %, whereas for young children the suppression is about 15 %.
It is not surprising that sound influences brain activity and we certainly have a lot of research that substantiates that view. My own research has identified a number of harmonic blends that have specific effects on the EEG. Such effects include reducing Beta amplitude, increasing Theta amplitude, balancing frontal lobe brain activity, increasing the SMR, increasing the density of fast Alpha (11–12 Hz) relative to slow Alpha (8–9 Hz), increasing Alpha amplitude during eyes closed periods, suppressing high-frequency (28–40 Hz) amplitude, enhancing sleep quality, as well as decreasing Theta amplitude over Cz. These harmonics can be very useful as adjunctive treatments to facilitate, potentiate, and stabilize neurotherapy.
When working with subtle energy such as subliminal harmonics, it is important to prepare the stimuli so that they are within the effective range. In the case of sound, the effective range is very specific and narrow [techniques for preparing such materials are described in Swingle (1992)]. If the sound is too close to supraliminal levels, the information is not processed. This “gray zone” is found not only with sound but with other modalities as well (Gary Schwartz, personal communication, reported this gray zone with olfaction, and Len Ochs, personal communication, reported this for visual stimulation). This suggests two independent processing systems for information above and below perceptual thresholds and, importantly, an energy level zone in which the information is not processed efficiently in either system.
The second finding suggesting that subtle energy may be processed differently from more potent stimulation is that identical stimuli produce different effects supraliminally versus subliminally. For example, when presented at 15 dB(C) below ambient, a 10-Hz harmonic increases heart rate, whereas a 25-Hz harmonic at the same intensity reduces heart rate, which is the opposite of what one would expect with a supraliminal presentation of these same frequencies (Ohatrian et al. 1960; Swingle 1993).
We proceed now to reviewing the research on the harmonics that influence EEG activity. These harmonics can be used for braindriving or they can be used statically by clients in their home environments. Following the section on the harmonics, protocols for driving EEG activity will be reviewed.
Treatment Harmonics
All of the harmonics described in this section can be prepared by the clinician following the directions in the book Subliminal Treatment Procedures: A Clinician’s Guide (Swingle 1992a, b) and in articles describing the use and preparation of specific harmonics (Swingle 1996, 2001). The essential features of all of the harmonics to be described below are that they are embedded in filtered pink noise with a 50-dB roll-off at 1,000 Hz. The carrier frequency for the blended sounds is 300 Hz, so, for example, the Theta-suppressing OMNI harmonic has a beat frequency of 10 Hz created by blending 300 Hz with 310 Hz. All of the beat frequencies are based on the 300 Hz carrier frequency. The beat frequency harmonics are embedded at between 15 and 25 dB below the embedding filtered noise. Research described in Swingle (1992a, b) found that males and females respond optimally at different subthreshold amplitudes. Females are more affected by sounds at minus 25 dB and males respond more to sounds at 15 dB below the embedding pink noise. Clinicians should note that the effect of beat frequencies presented below threshold are often very different from what one would expect with the same blend presented above hearing threshold. The Theta-suppressing OMNI harmonic, for example, contains a 10-Hz beat frequency, yet it suppresses Theta amplitude. Research further has shown that even beat frequencies in the Theta range (i.e., 5 Hz) suppress Theta amplitude when presented at sound levels well below hearing thresholds (Swingle 1996).
For clinicians who do not wish to prepare their own harmonics, CDs and sound files downloadable from the web are available from a number of suppliers including soundhealthproducts.com, futurehealth.org, toolsforwellness.com, prpress.com, and mindalive.com. In addition the two major manufacturers of clinical EEG neurofeedback systems (Thought Technology and BrainMaster) have software suites that provide a limited number of the harmonics described in this chapter. There are also many companies that supply frequency sound generators for clinicians who wish to develop their own sound stimuli.
As the reader may recall from Chapter two, it was recommended that as part of the ClinicalQ, the clinician should test a harmonic to determine the precise effect on the client’s brain wave activity. Routinely, the Theta-suppressing harmonic is tested at location Cz, but one could, of course, test any of the harmonics during the rapid intake procedure. The benefit of this procedure is to demonstrate convincingly to the client that the harmonic has a clear and demonstrable effect on brain activity so when prescribed by the clinician the effectiveness has been established. In other words, there is no guesswork or experimentation with different harmonics since one can establish that the harmonic has the desired effect. This is in striking contrast, of course, to the traditional methods of treatment. Traditionally, the client would expect a physician, for example, to prescribe a medication for the client to try, and if it works, fine; if not, another is tried.
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