Relaxation reminds me of the ocean. It worked in any case. Very cool indeed! I'm pretty interested in trying out the lucid dream one.

zeta113

does this actually work? I-Doser has long been selling programs that genreate white noise type sounds, they have a whole set called Drugs that are supposed to replicate the highs got off of cocaine and acid..I don't quite think they'd work, but maybe for some more suggestible types it does?

Internet-TV

Are they significantly different compared to I-Doser doses? I've had very minimal success with those.

detection

I tried something similar to this. It was called "The First Digital Drug". First time I listened to it I had a kind of out of body experience. It only lasted a few seconds but the next time I tried litening to it nothing happened. I've got one deaf ear so I'm guessing the beats were lost on me.

Akikur7143

@ Matt

Yes, I do too.

Personally, I believe these are a complete waste of time.
Placebo, people.

Dylan

Anyone else getting nonstop "Rebuffering" messages when you go to play the stream?

Matt

iDoser is overpriced. You can download the freeware SbaGen and find most idoser files in a torrent on TPB and the best part is that it ends up in a download around 1 meg.

mferrari

Unfortunately, I think this is another example of Lifehacker repeating junk science. It isn't a life hack, it's a placebo effect. If you could really get smarter by listening to some sound, it would be in the scientific literature by now.

kiwinerdgrrl

yea i think this is mostly placebo effect... might as well take sugar pills

Charging_Mooses

Just wasted 5 minutes trying to download / stream this nonsense. Feeling 27% less intelligent and 30% less relaxed than I was 5 minutes ago.

fakerjohn

I've used Neuro Programmer on and off again for about 2 years. While it may be relaxing, I don't think I've given it enough time to see results.

sLydE

Didn't we already see an article about white noise recently? Personally I don't buy into this stuff ... kind of useless.

chareverie

Wasn't the Monroe Institute kinda the leader in the binaural beats thing? "Hemi-Sync" I think it was called, as it was supposed to stimulate both hemispheres of the brain or something along those lines.

raintheory

Hand of God did give me a headache.

But then again I hadn't slept 3 days prior.

Ender15

Lifehack? Stop it with these ridiculous stories, please.

strabes

I tried the marijuana doses from I-Doser way back and I didn't feel high at all.

I was very disappointed, to say the least.

drdoombot

@strabes:

I actually liked this heads up.

Thanks lifehacker!

Although the site seems to be really slow. I think their server might crash soon.

John Williams

Yeah, site's on the verge of death.

@everyone yelling placebo: Sure, music may not be able to make you smarter, but it can stimulate your mind, allowing you to remember things more efficiently or become more aware of what you're taking in. :3

One of the coolest parts of music is its ability to change or enhance your mood, which would explain why i like so many different genre's, each one for one or more moods i want to get into. While browsing around LifeHacker i usually listen to some ambient techno or indie rock, kind of mellow and free-thinking type music :3

Aibyouka-kun

That reminds me of that old DOS program I downloaded off a BBS when I was a teenager call "Computer Narcotics",

I found it here if anyone is wondering: [packetstormsecurity.org]

I tested it out in dosbox and it runs... It was cool when I was 13, not really all that cool now.

ericmoritz

A while ago someone was asking me about the iDoser things and if I really thought they worked, so I gave them a try just for the hell of it. I made sure to try two of the "weaker" ones according to the iDoser forum members. While they didn't make me feel "high" what so ever, they certainly did have an effect. One of them gave me a pins and needles feeling in my limbs that was alright and it subsided rather quickly when I turned off the mp3. The second one made me have muscle spasms in my legs and it began to worry me that these things were actually having an effect and that there may be some sort of lasting issues (i.e. continued muscle spasms) so I turned that one off immediately. I certainly think there is SOME truth to the concept but I don't think it's particularly safe or intelligent to go about messing with it without further information. I'm fairly surprised to see it appear on Lifehacker.

sinz

I'm definitely wary of anything that claims to open my non-existent chakras, but I could swear that listening to Autechre makes me smarter. I think it's because I'm processing music, not because it's somehow replicating brain impulses or whatever blah blah blah. I'd like to see the science on this one.

JWhitney

Several people doubt those things. My bet is that most of them aren't actually listening to them properly. A heavily EQ'ed speaker system won't work. Grab your best pair of headphones, turn the lights off, lay on your bed and listen away.
I've had some success with binaural beats in the past, I was sceptic too. I listened to them on my sound system and frankly it did nothing. Fast forward to that day I'm talking with a collegue and he tells me how important a cleaner sound is.

Never tried one of those drug like thing though, I was mostly using sleep inducing ones and concentration/stress controlling samples. :)

polobunny

I try to stay aware of placebo effects, but how not to be intoxicated by skepticism, especially in consideration of the fact that skepticism may have a counter effect? I may say that I do feel some effects with some waves in some circumstances... hard to be objective.

DonDiego

Interesting that this is met with so much scorn. Pzizz relies pretty heavily on binaural beats and people here rave about that. Ultimately, it's a matter of "whatever works".

Also: the placebo effect works in reverse. If you're convinced that something won't work (including medicine), your mind can actually prevent it from working. Just food for thought.

witeowl

I think it would be hard for these things to work if it re buffers every 5 seconds....

Anyone know how to download these instead of streaming them?

ConorB

The site seems to be down?

ConorB

you people are complete and utter morons. this doesn't get you 'high'. read about altered states of consciousness, there is a LOT of literature about it. binaural beats are but one way of entering an altered state. and don't expect to lazily put on some headphones and suddenly start tripping. you have to train yourself. it works, i can assure you. but it's like meditation, it only works if you actually try. just like drumming, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, and meditation can send you into an altered state, so can this.

garbanzo-bean

@ConorB: They had downloads on their site just today, and now they've mysteriously disappeared.

rad_matter

@garbanzo-bean: is it working now?

0zSpitt

lucid dream made me feel weird , im listeing to it right now... i started to cry bascially and feel weird really weird... maybe it works ... but its still weird... now i need to take a crap, hope fully thats just natural tho... ;p;

mzeal93

@rad_matter: According to the I Dose site: "Due to enormous amount of download requests, our server had almost crashed, and we had to remove the download links. We are working to find a proper solution. The streaming links are working as usual."

rad_matter

What's the verb for when Lifehacker slashdots a site?

([en.wikipedia.org] )
:)

Kev

@Kev: Lifehax0red?

witeowl

You're better off with Mozart.

mc_spanky_mcgee

For my dose of white noise, I just listen to the hum of my dual processor desktop box. :-)

gcm

Dont even try the 'Focus' thingie in the website. It is like a mosquito trying to get at you, and you are left with searching for the mosquito. Dang, I lost my focus listening to that thingie.

gcm

I just listened to the Aspirin one and all the way through it has a voice whispering "defiler".
I don't think I'll be listening to any more.

ceviche

@Kev: Lifewhacked?

Chef

@witeowl: That's the nocebo effect and that generally works negatively, like saying "junk food makes me sick", makes you feel sick afterward even though there was nothing wrong with the meal.

And thinking it doesn't work doesn't counteract jack if the actual thing works. I'm willing to take my birth control every day chanting "this doesn't work", but I still won't get pregnant.

Kali Mama

I've tried a few Out of Body Experience(OBE) track from others in the past. I come close.. I can hear clicking noises behind my ear and at times I feel pretty paralyzed, other times I get glimpse of visions of things I don't recognize. I find it kind of frustrating because I read many others are having great success. I'm thinking maybe it's because I'm not a visual person.

I prefer listening to hypnosis when I'm trying to sleep, it helps shut my brain down with thoughts like what I still need to do and issues throughout the day.

Ken

@chareverie: It is not just white noise. Binaural beats is a specific way to administer frequencies to the brain and there is hard science behind how it works. Certain brain states are associated with certain frequencies. There are Alpha, Betta, Gamma and Delta and each is associated with different states i.e. sleep, concentration, meditation etc. These frequencies though are too low for the brain to pick up through your ears (playing a 15hz frequency in your ears will not be picked up).

To get around this problem they play two separate and audible frequencies in your ears and your brain picks up the difference. I am not sure the exact frequencies but to illustrate my point if you play a 100hz frequency in the left ear and a 85 hz frequency in the right ear then the brain will pick up the difference 15hz and will help you ease into that state of mind. So yes it does work and there is a lot of research behind it but it will probably never give you the same effect as chemically altering your brain to achieve the same results.

hummer13

@Kali Mama: Depending on your definition of nocebo. Typically, that's where something inoccuous can produce ill effects if the person believes that the ill effects should occur. (Like thinking that they came in contact with poison oak causes a rash, even though it was merely a random bush.)

The phenomenon to which I'm referring can't be tested because it involves doing harm (trying to make a potent treatment ineffective by instilling doubt), but I've discussed it, over the years, with various psychologists, professors, and even a medical doctor or two. They've all readily agreed that that happens as well. I'm referring to, for example, someone who has a headache and is given aspirin. If the recipient is absolutely convinced that aspirin never works for him, he can very likely continue to have a headache.

If you think about it, this phenomenon is no less likely than the typical placebo effect. If the mind can heal with an inert drug, why can't it prevent healing with a potent drug?

witeowl

@hummer13: spot-on. this is science, not some new-age hippy crap. the science of ecstasy. or maybe the ecstasy of science?

garbanzo-bean

"there is hard science behind how it works. Certain brain states are associated with certain frequencies."

Uh huh. "There's hard science behind it" is something I've heard quite a lot. That doesn't make it true. Obviously there are frequencies produced by the brain in certain situations, but that in no way means that playing those frequencies into the brain induces those states. Hallucinogens make your pupils dilate, but that doesn't mean dilating your pupils in other ways makes you feel like you're on hallucinogens. Making yourself dizzy doesn't make you drunk, either. I'm not saying there's no effect from these - they do, in a dark room with eyes closed, eventually make you feel strange. I doubt there's much more to it than placebo and meditational effects, though. I'd like to see a double-blind study.

dirtygreek

You people do realize that this whole binaural beat thing has very little evidence to support it, right? If you do a quick scientific literature search (through an actual database, not just google), only a few published papers show up, and of those that do, a large portion discuss how binaural beats aren't particularly effective at anything.

citcat

"The site has been *lifehacked*"?

klausbert

Downloading a few of those to try out. A friend showed me iDoser a while ago, but I never got the hang of it until I lifehacker posted about the SimplyNoise (wich was a big help trying to sleep at a LAN-party)

nikeplektrum

I find the brainwave and relaxation music selections on serenitysupply.com to be much more interesting.... and pleasant.

fuzzywozzy