From: Jim Meissner (jpmeissner_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 2002-02-12 22:21:01
Dear Jim Peters:
Please don't feel insulted! There is absolutely no insult meant. I have great respect of you software talents. You tackle things and get them working while most others on this group have not even formulated an approach. Ithink that is admirable.
I have spent years looking at brain waves with many different brain wave monitor systems. I like mine the best, but it is clumsy and hard to use. Inorder to change the parameters, I have to recompile the C program every time. I would love the option of looking at a portion of the file and play it, reverse and replay. How wonderful that would be!!!!!!!
> even though you seem to be
> misunderstanding what I'm trying to do.
Please do not misinterpret this in a negative way, BUT, I do believe you are under the "same" misconceptions as everyone else about brain wave frequencies and how the brain actually works. Rather than fight with you about this, I am strongly encouraging you to look at the brain waves with a good EEG system and come to your "own" conclusions. I would recommend starting with the conventional approach first. If you find any evidence for your theory, "then" concentrate on improving your special system to focus on that. I hate to see talent squandered tilting at windmills. ( It would be especially sad if the theory is based on New Age BS )
> I would still be using a log-frequency scale because I believe
> that is much more natural for this kind of work. As a by-product of
> the algorithm, it would also allow accurate measurement of any
> frequency you point to on the display.
How about starting with the linear frequency bins FFT like the Mind Mirror,Hal-4, ElectricGuru, etc. Then it would be compatible with existing display conventions. You can always add the log display later as an option. I also like the voice print display very much.
> I'm interested in EEG to get feedback
> to train myself in this. I'd also like to see what kind of waves are
> generated from states I already know how to get myself into.
I believe you will be very disappointed with how little the brain wave datawill show. This is not a negative comment, but it is what it is and not more than it is. So much glamour about brain waves has put it way out of proportion. I found that skin resistance and finger tip temperature is muchmore powerful and revealing. Have you gotten the "Awakened Mind" by Maxwell Cade yet?
> This wouldn't be so good for real-time monitoring, though.
> Unfortunately, you can't really have it both ways.
I have read in some of your posts that you are concerned with the time delay of your filters to do biofeedback. Again, I believe you are listening tosome information that I do not find to be credible. I do not believe the brain waves can be controlled in the manner that you ( or your source of information ) expect. It takes 5 to 10 minutes to change brain states even when you are experienced at it. It is more of a chemical process than what you think it is.
Juergen P. (Jim) Meissner
Check out my Website at www.MeissnerResearch.com
Read about the benefits of the Brain State Synchronizer sounds for improving your life and health.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Peters
To: buildcheapeeg_at_yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 4:45 AM
Subject: Re: [buildcheapeeg] Loose ends: Power
Jim Meissner wrote:
> Jim Peters is spending a lot of time attempting to build the perfect
> filter to find these elusive brain waves that he believes "must" be
> there. I have read some correspondence between Jim and Joerg on the
> EEGS group where they were running these tests.
I might be insulted (!) if it wasn't that I strongly respect your
experience and approach to all of this. I also realize that it's not
worth defending myself here, even though you seem to be
misunderstanding what I'm trying to do.
> I really wish that Jim Peters would focus his great software talent
> on building the software instead of duplicating Andreas efforts on
> the input stage. We need some good software to show what the EEG
> FFT really looks like. Displaying it as a voice print such as
> Spectra Plus does, would also look great. BTW Jim, I have lots of
> real brain waves already recorded to study.
I'm working on it. I have an idea for a display program which would
look a lot like that voice-print software you found, only better. I
would be using a slightly different technique (i.e. not using the
filters), and you would be able to change 'focus' and 'brightness' and
so on. I would still be using a log-frequency scale because I believe
that is much more natural for this kind of work. As a by-product of
the algorithm, it would also allow accurate measurement of any
frequency you point to on the display.
This wouldn't be so good for real-time monitoring, though.
Unfortunately, you can't really have it both ways.
> Well, I hope someone gets some benefit from this rather long monolog.
It's good stuff. I'm particularly interested in what you wrote about
training to increase ~40Hz waves (some technical detail at last on
your tennis technique!). I'm also interested in training to get into
eyes-open theta states -- Stuart Wilde talks about this, and I've
experienced something like this directly on a course with Ken
Eagle-Feather (he was training us to see 'energy', and also other
similar techniques under the title of 'Toltec gazing').
I know very well the experience of realizing that you've got
somewhere, and then immediately losing it because of the train of
thoughts sparked off from that. Regarding eyes-open theta states,
Stuart Wilde said that he needed several years of daily practice to
get into this state reliably. I'm interested in EEG to get feedback
to train myself in this. I'd also like to see what kind of waves are
generated from states I already know how to get myself into.
Regarding the way forward from here -- I have found a place to get
electrodes at last, so I could pursue that further. But, as Jim says,
it might better for me to concentrate on getting a really nice
analysis app running.
Somehow I knew that if I spent too long working on recorded data, I
would end up focussing on analysis rather than biofeedback, and that's
why I wanted some live data. However, the analysis could be useful in
any case.
Jim
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : 2002-07-27 12:28:38 BST