Binaural Xperience: Where Acoustics Meets Meditation

Picture this: You are in a softly lit room lying on a mat with headphones on playing a hypnotic beat. You may even be floating in a pool of water. Your stress melts away and you are taken to a place deep within your own mind to the parts of the brain that are drowned out by the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Known as the Binaural Xperience, Jean Reiki is hoping that this trend will catch on across Singapore as a way to help people relax, relieve pain, and even get a better night’s sleep. Reiki is a sound curator and producer who records under the name Mind of the Cosmos.

Of course, you can’t go right from the busy outside world into a calm meditative state. The Binaural Xperience gradually brings people along for the ride. It begins with ambient music and field recordings of natural sounds. This serves as a bridge from the outside world to the binaural one.

From there, participants go through a guided meditation featuring live soothing music and vocals to further calm the mind. Once the body and mind are fully relaxed, the binaural beats can begin. Jean uses very low frequency sounds to change and control brain waves.

The beats are typically around 50-60 Hz and can be customised for each session. The frequencies are different on each side, 50Hz on the left side and/or 55Hz on the right side, for example, to further challenge the brain to respond to those differences.

The end result, hopefully, is that people leave feeling calm and relaxed. Over time, repeated listening sessions can induce better sleep and a healthier mental state. The entire event typically takes about an hour.

Jean developed the beats in conjunction with her friends and seasoned “floaters,” people who use meditative flotation as a relaxation technique. She continues to add new sounds and expand the library of field recordings used at the beginning of the session.

An Alternative to Traditional Medicine

She would love to see doctors consider this type of therapy instead of prescribing sleeping pills or painkillers. She’s also hoping to gain buy-in from the audio industry to partner with the healthcare industry.

The next step in that process is doing research on the Binaural Xperience in a sleep lab where she can obtain some data on how the process affects the brain to help make the case for more widespread medical use.

However, Jean cautions that audiophiles and acoustic experts out there might want to think twice before embarking on this experience because they will spend all of their time analysing the sounds they are hearing instead of letting their minds relax.

The only way to know for sure is to try the Binaural Xperience for yourself. Visit the Mind of the Cosmos Instagram account for information on when and where it will be happening next.

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