binaural beat experiment
i finished my binaural beat experiments a couple of days ago, and now i'm left with the task of analysis. i'm not quite sure how to proceed, actually. i've thought of doing it by hand, database entry, or custom python scripts. of those three, the database route seems like the least palatable.
in any case, i'll talk about some interesting things i found in doing this experiment which were completely unexpected: auditory hallucinations caused by the binaural beat tones!
the first interesting thing i discovered on this front was that for some tones, i experienced clear changes in apparent volume depending on my level of relaxation. to be clear, i should say that some of the time at least, this was purely mechanical. so, my jaw might relax and change the orientation of the headphones; or i might start breathing more slowly and deeply and that would change the apparent volume markedly. that said, there were definitely times when a simple relaxation corresponded to a change in volume in a way that i couldn't explain so simply. one possibility is that it caused my sinuses or other structures inside the head to relax, thus changing my inner acoustics. the other possibility is that it took place neurologically as a result of relaxation. in either case, should it prove consistent, it could serve as an interesting sort of cheap bio-feedback for deep relaxation.
the other things i noticed were much more clearly hallucinations. of these, the most interesting was a strange type of noise that sounded like a strange electronically produced series of bending tones that typically went from one ear to the other with a frequency that didn't change from one stimulus to the next. the interesting thing about these hallucinations is that they became louder with focus on the sound, its beat frequency, and the hallucinations themselves. they typically didn't become strongly perceptible until i had been listening for a while, and even more interesting is that on a few occasions, the louder they became, the closer i got to sleep. in fact, at one point, i drifted just barely across the threshold of sleep and found that the hallucination became loud enough to snap me back out of it! what do these mean? i have no idea.
both of the above phenomena warrant further experimentation. other than that, we'll have to leave the results analysis to decide what if anything looks interesting for future research.