[HN Gopher] A phone app called Lumenate claims to alter the brai... ___________________________________________________________________ A phone app called Lumenate claims to alter the brain's rhythms (2021) Author : greenSunglass Score : 137 points Date : 2022-07-04 08:01 UTC (14 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.vice.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com) | mgdlbp wrote: | Very similar to last year's post on the hallucination-inducing 15 | Hz red/black 'Ganzflicker', | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27669211 | | Direct link to fullscreen flicker: (warning) | | kerblooee.github.io/ganzflicker | davesque wrote: | What am I supposed to be seeing in that flicker effect? Doesn't | do anything for me. | msk-lywenn wrote: | I see that vertical sync still isn't working in my browser | technothrasher wrote: | I don't know what you're supposed to see, but the first thing | it did to me was make the whole room go dark, then saw some | geometric patterns, followed by the silhouette of a man with | light exploding out from his limbs, and finally saw a long | tunnel heading away into the distance. Funky. | davesque wrote: | Lol, you had me there NGL. | technothrasher wrote: | I swear, that's what I saw. It wasn't really hardcore | like I was actually tripping, but more like trying to | interpret a Rorschach inkblot. I just tried it again. | Same darkening of my vision, but this time I saw the | tunnel first, then a crucifix, and then Conway's Game of | Life like patterns. | bgroat wrote: | It gives me the sensation of hurtling/spinning through a | tunnel surrounded by teeth | jamal-kumar wrote: | Yeah, there's serious study on this. Like, my dad did the | Ganzfeld experiment back in the 80s with the ping pong balls | over the eyes with red LED's in them... There's even serious | scientific study on it [1] looking into the differences of the | effect between people with mental imagery vs aphantasia. Here's | another study which looks at fMRI scans of people with the | goggles on [2]. This Vice commercial-for-an-app-as-an-article | doesn't even touch on any of that, which is pretty weak even by | the journalistic standards of this publication. I'm sure I've | seen older Vice articles that weren't just an ad for an app | which delved into this more seriously. | | I've tried both white and red light myself and found the red | light you linked to be a LOT more evocative. | | [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34172274/ | | [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75019-3 | mgdlbp wrote: | Tbf OP does link to research of its own[3] by a team with "a | relationship" to the app. [1] is actually what last year's | submission is based on. Following the references, there's | quite a number of papers on flicker-induced entoptic | phenomena. | | [3] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/511766v1.full | gpas wrote: | Similar to roXiva[0] but for mobiles. Imho the "competitor" | website does a better job at explaining the science behind the | product. | | [0] https://roxiva.com/ | 14 wrote: | I have to pass on this one. The first thing it makes you do is | sign up for an account. I have better things to do then another | sign up. I'm willing to pay a fair price it pass when I need to | sign up and agree to their terms of service. | tomduncalf wrote: | Not sure if it addresses your issues with signing up or not, | but on Apple devices you can "sign in with Apple" which is one | touch and hides your email address from them. No need to even | create a password. | jtode wrote: | I built a copy of the dreamachine once - I had a Re/Search book | about Burroughs, Gyson, etc, and there were lots of pictures, | possibly there were even measurements, I don't recall. Anyways, I | just got some thick paper and cut out the holes, the hardest part | was finding a working record player that did 78 in the late 90s. | It wasn't nothing, but it also wasn't much. | | I also remember trying out a more fun device at the third | Lollapalooze where you lay with your face to the sun and the | thing fit over your face like a snorkel mask, with a little | plastic tube you blew into and which spun a thingy and did the | same effect. What was neat about that one was that you could | control the intensity of the visuals by blowing harder or softer, | by tilting your head for more or less light, etc - more | interaction makes better fun. | | A more capable than me friend even had a go at an electronic | version with LEDs, but it was also more boring. I wish I had | bought the snorkel mask. | kwatsonafter wrote: | Adding the breath to the equation is really smart. Thanks for | sharing. Brion Gysin is one of my favorite artists. | germinalphrase wrote: | Had a lot more fun making a dreamachine than using it. Kinda a | big shrug. | MrYellowP wrote: | 99% of what he wrote is unrelated to what he should have written | about, but this is no surprise given that it reads like it's | written by someone who, not once in his life, experienced a high. | | Because he had barely anything to share about the experience | (which means he definitely was NOT high), he filled the article | with as much as he can about everything _around_ what he should | be talking about. | jalino23 wrote: | what is it like to experience a high? | travisjungroth wrote: | It's incredibly broad. I'm not trying to quibble, but it | depends on what you mean by "high". There are two major | overlapping groups of experiences you could be talking about. | There's the euphoria and energizing high associated with | stimulants (see Jones, Casey 1970). Then there's the | psychedelic high. The second one is what's being talked about | here. (Again, these experiences aren't distinct but it would | more clear if they each had their own word). | | The experience of a psychedelic high is incredibly broad. | It's like asking "what's it like to experience a vacation?". | It might be relaxing if you're on the beach in Barbados. It | might be exhilarating if you're skiing in the Alps. It might | be serious work if you're cave diving in Tulum. Then there's | the individual experience. Do you feel relaxed and free from | your job? Do you feel stressed because you can't stop | thinking about it? Fighting with your family? Connecting with | them? Lonely? Content? | | In defense of the person you're replying to, someone could | give you an impression they've never been on a vacation by | the way they talk about it. It's not that their experience is | different than yours, it's just that what they're saying | doesn't seemed to be informed by any sort of experience at | all. | | Even though psychedelic highs are incredibly broad, there are | a few common (usually opposing) themes. The first is | hallucinations. These are perceptions that aren't real, or | more generously, outside of consensus reality. If the paint | on the wall looks like it's flowing, it won't to anyone else | in the same room. At least not in the same way. You could | feel a snake wrapping around you, but a video recording | wouldn't show one. Then there are delusions, which are | beliefs disconnected from reality. You believe you're Jesus. | You believe someone is out to get you. You believe nothing | bad could possibly happen to you. | | You could feel complete boundary dissolution. Everything is | one. Or, strong separateness. You're talking to the parts of | yourself as distinct, external parts. Or are communicating | with a spirit. Faded memories can come back, or you can have | trouble remembering anything. Fearlessness or fear, heart | rate increase or decrease, peace or terror. | | Decreased motor control is the only thing I can think of | close to universal, but it isn't. There are reports of people | having temporary increases in motor function, often in an | area that is deficient due to physical trauma. | | Anyone who answers your question with a few simple | declarations is like answering "what's it like experiencing a | vacation?" with "You take a break from your job, go somewhere | sunny with your family, have a nice time doing fun and | relaxing things, then feel refreshed when you go back to | work". It's not even an oversimplification. It's a sample | presented as a summary. Suitable for a telling a 3-year-old | what "vacation" means, but certainly not _right_. | | This page is great if you'd like more examples, and examples | are the best you're going to get: | https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Subjective_effect_index | bckr wrote: | Great summary. | | I've definitely had experienced polar opposites that both | involved visual hallucinations or delusions / shifts in | belief. | | For example, I've experienced the belief that my life is a | beautiful story where everything is going to be revealed to | be part of some sort of divine plan, with people in my life | turning out to have some kind of angelic knowledge and | agency in this plan. | | I've also experienced the belief that existence is a | horrendous joke, and that everything from physical reality | to my identity is actually some kind of swirling prison- | prism that is eternally flowing into horrible nothingness. | | Well, those are both true in certain ways and false in | other ways. But boy were they experiences. | loves_mangoes wrote: | Many people have tried to describe it and report their | experiences. | | See https://www.erowid.org/ for a large collection | fluoridation wrote: | While these are worth a read, IMO if language was | sufficient to properly communicate the experience it would | not be worth having. | csydas wrote: | There are many types of high, so it's difficult to explain. | It's extremely personal in a way that you want to share with | everyone as it likely is one of the best times of your life | sitting there and feeling the ecstasy and glory of everything | around you, but I'm not confident there's a language that can | express the feelings of joy and pleasure in a way other than | to spark curiosity in a listener. I can certainly try though | to describe some more positive experiences. | | All wayward thoughts, the problems that bog you down, the sad | thoughts and feelings that creep in or the little worries | about what you need to do today, tomorrow, next week, they | don't appear as tasks or problems, if they appear at all. If | they do, there is an unbridled energy towards how well you're | going to handle them, and then they're out of your mind. As | you approach the peak of your state, there is a rush to your | head like a warmth, a little unnerving at first, but it will | just let loose over you and you'll feel your body let go of | stresses and tension you never realized you had. | | Uncontrollably, you'll start to smile and want to share what | you're feeling with anyone around, finding the joy of life in | absolutely everything. Everything will seem more real, with | small details that mesmerize you and astound you and you | focus on with incredible attention and admiration. Imagine | the scenes you've probably seen in movies or TV shows where | someone is stunned by the beauty of a piece of art or by | music, and then try to imagine how powerful the emotions | would have to be to stop you in your tracks and just gaze | upon something that registers to you as pure beauty. I once | stared at puffy white clouds against a huge blue sky, and | they had a silver shimmer outlining them, each cloud seeming | "happy" to just be a cloud floating in the sky, sharing their | happiness with the world below them. As I took in their | happiness, I felt I "gave it back" and they loved and | appreciated our connection so much, they shimmered even | greater. The vastness of how far the clouds stretched and | reached felt immense as logically I could know they stretched | for kilometers, but at the same time it felt as if we were in | the same room sharing our positiveness with one another. (To | this day I cannot look at clouds without smiling, even when | completely sober) | | Tastes and feelings are taken to something else, as even | sipping on a simple glass of juice felt like drinking from | the divine, whatever that means, and every molecule of the | juice was friendly and soothing to every part of me it | touched, and gladly gave me its energy to help me feel | stronger and better, and I thanked every drop as it | rejuvenated me because I felt so close to each and every | moment and was almost brought to tears as I thought of how | much work had to happen for this fruit to become a juice, the | care and love to grow the plants and to bring them to | fruition and now the juice shared the same love and care it | had with me as it gave me energy and refreshed me. | | If you're with people, you want nothing but the best for them | and to tell them how much they matter and how wonderful they | are. You never lie, but you also find the positive in | everything and even if sad subjects do come up, you cannot | help but approach it from a strategy of understanding, and | conflicts are anything but that, you just want to show that | no matter what they are loved and appreciated and that they | matter. Even telling of such subjects isn't an offense, it's | a brave and human act of someone who wants to grow, and you | want to help them grow, so you even thank them for the | offenses and want to help them take the next steps they want | to become the best "them" they can be. | | During this time, your entire body relaxes in ways maybe | you've felt before. If you've ever had a partner and held | them at night and realized you didn't know when your body | ended and theirs began, it's a similar experience, but when | you're on a high, it's an intensity of comfort and happiness | that really cannot be described. For hours, you barely feel | the weight of your own body while having full control over | it. | | For other highs, everything just seems more "intense", both | the good and sometimes the bad (hence, bad trips). You will | think and understand yourself in ways you consciously avoid, | and it can go either way depending on the conditions you | prepare for. Directing your attention to the simple things | like calming music, some gentle twinkling lights, it brings | you to the same joy where you just can't compare it to any | sober experience as everything is enhanced. There is a beauty | and "feel" that inhabits the world as you see it and all | things have a significance you cannot ignore. | | I doubt this really conveys it, but I tried :) | TrainedMonkey wrote: | Modern journalism is much more about selling the story rather | than listing the facts and citing evidence. He did state that | he experienced Altered State of Consciousness and that at least | some students in 19 strong study did too. The result is | unsurprising to me because that is a known property of | meditation. The app itself combined traditional audio | meditation techniques with a visual component, so the real | question is what visual component adds to the experience. Given | that audio stimuli works to help induce meditation, it is | highly likely that there is a way to tie in a visual component | in a synergistic way. | | As someone who dabbles in meditation I would like to see a | study with a lot more people split into 3 groups: control group | who are put in same environment without anything, group with | audio component only, and a group with both audio and video | component. | | P.S. in additional to audio stimuli there are many other | techniques that can induce ASC: concentrating really hard (this | one is for flow most of us are familiar with), smells, walking, | breathing patterns (including breathing super rapidly and over | oxygenating), dancing, yoga/exercise routine, etc. | nicoty wrote: | The app doesn't work on my Android device (it's stuck on the | "Welcome to Lumenate" screen after signing in). I'm not sure | exactly how this app is supposed to function, but assuming it's | just similar to something like a stroboscope, it's a bit | ridiculous that I have to sign up for an account to use it, when | free and open-source alternatives like | https://f-droid.org/packages/co.garmax.materialflashlight/ | already exist. | colordrops wrote: | Same, also crashed during signup. | aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: | Didn't do anything for me... Saw the light flashing with | different frequencies through my eyelids and that's it. Maybe | some vague geometric artifacts like zebra stripes and such, | depending on the flashing frequency, but didn't feel anything. | | If this is what shrooms supposed to do, then it's very much | overblown. | throwaway290 wrote: | Another subscription-based app. I'd get it if I could buy it, | even if I needed to pay more. | eafkuor wrote: | Yes! I'm so sick of this trend. Why does everything need to be | subscription based nowadays? | rusk wrote: | Because it reflects the costs involved in keeping an app up | to date on an ongoing basis | hansword wrote: | Right, right, because these subscription apps never close | down and leave all their customers with nothing... | tsol wrote: | This implies that I want to pay for an app to stay up to | date. I do not. Obviously this would be more expensive, | which is why I would only do that when I'm confident that | I'll continue to use it. Unfortunately there usually isn't | any option | nwh5jg56df wrote: | I just tried it briefly, it was fairly interesting. I will | definitely keep it installed for a couple more experiments, since | I've tried some meditation apps but they never stuck with me | | https://lumenategrowth.com/the-science/ | | How do I find the actual science? i.e. Where are the papers? | labrador wrote: | I haven't tried the app but I know from experience that ymmv. For | example, ASMR videos on YouTube do nothing for me, but some | people say they experience frisson. I am susceptible to | trypophobia and avoid any pictures with patterns of holes like | that. | b3morales wrote: | I'm surprised there was no mention of binaural beats, which are | used in a similar way. I'd expect them to be complementary to the | visual stimulus that this app provides. Though only | experimentation would tell for sure. | Yenrabbit wrote: | Tried it out (sceptically). Quite a fun experience - | hallucinations in the 'visual artefacts' sense. I doubt it's | comparable to a drug trip (maybe those with experience can | comment) but it is a somewhat pleasing way to zone out and be | mindful. | semicolon_storm wrote: | The problem with reproducing a hallucinogenic trip is there's a | whole mental/headspace side of it that they can't hope to | reproduce. The visual aspect isn't even half of it. It's like | an app saying it can make you drunk by giving you blurry cross- | eyed vision. | | Are you seeing the same thing a drunk person might see? Sure. | Is it comparable to being drunk? No. | dinkleberg wrote: | I did the same, and likewise was pleasantly surprised. I've | never experienced something quite like it. | | Signed up for a month, will see if it helps me stick to a | meditation practice better than usual (I'm very off and on with | it). | ChuckMcM wrote: | If you can find it, consider the movie "Looker" with Susan Dey in | it. The guy who wrote it had been looking at influencing brain | state with flickering lights. | josephpmay wrote: | This sounds to me more like hypnotism, where you're using | external stimuli to induce a specific brain wave state, rather | than hallucinogenic tripping, where you're inhibiting some of | your brain's filtering mechanisms to see phenomena and form | connections that would normally be filtered out. | | Honestly, this sounds more useful, at least in app form. Not a | great article, but I'll definitely be trying it out myself. | pessimizer wrote: | > inhibiting some of your brain's filtering mechanisms to see | phenomena and form connections that would normally be filtered | out. | | I think it's more like inhibiting some of the functioning of | your brain by clogging a type of receptor, so your sensations | are severely distorted and you have to work around the damage | by processing input using other pathways. | olyjohn wrote: | I'm not sure if this is related, but one time while tripping | balls, we got a kaleidescope and put up to a CRT that was | displaying only static. Looking through it was the craziest | feeling that I had ever gotten while tripping. We even filmed it | with our phones and watched it again and it did the same thing. | It was like we all got sucked into the visual. You could almost | feel it pulling you in. But it created other crazy visual | feelings too. You could see the individual RGB pixels in the CRT | all lighting up randomly. Highly recommend if you're gonna trip | balls. Haven't tried it sober though to know if it could have the | same effects. | FredPret wrote: | Getting some Snowcrash vibes from this | adv0r wrote: | I think that for a non native english speaker, I'll head to | Duckduck go to search for "Tripping balls" as a verb | lgas wrote: | "having a quite powerful psychedelic experience" | yesenadam wrote: | This native english speaker thanks you. Never heard "trip | balls". | hansword wrote: | https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/balls#Adverb | zalebz wrote: | probably should just head to UrbanDictionary for looking up | slang | cossatot wrote: | Do you still have the video? | smoldesu wrote: | Something tells me that directing a cathode ray with a series | of mirrors directly into your retina isn't a phenomenal idea, | all things considered. | olyjohn wrote: | We were just looking at the screen through the kaleidoscope | with the scope pressed up against the glass. It wasn't taken | apart or anything. If that's dangerous than I'm doomed from | all those years sitting too close to the TV, as my parents | told me! | flycaliguy wrote: | Can you do a Show HN with some more technical details? | olyjohn wrote: | Probably not worth a full Show HN. Just get an old TV turn it | on so a dead channel so you just get "snow" on the screen. | Get a cheapie Kaleidoscope and put it near or up against the | glass. Look through it at the CRT and enjoy the show. Helps a | lot if the room is dark too. | divs1210 wrote: | could you share your videos? | thanatos519 wrote: | We hooked up my fisheye lens to the projector and pointed it | back at the projection from inside a blown glass plasma lamp. | Good times. | tomduncalf wrote: | Those of you in London or Belfast (and next up Edinburgh) can try | out a large scale immersive version of what I assume this is | (strobe lights causing you to see crazy colours and patterns) | with a soundtrack by (electronic music producer) Jon Hopkins: | https://dreamachine.world/ | | I thought it was fun, definitely worth a visit and quite an | impressive effect. I think the London tickets are all gone but | the site says there are usually walk-ups due to people not | turning up. | squiggy22 wrote: | Thanks for posting this. In Belfast here totally going. | tomduncalf wrote: | Oh awesome, I hope you enjoy it! I vaguely know some of the | people behind it and I know they put a huge amount of work | into making it a great experience. | csdvrx wrote: | Uh, careful there, I tried something like that at home and | found myself lying on ground a few hours later with no idea | what had happened inbetween (my best guess is a seizure!) | sacrosanct wrote: | I've tried it and can confirm it works, at least for me. I even | tried it listening to binaural beats | (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/binaural-beats) to | enhance the experience. | | It's certainly useful, and I like the way if it feels too | intense, you just move the strobe away from your eyes. Something | you can't do in the thralls of a shroom trip. With actual drugs | you're stuck in that state and have to wait it out! | tipsytoad wrote: | I've had my fair share of psychedelics so I was pretty skeptical | going into this, but it actually worked pretty well although I | would call it a more like a trance than a trip. | | It can't alter mental state anywhere nearly the same way as acid | though - really the most significant part not just flashy light | patterns. Still very cool can't wait to try next trip :) | fallingfrog wrote: | Wanted to try it, but it asks for you to sign in via google or | Facebook etc, and I can't think of any non-pathological reason it | would need you to do that. | the_third_wave wrote: | Same here on the subject of having to sign up/log in - although | it does offer the option to log in using an email address. I do | not want an application with the specific intention of changing | my state of mind to be connected and transferring personally | identifiable information to some remote mothership in any way | so thanks but no thanks - no _neurocannula_ for me. | gnuj3 wrote: | You must have had closed eyes when you tried to sign in as you | can register using just an email. | tomduncalf wrote: | Or Sign In with Apple on iOS devices which also hides your | email from them ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-04 23:00 UTC)