White Fox Talking
Talk About Mental Health & Well-Being… Why Not? Mark ‘Charlie’ Valentine suffered life changing mental illness, before beginning a journey to recovery and wellness; the darkness of PTSD transformed by the light atop mountains and beyond. Mark is now joining forces with Seb Budniak, to make up the ‘White Fox Talking’ team. Through a series of Podcasts and Vlogs, ‘White Fox Talking’ will be bringing you a variety of guests, topics, and inspirational stories relating to improving mental well-being. Find your way back to you! Expect conversation, information, serious discussion and a healthy dose of Yorkshire humour!
White Fox Talking
Episode 30: Gavin Lawson - Audio Visual Entrainment
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Our 30th episode and we wanted to bring you something special!
To quote the Audysseyave website description - “To experience Audio Visual Entrainment is to enter a world beyond language, where the mind is free to roam and explore the unknown. It is a transformative experience that opens the door to new dimensions of creativity, self-discovery, and inner peace”.
“The colours and patterns that dance before the eyes are not just a visual spectacle, but a reflection of the listener's own inner state. As the mind is immersed, it begins to let go of stress and anxiety, as you enter a state of deep relaxation”.
We ventured out of the studio to talk to Gavin Lawson, for this podcast & vlog episode, and to sample the audiovisual entrainment therapy for ourselves.
Coming from a mental health aspect, we were very interested to discuss the potential applications for AVE, and excited to be sampling it for ourselves
What followed can only be described as mind-expanding. Over a series of 3 short sessions, no more than 5 minutes each, we all felt a wave of deep relaxation as our minds produced ever-changing waves of geomorphic patterns and shapes. Whilst the strobe did its thing in front of our faces, what was going on in our minds was another story, and that story was individual to ourselves.
Gavin went onto speak to us about his own journey to working with *AVE, the ongoing studies into how it works and the future possibilities.
We are delighted to have made this podcast and vlog at such an exciting time for *AVE and its future.
*AVE - Audio Visual Entrainment
This episode has an accompanying vlog which you can find here:
https://youtu.be/RZYE4WiB5wc
https://www.youtube.com/@audysseyave
https://www.instagram.com/audysseyave/
https://www.facebook.com/audysseyave/
https://audysseyave.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/user/31ich2bptkgjaqt7ivpqf2evm774
Notes from Gavin Lawson: *** Sussex not Suffolk ***
Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Matt Gialavanan and along with me is Seb Hi. Hello, seb, how are you? Very good now. Very good. Well, we're talking about that in a little bit. Yeah, so we are. We're not in the studio, we're down at Feel Good Studios, and thank you to Sash for letting us come in and use it, because we've been doing a blog as well.
Speaker 2We haven't done an outing for a while, haven't we? We?
Speaker 1haven't now. We're not often allowed out, haven't we? Especially together, only under supervision. You alluded to it. There We've been quite relaxed and that's because we, with Gav Lawson, or Gavin Lawson of Audicy, audiovisual Entrainment.
Speaker 3Thank you.
Speaker 1Stephen from Blackmail Studio is also with us and he's made a vlog which you can go to and have a look, which is in association of associated with this podcast. The White Fox Talking Podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact, gavin Lawson. Yes, get all that rubbish out of the not rubbish, sorry. That's his thanks and a brief introduction, but we've been chatting about this for a long time, quite a while actually it is.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's a while now yeah.
Speaker 1Toby. Toby Wiltshire mentioned you after we'd done our mindfulness podcast and we've had a few conversations and we've finally managed to meet up.
Speaker 3So yeah, it's nice to be with you guys today.
Speaker 1What are we all about?
Speaker 3Well, what are we all about? I'm really impressed by the way that you three are now. Yeah, now you've had an opportunity to try the Rocksiva Lamp with some nice music as well, to give you the audio visual entrainment experience. It's nice to be back in Leeds. I lived in Leeds for 21 years, so it's nice to be back over and bring this technology that helps us with our minds to the city again.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3But yeah, I know you've had some time to experience and taken about time off from it. How do you feel?
Speaker 1then I feel very relaxed, most ease, which sometimes, as we mentioned on the vlog earlier, I find the podcasting easier. Yeah, I do find it sometimes intimidating when the cameras are going. Okay, stay with me, but when we did the first introduction it took me a couple of takes and then we did the therapy. Yes, and I did feel really relaxed when we sat on the sofa and had a good chat. I mean, yeah, and just from all three of us have had to go at three different sessions and actually sat, stood watching the other guys, especially Seb, you could say for about 30 seconds or so. You just could see like a wave of relaxation the shoulders dropped.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah. So and I felt that myself, you know you get the first of all there was that little apprehension what's going on with anything new? But then the part of the music's there, the patterns, and I found that the breathing did it. Did the breath have something to do with it? It seemed to. It seemed to expand what I was, what I was seeing. But overall, yeah, this feeling of letting go and really that relaxation, there's a thing that they talk about with tennis players, right, that the ball's coming at a certain speed.
Speaker 3You've got to raise your hand, you've got to focus on that ball where it's coming from. So the brain's doing multiple of different things based on different time states. And I think one of the things I've noticed with the light and maybe you can tell me what you think about that is the music in the light seemed to really seem to be the same thing. It seems that the light is, it's a, it's a distance away by by the time it reaches your eyes. Then you've got the sound, which is through headphones. But, yeah, there seems like there's this synchronicity between the sound and light and the breath. Right, so it goes. It's very similar, I think, to that tennis player. It was from Neuroscience, I was. I was reading about that. It's actually it's quite amazing that the brain can do, can do as much as it does, particularly in something like a game of tennis, and I think it's happening with the brain and treatment experiences as well.
Speaker 1So if we were to break down what the audio visual entrainment is for the listeners, we can go a bit more in depth, because we've got the hour for the podcast without without losing my small mind yeah.
Speaker 3I don't want to lose people's minds because I lose my own mind with it, right yeah.
Speaker 1I like to look at what it is, and then they advocate you know what we can use it for, because I mean I've got, I've got my own thoughts after trying it.
Speaker 3The brain is always functioning in different states. It's always functioning in gamma, is always functioning in alpha, theta, delta, beta, right, they're all.
Speaker 2They're all functioning in the brain and these are all rays.
Speaker 3These are brain wave states. So what we're doing is we're taking the. We're taking certain frequencies that are based around these brain wave states and having a consistent flow of those frequencies to allow the brain to sync with those frequencies, and the benefits are relaxation. Mainly, then, stress reduction and perceived stress is what I'm interested in. There's really good evidence out there that supports that. It's good for depression, anxiety, confidence, academic grades, creativity. So it seems that when you can focus in on particular states of mind, it has unique benefits for each individual. So we all have these brain wave states, but our perception is unique and I think that's the nicest and clearest way to explain what's going on.
Speaker 3So in the music there's an isochronic tone which is basically a beat at the same frequencies. What is happening in the light, and so the ears are picking up a binaural. The binaural it's not binaural but it's binaural because it's the ears with headphones on and those low frequencies is hidden behind the music, so that the brain, so the ears, have to look for it and then with the light, with the frequencies, they are hitting the eyelids and again, I think that, from what I can see, the whole brain is being affected and the visual imagery. As Anil Seth said recently in a talk I was listening to, what you're seeing is the neural activity of the brain Right, which is profound, but I think it's quite a beautiful thing to think that that's what we're seeing, whether our eyes closed. It's very difficult to explain these experiences, right? I mean, you know absolutely.
Speaker 1How do you put them into words? You know the geomorphic shapes and the colors. I think, as you said, when we came, when sort of came out of it or stopped and then spoke to it, what I wasn't thinking about, anything else, but what was going on. So there's none of this brain chatter, there's none of this subconscious worrying about what bills are about to pay. You know, and that wave of that wave of relaxation that we saw all over, you know, over the three of us.
Speaker 3This stimulation is detracting from thought, that then the frequencies themselves let's say they're alpha wave frequencies in the session, they're bringing in a level of relaxation. So you're distracting the mind in order to reduce thought processes, to be in a more relaxed state. And once you're in that more relaxed state, you know the, as you saw yourself the visuals open up to a bigger space. Rather than a two dimensional flat screen experience in front of you, it becomes three dimensional and that I think that's a very good indicator to the, to the state of mind that you're in at that time.
Speaker 2It was a bit like tunnel vision at first, yes, and then once I went into that relaxed state it became a dome like experience. You were inside a VI headset, kind of just within your mind looking around.
Speaker 1Yeah, I know, I was looking outside of my eyes to you know, in the periphery, and I can still see. This is not just that light that's into my eyes from the front, but when we've just mentioned, like colors and geomorphic patterns. So there is a comparison with what this triggers to psychedelics, but we're not ingesting anything, so it's similarities in the geometry and the colors with psychedelics.
Speaker 3There's. There is a recent study from Sapa University 2021, I think it is where they were monitoring the brain with the stroboscopic light and the comparing the brainwave data between the stroboscopic light and psilocybin, and there was there was a bit. There was similarity in the off of brainwave region. So it seems to suggest that there are parallels between psychedelic experiences and stroboscopic light.
Speaker 1Because it seems to be at the moment whether it's whether it's myself looking more into it because of these mental well being things that we're trying to do with the podcast there seems to be an awful lot of studies opening up on psychedelics.
Speaker 3There are, yeah, maps. Is the leader? I think there's people like Professor Knott and Robin Cartwright Harris and Amanda Fielding who've been doing some interesting research. That's for sure. But is it a one size fits all? I mean, this is the big question.
Speaker 3Right, you know there's. It seems that to me particularly, that I think psychedelics are beneficial for some but not all, and I think that's quite a I mean I also understand that there's therapists. You know you need to someone who's a little bit rogue to damage the hard work that's gone into this particular research.
Speaker 1Yeah, and one thing that does strike me with our conversations is that, similar to psychedelics and research, was a lot of research going on a long time ago, but this isn't a new thing, is it?
Speaker 3No, so the ancient Egyptians had a disc that they cut holes out of, that they would spin and lie under in the sun, which would have a similar experience, right, which is fascinating. Because you wonder about the geometry, because you've just I mean you could this is great because you've, guys, have had an opportunity to do this today so you can see yourself. There's geometric shapes right and structures, and they've consistently morph and change in the colors as well. But you wonder about these sorts of technologies. One of the things that I took an interest in also was was being in the dark. You know they do these darkness retreats. You spend six days, six sorry, six nights in the dark and then you come out to a sunrise and a friend of mine did it and she said it was like the whole. When she opened her eyes after the six days of darkness, to the sun coming up, she said it was all geometry and then, over a short period of time, it all fell back into being what we see now. So these sorts of things, they're fascinating. So I've got one of these minefolds, so I'll do 45 minutes to an hour with a minefold just listening to music, and then I can reach up and switch the lamp on and pull the minefold out, and that's really profound. That like throws you straight into the experience.
Speaker 31945, w Walter Gray discovered that American pilots were going into a transient state because of the radar equipment and they were being shot down by the Japanese. So he worked out that it was the stroboscopic light from the radar equipment and then proceeded to do studies with stroboscopic light. Now these were strip lights flashing at people. We can imagine that sort of experience to pretty full on. But he intended to induce epilepsy, which it didn't. It induced hallucinogenic experiences. So that study was kind of washed away.
Speaker 3And then Brian Gison invented the dream machine with Ian Somerville and also the help of William Burroughs at the BHotel in Paris. I mean, it's really famous, I mean it's William Burroughs, you know. I mean Naked Lunch, et cetera, et cetera. But Brian Gison and Ian Somerville figured out that if they built this cylinder and cut shapes out of the cylinder and if you put it on top of a 70 RPM ton table and played it based on the mathematics they'd worked out over the 70 RPM, you could actually have a flickering effect of 10 hertz.
Speaker 3And lots of people have owned those. Actually there's been a few exhibitions. But Brian Gison himself, paul McCartney had one, aldous Huxley had one, brian Jones from Rolling Stones had one, kurt Cobain had one, genesis Peerage from Throbbing Gristle had one, and they were using this device to increase their creative capabilities. And then there was a wave of stroboscopic machines. There's a book in the 80s that took me a really long time to find, called Mega Brain Power, and it talks only about stroboscopic light machines and the benefits that they had and basically how these brain gyms were opening up all across the United States but due to epileptic fits that they slowly but surely generalized. Yeah, it's great that we can have these experiences, but if you have had a serious brain injury or you're epileptic or you've had a stroke, I mean it's not recommended.
Speaker 1Can I ask you how you came to this point?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Music and Light Therapy
Speaker 1Because I was just thinking then we didn't really give you a bit of an introduction because you've done a few bits with music and. Djing.
Speaker 3Yeah, I've been in music since I was 16. It started DJing at 16, started making music when I was 21, 50 this year. I used electronic music as a means to support my trauma. So being able to DJ and being able to make music were my way of supporting my losses as a young man. So when I found Acid House in 1980, my mum had died in 1987, so I found Acid House in 1988 through cassettes.
Speaker 1You thought my time got up with mum.
Speaker 3And then in 90s I started buying records, probably getting into it and that world was my all. But how did I get into working with stroboscopic?
Speaker 1light. Well, I'm just going to mention that because we spoke to Brandon Block recently when he found that Acid House was his sort of meditation. So it wasn't a distraction at all Acid House scene, it was a therapy. Oh, it's still a belief.
Speaker 3I 100% believe that, without knowing we're coming out of a post-Thachar, a John Major government that was in benefit in the country and those of us who were fortunate enough to fall into that movement benefited greatly from it. Some not, but the majority of people who were on a dance floor, I mean you've got to think there was no phones. A lot of events were in fields nobody knew about and I went to a lot of these things. I was obsessed, actually, by all of it, all the culture of it.
Speaker 1You've got a lot of things coming together there, haven't you? You've got the music, you've got the belonging, you've got people on the dance floor, all the benefits from that, and then the music.
Speaker 3I think it contributes to our choices and the people we've become the ones I still know from that period are amazing people. I mean, they've gone on to do really, really amazing things and they come from conversations at after parties. So that's the therapy. To me is like you go to the event, you have a great time and then you're sat in somebody's kitchen usually and it becomes philosophical and really open.
Speaker 1That's where all the best conversations are, isn't it? When people have sort of let go of they're inhibitions, yeah, inhibitions. I want to say something, but we're not like that. But whereas at an after party, then Barry's out there.
Speaker 3The know and again the music. Most people just had their head down, didn't they? I think the 90s had a really profound impact because it was driven by something to do that brought people together and there was money made. There was money made, but there wasn't. I don't think mentally the business structure was the same as it is now.
Speaker 3So, yeah, we were very beneficial to have gone through that. But I've just come back from living in Ibiza for six years and during that time in Ibiza I was running a small business promoting health and wellbeing in the music industry called Audio Mogul, and that involved retreats where there was yoga and meditation, plant-based diet, things like popcorn because there isn't UE popcorn, because it keeps you focused. It's like a deep dive on the benefits. And then I wrote a book called Creativity Starts From Within, which is Cardio, fitness, yoga, meditation, smoothies, coffee, kakao and I think coffee is a mindfulness experience in itself and the idea was to turn that business into a model for people coming out of university or getting into music, where they could have longevity within the industry. So, yeah, you can go out and have a great weekend Nobody should ever be denied that but make sure you're well enough to cope with the great weekend you're about to have. I got some investment to do that.
Speaker 3And then the pandemic hit and I tried a light called an ashina light that a friend of mine in Ibiza had allowed me to try, and I was like what is this experience? It's like these colours, these geometric shapes, and actually it was about a month after that I thought I feel really good and I put it down to the experience of that light. A good friend of mine, jim, had gone just before a pandemic and he left a light called a holotope and asked me to look after it and it stayed in a bag. And then during the pandemic I opened the bag and pulled out this light machine and it had MIDI on the back and I plugged it into my computer. I found the guy who invented it and put a lot of searching on the internet and then I started to program this light myself and started to read my friend feeling keen, he lives in Berlin and he said look, music and ocean is a big thing.
Speaker 3You should get really into that. He was talking to me about people like Bob Monroe, you know, with the hemispheric sink. So I did a lot of research in that field. But then when you combine music that's based for entrainment with light entrainment, it does have a really profound effect. So I started working with that. By then I'd done my breath work and my psychotherapy diploma and my cognitive behavioral therapy and I was looking for a way to extract myself from the music industry, but staying in a way where I could become now a supportive role within the industry. So I still got a foot in, but not two feet in and dancing around in the mud right.
Speaker 1Why do you think I am so slow? I am slow in the mud very much, so You've come to this as originally for the creative aspect. What do you say?
Stroboscopic Light Therapy
Speaker 3Because, going back to what we were saying, I think that sound and light, whether we're on a dance floor or you know, when there's flashing lights and there's music, we are going into these states of mind. And you know, leading on from the holotope, I found Rock Siva, their Sheffield bass, and Jimmy and Lance, the guys at Rock Siva. They are amazing people and they're really doing this for the right reasons and that's why I wanted to work with them. They're developing Lance develops the sessions and Jimmy produces and designs and writes the code for the lamp, and now I write the music for the sessions as well. And we have really deep conversations about where are the beneficial key points of the use of stroboscopic light. Well, we've got the scientific data. That's pretty solid. But then what other aspects of things can we do with it?
Speaker 3And I was talking to Stephen about this earlier where you control what about controlling the light and real time with the music? So that I've developed a Max for Live patch with my friend, feeling that we'll now control the Rock Siva lamp. But then we've got different waveform shapes. So what you guys experience today is a mixture of sine waves and square waves, but we can have triangle waves and we can actually have wave tables so you can morph and bend and change the shape of the wave table itself so it becomes very audio. You've got your amplitude and your frequency and actually I think I like to think of the light that I use the RX1 as a synthesizer, but it's a light synthesizer that permeates the eyelids and gives us the visual experience of geometry and colour, and actually it goes deeper than that. I've seen some really profound things under that lamp, like walking and walking in grass. You're looking straight ahead, but the visualisation is looking down to the floor of bare feet walking through grass.
Speaker 2It's funny, you should say this the anxiety. So the first track that you played us and the light track, I felt like I was underwater at first and I was looking at the ripples off the water from down below and it kept expanding. And then it all transformed of me being on a beach because I just had the blue colours up at the top and the yellow colours at the bottom. It was just really interesting. I think I heard a bit of water as well and then my mind got tricked into yes, you are definitely some windy water.
Speaker 3Isn't it beautiful that that can just be formed a geometry. It's actually you're starting to visualise something beyond the lines, and that fascinates me, that you're actually seeing that. You're sat out, but you're seeing something that's like this, so the whole perception of where you're positioned is completely changed. It's become spatial, doesn't it? Yeah, very, very spatial.
Speaker 1Yeah, I know it's when I was doing the breathing nasal breathing when I was breathing in it all sort of expanded, all expanded, got brighter. We'd spoke with the three of us after about different colours. What do the different colours mean? Is there any meaning to?
Speaker 3that. Well, there's the light spectrum, but then there's a cross pollination of colours in the light spectrum that, like you said to me that you saw colours you've never seen before.
Speaker 1Yes, yes, I would like to. There's no way that I could sit down and write. No, I know what you mean.
Speaker 3So then you've got to think that there's. I think our eyes are really limited, right, so that when we actually put ourselves into mind and the visualisation in mind, prefrontal cortex for sure you're allowing yourself to see really interesting colour palettes that do morphin change. For example, you're seeing a red that's not really a red that you know, and then you'll see a pastel pink that is like the most beautiful pastel pink you've ever seen, but it's behind the eyes. So again, I think that's probably. These colours are probably more accurate to colour than the colours we see externally.
Speaker 2Have you ever experienced doing these therapies on a blind person? No, would that be something interesting.
Speaker 3For sure, but depends if they've had sight and then lost it or they've still got a little bit going on. There One of my best friends, his son, is deaf and blind, but he was born with sight and can hear. Now it's completely gone. But I wonder if that would have a contribution, because I would you explain it if you've never been able to see.
Speaker 2But maybe your mind is strong enough because we've just made all this up in the mind.
Speaker 3Yeah, we don't know who's in control at that point. I mean, there's lots of potential hypotheses around this sort of phenomena, but the best accuracy is you and your experience, and that's my favourite. It's like asking you guys how you feel, what did you see? And then you know. One of the things that I am fascinated by now is, well, then paint it and then externalise it again. So you've gone inside and then there's an opportunity to externalise it again and maybe that will allow you to let it out as well. So you know deeper sessions. So, yeah, we should probably just say what you did today, right?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3So you did no More Anxiety, which is a six minute session. That was the first one, yes, which reduced the potential of anxiety right. It's a very relaxing session.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean before we started that one we spoke with we did me and myself spoke about are you worried about doing it? Well, it's a new experience, we don't know what to expect. Obviously, it's safe, but there was a wave of relaxation after maybe 30 seconds. 35 seconds.
Speaker 3The shoulders are a beautiful telltale centre that you know, and breathing out, there's a really sustained out breath at one point, isn't it? I get this, and you haven't really had to think about how to get it, you're just going to do it. This fascinates me, right? But so then the second session you did was called Roxy 2, which is the intro five minute session created by Lance at Roxy Bar. It's really lovely, it's fun, it slowly takes you in, it's very visual, and then it drops you out. And then you all got to try a very new session. Actually, it's only a couple of weeks and it's only four minutes, and that's a play around on the whole concept of DMT, right, which I really wanted you to try after, because once you were all relaxed enough, that can be quite chaotic, but I don't think it is. Once you've done, no more anxiety, roxy2, and then go straight to that. I think it's a really positive experience, and that's ridiculous when it comes to colour and shape.
Speaker 1Yeah, quite a euphoric experience.
Speaker 3Yes, I think it's fun. I think we've also got to try and find some fun in our mental health.
Speaker 1Yeah, definitely, absolutely.
Speaker 3I really do. Yeah, you know, because we need some laughter as well, and it always brings a smile to my face when you see people look on that four minute session.
Speaker 2Has there been much research done in this area.
Speaker 3Yeah, I've got some interesting papers. There's a guy called Dave Siever. His papers are really easy to read. He's a good person. He has a different protocol, so he uses a machine called a David, named after himself. He didn't name it. Oh, of course he didn't name it. I feel like blowing your own trumpet, oh I know. But yeah, his research has gone on for quite a long time and he's kind of been flying the flag for his device and the research is great to read because it's increased creativity, reduced stress, depression, anxiety. He's also got some really interesting videos on YouTube and quite deeply into audio visual and training.
Speaker 3But his research is limited to working with the David device. So there are other devices the ROG Siever that I use, and then there's the Lucia, there's a new one called BrainTap and there's various other should I say this, more gimmicky devices out there that they've got quite a low price point and, to be honest, they don't do anything. But other research that I am really interested in which is very new, is MIT are now developing a headset with earphones for stage one and two Alzheimer's, which is a big thing. So they've had 75 million investment for this From the government. Yes, I believe so, and that's usually a telltale sign that the research has already been done. So over the next couple of years they will just be finalising that research with a new device that will support those which, again, it's stroboscopic light, but they're using multiple colours and I believe it's the 60 hertz frequency.
Speaker 3It's a really lovely thing to read because I really think if there is a non evasive way of supporting people with Alzheimer's, or at least being able to slow the process down for a much longer time, this is great research, this is gold. That's one of the things I'm quite fascinated with just now and also something that Lance and I at Roxyba talk about a lot. Also, the study that came from Suffolk University that I was talking about with the comparisons between the use of psychedelics and stroboscopic light, and it seems that the evidence is pretty clear that it has similarities. You can't really say they're the same because one is psilocyber and the other one's a lamp right, but if the brainwave data that they've produced through this really quite lengthy study, that's really positive. Depression Anil Seth is now currently doing trials at Suffolk to help with chronic depression, and these are all fascinating studies that I think over the next three or four years will start to see really a significant increase in the use of the work that I'm doing just now.
Speaker 1Have you got any more tech questions? They'll just wash off my head. Why don't you feel excluded from this conversation? I'm not the most. I'm with them, all hands on. And then tech Obviously they were mental well-being mental health.
Speaker 3Well, I've just been accepted for a PhD at Goldsmiths, which unconditionally, as they said, so the outlook is good for the applications.
Speaker 3Well, what I'm interested in is supporting the creative sector. So my PhD application is stroboscopic light and electronic music as a modality to support a reduction in stress-related conditions in the creative sector. That's the headline of my PhD application and that also came with a personal statement saying well, we know that there are benefits from music, We've seen it in music therapy, and we know there's benefit from specific frequencies because we've seen it in other modalities. So why not use electronic music? Well, the more modern day electronic music, the last 30 years at least and combine that with the stroboscopic light.
Speaker 3Then there's also the sub-pack which you can have on your back, where all the low end frequencies are then vibrating up the spine. So at one point I was using tuning forks on the spine with some clients and that's a really beautiful experience. And then I was like well, the sub-pack does your whole spine and you can be really accurate with the frequencies. So rather than moving from point to point to point to point on the spine, you can actually just have the whole spine vibrating, and I find that amazing. I think it's really really relaxing and it also enhances the experience, like you were saying about the smell. So yeah, that's the PhD concept. I'm not going to do it this year. I've decided to put it off for another year. I've just taken a practice on in Leeds City Centre.
Speaker 1So people can come in and catch up on further the sessions.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, and they're one-to-one sessions as well. So the group sessions I'll be doing here it feel good, but which is anywhere up to six parallel light, and I'll have multiple lights when I do events here, but you have to go through a pretty hefty disclaimer before you do it. It's something that I want to make sure that is safe and is guided properly.
Speaker 1In respect of mental health, do you think, or even Alzheimer's and things like that. Do you think this could be used as preventative, or is it? It's always going to be.
Speaker 3That's a really good question, right, I mean that's a really good question. If you don't get it, then it's being preventative.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Right, right, but if you do get it, then it's not being preventative. Yeah, I don't really know if we'll ever be able to tell you Right, okay, yeah, well, yeah, I would measure that.
Speaker 1I suppose, again, I can only rely on we spoke earlier. I can only go on. That's my own case, because we did speak about each person's mental health being their mental health individual, whatever, even if you're diagnosed with the same, the same in the same area of mental health. So with PTSD.
Speaker 3This is a subject I'm very fond of yeah.
Speaker 1I mean, I don't know whether we can answer it. Obviously, I'm just getting inquisitive.
Speaker 3No, I was talking about Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1Yeah, but what I'm thinking is is with something like PTSD, because of what happens, and I've only found out recently that people generally go down the same path, the same reactions or similar over in a certain area. So distraction was a lot of mine from flashbacks and things like that. But then because of them distractions, you get into habits and then because you're using these same patterns constantly. Now if we had an intervention where somebody's been in some trauma and we can use this early stages, would this, rather than being prescribed an antidepressant, could that be? Is there any applications for that or am I just totally care about it?
Stroboscopic Light Therapy and Mental Health
Speaker 3No, no, no, no, no yarn. These are questions that need to be asked. I mean, I'm hoping the work that Anil Seth is doing at Suffolk will answer a lot of these questions soon because it seems with the consensus they did with the dream machine that they took around the UK. So you know, you've got a million people having that experience and 20,000 of them in the consensus and also people painting their experiences and then being asked questions and answering these questions based on how it affected their mental health. Post-bandemic right.
Speaker 3Then there has to be room for all different types of mental health. You know, things that we've got that are perception related, or things we've got that are things like yourself, where there's a physical happening that leads you to a series of mental health problems that you're then trying to release and then move back to the. I mean, life will never be the same again because you've had an experience and life is never the same again. But these are really, I think, particularly with stroboscopic light. I do believe that it has the potential to support those who are busy in their thought processes because of the experiences they've had. There needs to be more research. It really does what I can tell you. I worked with someone with CPAPSD and he told me that it was the best experience he had and they had tried to help him with many different things, and he said that the work with the light hat was by far the best. And that's the best I can tell you, and that's from the perspective of someone who has With that particular case.
Speaker 1how many sessions would he have had?
Speaker 3He had 10 sessions.
Speaker 1How long between sessions could he go? He went once a week.
Speaker 3Right, and I also say as well, this was not something I did as a chargeable thing. I did this to help this guy and I said, look, I've got this, it's worth trying. I spoke to people who are more heavily At that time we're more heavily involved in the work with stroboscopic light than myself at that time and actually to see those benefits was really powerful and really positive, because it's you in the light, it's not me with you and the light. That's something we've thought about. Maybe. What about actually coming in on the headphones and talking you through certain experiences? And it's something I've discussed with a couple of psychotherapists that I'm interested in this. Can we do talk therapy while you're under the light? I mean, what would happen there? There's a lot of doors that haven't been opened yet, but I suppose it takes time for us to get to that. Like I said, the difficulty is epilepsy.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm just going to ask about any downsides that were Any known downsides at the moment.
Speaker 3That's the only one I know is seizure epilepsy. We have a disclaimer that's pretty good and involves plastic surgery whether you've had a knock to the head that was traumatic, or whether you're pregnant, or whether you know, you know you've had a seizure, or whether you know, you know that there's a potentiality, there's epilepsy. But that's why we never work with kids, because during brain development most kids won't know they're epileptic, right. So that could be the catalyst for epilepsy.
Speaker 1Okay, so working with adults have already been exposed to things that may have triggered the epilepsy. Anyway, that's right.
Speaker 3I think it minimizes the risk of someone having a seizure. This isn't to scare anybody, because it has happened in the past with various different like units. I read about it in that book. I was telling you about mega brain power, but actually nobody had a bad experience. If you're epileptic and have an epileptic fit, it's not seen as a bad experience. It's bad for the onlooker, right, yeah, yeah, you know it's not necessarily bad for those who experience it.
Speaker 3And I'm very undue, diligent, right, you know you have to be super careful who goes under the light and why they're going under the light. And, like I say, I think for PTSD, for stress beyond the elastic band of stress, we really need you know, and if you want to benefit from meditation, I mean, okay, here's a really nice thing which is added in slightly here, but I do think it's important. It's not just why you need to know about your nutrition. You need to do cardio fitness, you need to multi modality If you want, if you don't want to go down the road of being stigmatized with a particular set of initials and end on on a medication, you have to do the work that's out with that that well and has been proven to be beneficial, but it's not one modality. What I like about the light is it supports you on that journey, whether you have them talk therapy and you're then using meditation or you're you know you're using breathwork, for example, but this is an accelerator to those states of mind as you experience today.
Exploring the Power of Light Therapy
Speaker 1Yeah, I think I was. We spoke briefly about taking control of your subconscious and taking control of the underserved condition. So yeah, which it took me a long time to take control and think I've not got PTSD. That's my PTSD, do you know what I mean? And then it was a bit of a change around. But then also getting getting diet getting getting obviously getting me diet a bit better in order sometimes, getting me drinking in order, but then the mountain climbing, meditation, etc. So this is another, another way of enhancing or just preparing for your best part of the puzzle, the puzzle.
Speaker 1It's a fascinating, ever growing puzzle? Absolutely Well. Yeah, we're all seeking this answer, but we keep opening more doors to different puzzles. That's deep. I like that.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, it's to not be puzzled by the puzzle.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'll be honest, I've quite puzzled track with someone in GMO for a few hours, but absolutely fascinating. I do have to say that I am very grateful that you've done this today with us.
Speaker 3I've left our conversations on for, and it's really great.
Speaker 1It's like. It's like we've been invited into something at the very start, or not the very start. You've put a lot of work in.
Speaker 3No, jimmy, I speak to Jimmy at least once a week who makes the lamp right? And we put this one. That's one of the things in our conversation. It's like this is still a baby, you know, and it's then using your imagination. And also, I had to read so many papers to get my application from a PhD correct and it needed the citations and the links to all the all that data. I'll send you the application. You can read it and the personal statement.
Speaker 3But there's so many different potentialities here. The fact that A that it's affecting the whole brain, right, well, where do you start? Which part of the brain do you focus in on? And also all the different applications that it's good for, particularly the mental health ones, but which one do you pick to deep dive on? So, do I pick PTSD? Do I pick anxiety? Or do I pick acute stress related conditions?
Speaker 3You know there's got to be a point where you can just dig in one direction and find out as much as you can, and the majority of the papers that are available on this subject do that. So you also want to completely avoid guesstimation. You don't want to say, oh well, this might just do that, so you should do that that's. That's just pure practice. I know from from that experience with with the guy and Ibiza that I saw the effects. I also saw a doctor who had had a near death experience, who was able to relax with his near death experience by having the light experience. I wasn't expecting that at all. He's a doctor from New York, you know, and I did.
Speaker 1How did that make you feel as somebody that's providing that pathway to be it for them to be able to do something? So they've done the, done the light, done that, have the music and instead of, you know, going somewhere where they're going to ingest a tablet or some medication that might have a side effect, you know you've done that and then they've actually turned around and you've seen the benefit there, and then I believe in it.
Speaker 3That's why I'm really happy to actually, for the first time, really talk about it in public, because I've spent the last four and a half years deep diving what there is about it and and the things I've found and also the experiences people have had are 100% beneficial in my experience, for and then we've got a group of us that use the lamp across the world there's 106, just over 160 at who are sharing their experiences with their clients and we're trying and Lance has been really as a godsend in a lot of ways. He's been collating a lot of data which is all available on the RockSever website to read, and that's really that's really beneficial as well. I like that we've reached a point where there are certain things that can at least support some of the things you're feeling within mental health and maybe, if we catch it early enough, that won't become something that is a slippery has been a slippery slope to be climbing back up again, because you know as well as I do that climbing back up that hill is hard work.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, it's easy to get, a lot easier to get down better than it is to get back up. It's really easy to slide down, yeah, and there's a lot of you know personally, there's a lot of processes, when I look back of you know where I was, even though I thought it was existing. Yeah, a lot of reading and things like this.
Speaker 3Yeah, and the same. I did a lot of reading and I was reading across modalities as well, you know, because I was like, really interested in meditation, I'm really interested in breath work. We all jumped at the phenomenon of Wim Hof, right, I mean, you only need to watch what he's doing, what he's saying, and you need to read his book and you're like, oh, my god, this stuff really works. And then you get, you know, I got it really into it and on his app as well, and then I thought, well, I need to know more about this. So that led me to do the training, right. But then I realized that the combining the breath work with the light has an even more profound experience. So you're like, oh, that's a great modality to bring in. And also the reason I did the psychotherapy diploma was just so that I could make sure that the people that I'm dealing with are safe and that this is the right thing for them. And if it's not, I would be the first to say this is right for you.
Benefits of Stroboscopic Light Therapy
Speaker 1It's funny that you mentioned Wim Hof there and these methods, and then you've mentioned these light methods with the Egyptians, because neither of this or the Wim Hof, they were not reinventing the wheel. These methods have been in existence for a long, long time, but it's now getting it so where we can place it in science. What do you say?
Speaker 3I think women deserve it. Yeah, definitely. I mean look at the. You know, did they inject him with E Coli? Yeah, just thought it yeah, Just breathed his way out of E Coli. I mean, who does that? You know, I would have watched Arnie do that in a movie.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah, I mean what I talked about earlier. There is some of the knowledge that's been lost, ancient knowledge that he's brought back.
Speaker 3Yeah, I was telling you about the Kundalini wasn't. I yes, I mean, that was profound.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3You know I like to. You know I've got a really good friend called Milton who's a head of skeptics society, you know. So I like running stuff by Milton first, you know, I think it's a good attribute to have. But one of the things I thought was quite it's quite crazy Was this Kundalini experience I had in Ibiza. I mean, I was not expecting it. And all of a sudden here's this moving, oh, like a snake inside my chest. Man, it was not in a million years. I went in super skeptical and I came out like oh, that was. I don't even know what that was.
Speaker 1Well, we're still to get the concept to a Kundalini yoga session. We do we do.
Speaker 2I did start yoga, though, so that's different, I know, but it's a start.
Speaker 3How's your yoga? Very good, love it. My wife is 6 am every day. She can't get enough of it. She did a triathlon. I was telling you, yeah, nothing, she's cold. When she crossed the finish line. I can't believe it. Sickness in it, yes, absolutely sick. And I said to her you know what's that? She?
Speaker 2went yoga. How often would you recommend people doing it like therapy?
Speaker 3I would say I've. I've 10 sessions you will have regular weekly once a week, once a fortnight. A lot of it's talking as well. I charge for for by the hour, but I people come for two hours because the conversation afterwards is I don't charge for. That's just purely to talk, and I've because there's a freedom and there's an honest state. That comes after and there's a lot of questions and I don't feel I want to charge for those questions, I guess the conversation benefits you as well, cause you learn from me, yeah it's great.
Speaker 3So, like I said, I would say 10 sessions. I might never see you again and I really like the idea of that. You know there's people that I've had like that that I've never come back. I still get messages that they've never had to come back. It has 10 sessions to support them in change and it's not necessarily 10. I've got a really good friend. I hope she doesn't mind me talking about her because she's become a friend based on her coming to me for sessions. She works in the accounts of the music industry for for big labels and she was nervous about a director role and didn't believe she had the self confidence. She came to me, she had 10 sessions. She's now the director of finance for a really big, big music company and she she's the one that tells me that is all down to the light.
Speaker 3So that's, that's a big, that's a big thing, I won't mention it because it's unfair, but there you go. That's somebody who didn't believe they could do something that 10 sessions later did to do that something, and now it is doing that role. Yeah, that's, that's pretty amazing as well.
Speaker 2So kind of build her own confidence up.
Speaker 3Yes, there's a sense of self confidence, as you probably could feel today. You did mention that anyway.
Speaker 1Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3But think about that If you are going to utilize the self confidence and the experiences of the light into your creative practices, how much more will you create and at what capacity will you create it, and will that minimize the potentiality of going down the slippery slope? You know, with each individual and also you can always come back if 10 is not enough. I mean I'm putting, I'm rounding it off, but if it's 20 sessions, if it's three sessions, you know each individual will have their own idea of what is the need is just what I've realized is the more you do it and the longer the sessions are, the better you become a supportive role in your creative practices, and your creative practices do not need to be involved in the creative sector either. The creative practice in the sense of how you cook food at home or you know where you walk the dog. You know I want to.
Speaker 3That's one of the things in my book is in the Andrew Gibson when he writes about cardio fitness. It's like don't do the same route when you go out to run. Run very different ways. You know you've got to keep that mind occupied and it's with something new and this challenging that you've never experienced before. Google Maps is great for that. If you're living in London or you're living in Leach, right, you just go around, just go and map a new path and go that way, and these things are contributed to your experiences. With the light, you're becoming more creative with everything that you're doing. You know, like you said to me, it's that way it was like, but not everybody recognises their creativity, and I agree with that. But I also think our day-to-day choices are extraordinarily creative and driven. You know, true, and we need them more now, post pandemic, than we ever do. We need to find these new and exciting solutions to day-to-day occurrences.
Speaker 1So where do you see yourself? And stroboscopic light? Five years With the PhD done.
Speaker 3Yeah, with the PhD done, I think I would like to be working then. I'd like to be working predominantly with students to support them in their academic trajectory, in the sense that this would be something that would support the students doing better at their grades and reducing the anxiety for examination and helping with creative writing for thesis and giving them more confidence when they go out or in their creative endeavours. That's where I'd like to see myself. I think this generation, due to the negative technologies, need it more and that's where I would like to see myself as someone that is a supportive role in that those academic choices and those them doing well at it Excellent, fantastic. Is there anything you want to know?
Speaker 1Do you know what? I want us to probably catch up again at some point and see where we can go with this. I'd definitely like to do another session.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm awful at that. So when you're in park row, let us know We'll come down. Yeah.
Speaker 3I'll come up to the uni because you were telling me about the ambisonic room.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, ambisonic room, yes, so you're planning ambisonic I?
Speaker 3think we should do it. I think that, and then we should talk after that, talk after that one We've all experienced that too and see if there's a and maybe even I'll bring multiple lights and we can set up multiple lights as well, so we could all, maybe all, sit in the same space at once. Yeah.
Speaker 1Thank you very much, gavin, as I said, thank you, as I said, we've spoke about for a while and it sounds extremely exciting. I'm just having them three sessions there and feeling a benefit instantly, rather than back in the day asking for something to sort me out which would have been a tablet, which I remember feeling has been worse. So you know the prospects for this for a minute. I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into it, maybe not, hopefully not, but I can see the applications being unlimited, really, and to the benefit of so this is what we're talking about, yeah.
Speaker 1What about us?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Oh no, what do you want?
Speaker 3Well, I'm not only one man, I'm not. I'm going to focus in on let's see if there is an increased creative process and also let's see if there's a reduction in the harms of stress. And we'll see, because obviously, with me coming back to Leeds now, there'll be a lot more information that I can share next time. I'm really glad I got to share it with you all today.
Speaker 2Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 1So happy 30th Seb. What do you think to that?
Speaker 2It's lovely to celebrate a birthday. No, it was great, wasn't it? Totally trippy and relaxing, yeah, super relaxing, good to watch.
Speaker 1I suppose if you'd have just done the sort of treatment or therapy or whatever we're calling it, if you'd have just done it by yourself you don't see the reaction of someone else having it ie when you were under the lamp, after about 30 seconds you'd see all your body relax. I've seen it on the video. Yeah, all right, fair enough, fair enough. Yeah, super good. And quite excited because Gavin is going to be running these in Leeds.
Speaker 2Yes, he's opening up soon.
Speaker 1He is very shortly. So, yeah, thanks to Gavin, thanks to Stephen for making the video. Yeah, thank you very much, steve.
Speaker 2And happy 30th Seb. I hope all our listeners and viewers have enjoyed it as much as we did. Oh yeah, I can highly recommend it.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 2I didn't know. My mind was actually that imaginative and strong.
Paul Mekinson and the Kakao Ceremony
Speaker 1Yeah, you can see why it gets the creative juices flowing Right. Who's up next time? Next time we have Paul Mekinson. Mekinson, I keep getting it wrong, sorry, paul, and we're going to be talking Kakao. Fantastic, you went on a Kakao ceremony, didn't you?
Speaker 1Yeah, well, it's the first and only ceremony that I've done. It was Paul that was running it and it was a five hour ceremony, so quite full on. We get more into it in the podcast, but quite, yeah, I suppose I went in with that quite a little bit of a closed mind but came out of it Open mind. Yeah, really good, really good. And that was the full power chocolate for full power Kakao Kakao sorry, kakao Kakao in Right, cool, we'll see you then. See you then. So I'd like to say a big thank you to our sponsor, who are Energy Impact, and also our supporters, product Agency up there in Newcastle, who are supplying our designs, et cetera, and common sense clothing, who supply us with our very, very nice apparel. And if you would like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalkingcom, and look for the little cup. Thank you.
