Opinions on the Monroe Institute

For those unaware what this organization is, it’s a non profit which researches the ways in which the Brain can be manipulated by sound and altered into other states of consciousness.

However, I’m the eternal skeptic on this, and I looking for confirmation as to whether this is a big scam, or legitimate study. One of my family members is a fully active member of it, and is convinced it is legitimate and actively works for them in his spare time promoting their literature.

Is that the “out-of-body-experience” place that the US military sends people to? The place the movie, Men Who Stare at Goats with George Clooney was based upon?

Does the manipulation by sound take the form of sexy blonde women speaking in breathy voices?
Because I have no doubt that would lead to an altered State of Consciousness in my case.

If you delivered sound waves to the brain itself, the vibration could disrupt neurons firing in certain regions of it. You could control where the disruption occurred by using several transducers and constructive interference.

This sounds like a horrible, terrible idea. If you’re shaking the brain violently enough (at a high frequency, sure) to make it misfire, who’s to say you aren’t doing permanent damage? There’s a brain surgery tool that uses high frequency sound to liquify brain tissue.

Anyways, it could be legit, but it sounds horribly unethical to attempt on humans.

My recollection: Robert Monroe had out-of-body experiences a long time ago, and founded the institute to study and teach OOBE. Soon after it diversified into inducing altered states of consciousness through special sounds, on the theory that having differing frequencies in both ears would somehow change the sync between the brain hemispheres.

A friend of mine at university was a follower, and back then (pre-Internet) it was mostly about audio tape collections, both for the teaching and for the sounds. He had lent me a tape called the Cat-Napper, which supposedly gave you the equivalent of a full night’s sleep in 20 minutes of weird sounds.

It’s not about ultrasonic wave generators scrambling your brain in a Dr. Frankenstein setup; just ordinary sounds through ordinary headphones. I don’t think it can do any harm, but cannot testify that it does any good.

Okay, if it wasn’t the $1500 entry fee for the beginner’s session, I’d love to go try this out . Also I’d like to sit in an orgone box and see if I recharge, so you can tell I’m willing to explore to wonderful world of woo if just for the experience…
Sadly, I don’t think I could get my boss to pay for this as an educational expense. I’ve convinced them to send me to some weird classes (and we’ve gained from it) but total potential woo, don’t think so. And I’m too cheap to pay for it myself.

Well, there’s always the tapes on youTube.

Any vibration that can reach the brain could damage it.
Their “results” could be the actual product of brain damage.