Lennox wrote:
Most definitely.
I researched this a couple months ago, actually more along the lines of altered states of consciousness and found out music is a very effective way to alter brain waves and even produce out of body experiences.
This is the reason some people can actually get 'high' listening to tribal music or even heavy techno. A very prominent, repetitive beat if listened to long enough, will produce some very surprising results in some individuals.
The simplest way to do this yourself is to get a simple audio recorder/editor. (Try "Audacity" It's free.) For example, make a stereo track putting 400hz in one channel and 405hz in the other channel. When you listen to the tones, you hear a woowoo sound. This is your brain overlapping the frequencies and creating a beat inside your head. A new beat at 5hz.
The slower the beat (closer to delta), the more relaxed you'll feel. The higher (closer to gamma), the more awake you will become.
I find the subject rather interesting...
I didn't even understand half of that, but whatever you said, pal, I support you xP
Anyhow, I am more of the tribal person, and also symfonic metal. Whenever I listen to a Nightwish song, my adrenaline goes like "omg!!! let's go to the moon11!!11!one". These tribal, and also classic orchestral music is something I find very relaxing. I'm not so sure about the active state of mind, however. No matter what music I listen to, I'm not getting more awake by fast or slow beats, and the same goes for feeling relaxing, to be quite honest. But meh... maybe I don't feel it myself =P
About music being used in therapy, this has been going on for a long time now, and I went through the same type of therapy once, when some doc's in Norway wantedto try it out. They found the results pretty interesting, and we all know that babies are musical by nature as well...
Have you ever tried to play a beat in front of a little baby? They start moving in ryth with it, and begins dancing! Not only that, but they can even play some basic instruments.
This promotes good behaviour, and a colourful and healthy growth. I think exactly that comes to noone's surprise, seeing as babies are more aware of their environment and are more empathic than the older ones (above ten years old). My guess is, that babies have abilities many of us lose while growing up, because we have no way to express them.
To explain this a bit simpler; a baby that has lived his life until the age of, say twelve, without even listening to music, would be either uninterested in listening at all, or fall completely in love with it. But they would never be able to play an instrument without the proper training (I managed to learn how to do Greensleeves on my flute BEFORE I began going to the flute class), and they wouldn't be able to express themselves musically in most cases.
And so on.
Meh, I've gone way off topic now. I could write hundreds of pages about our baby psychology, or any other psychlogy for that matter, but... That'd be spam.
