130 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
130 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
______________________________________________________________________________
|
|
| File Name : SLEEPIND.ASC | Online Date : 12/12/94 |
|
|
| Contributed by : John W. Peters | Dir Category : BIOLOGY |
|
|
| From : KeelyNet BBS | DataLine : (214) 324-3501 |
|
|
| KeelyNet * PO BOX 870716 * Mesquite, Texas * USA * 75187 |
|
|
| A FREE Alternative Sciences BBS sponsored by Vanguard Sciences |
|
|
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
|
The following information presents an experiment done by John Peters. It is
|
|
presented in the spirit of information sharing. KeelyNet and Vanguard
|
|
Sciences is in no way responsible for any damages or injuries should the
|
|
reader decide to experiment with this device.
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
LOW-TECH SLEEP INDUCTION DEVICE
|
|
by John W. Peters
|
|
|
|
While reading The Cycles of Heaven (by Guy L. Playfair and Scott Hill), I
|
|
became fascinated with the concept of bioentrainment. Basically,
|
|
bioentrainment is where one's body (or portion thereof) becomes entrained with
|
|
an externally applied signal. Once the entrainment process is fully
|
|
established, the biological organism's behavior is then subject to the
|
|
entraining signal.
|
|
|
|
Two examples from this book illustrate the potential for control. The first
|
|
one involves the heart:
|
|
|
|
"On her visits to Latin America in the 1940s, Mrs. Kinch had found the
|
|
rhythms of the local music strangely compelling, and she discovered that
|
|
her heartbeat would change to keep time with it."
|
|
|
|
Another talked about how sleep was induced;
|
|
|
|
"Fischer also claims he can induce sleep by applying low voltage pulses at
|
|
about 60 Hertz to eyeball and occipital areas."
|
|
|
|
I found the part about inducing sleep of interest, but not through use of
|
|
potentially dangerous voltages to the eyeball and occipital areas. After some
|
|
pondering about the two examples cited above, I realized that suitable low
|
|
frequencies at very low potentials could do the trick.
|
|
|
|
The low frequency element arises from knowing about Theta waves. Theta
|
|
waves are brainwaves ranging from about 4 to 8 Hertz that are usually produced
|
|
when one is in a light stage of sleep. All that was needed was a simple
|
|
circuit to produce various frequencies within the 4-to-8 Hertz range and see
|
|
which ones worked best.
|
|
|
|
The very low potential part comes from the musical entrainment and how the
|
|
ear actually works; the vibrations it receives are transduced into
|
|
electricity that is then processed by the brain. To minimize any hazards, I
|
|
would have to apply potentially harmful power levels (ever licked the
|
|
terminals of a 9-volt battery) available from electrical devices to a part of
|
|
the body that has a high level of resistance. Yet the safety precautions
|
|
had to allow enough power to be delivered to the brain to induce sleep.
|
|
Further reading in The Cycles of Heaven led to the solution.
|
|
|
|
In the book, two German researchers, exploring how Extremely Low Frequencies
|
|
affected the human body, vibrated chairs (in which subjects sat) at
|
|
frequencies in this range and discovered certain ones induced various
|
|
physiological disturbances. Once I sat myself in the subject's place, I
|
|
realized that my skeleton would be shaking in tune (entrained) with the chair.
|
|
The solution of where to apply my sleep-inducing signal became obvious to me.
|
|
|
|
One of the largest bones that is very close to the skin is the front of each
|
|
shin-bone. I would need electrodes that had a large surface area to interface
|
|
with the shin-bones to ensure maximum delivery of the weak sleep-inducing
|
|
signal. Now that the conceptual design phase was completed, it was time to
|
|
develop an all-purpose circuit that could easily cover the 4-to-8 Hertz theta
|
|
range and develop the shin-bone transducers.
|
|
|
|
First I worked on the transducers. I cut the tops off of two aluminum soda-
|
|
pop cans and then flattened the remaining sides. These were held in place on
|
|
the shin-bones by elastic bands and were to be connected to the circuit by
|
|
wires with alligator clips on each end. Now for the electronics.
|
|
|
|
Either a multivibrator or oscillator was needed to develop signals within
|
|
the Theta bandwidth. Having lots of 555 Timer chips available, I elected to
|
|
use the multivibrator approach instead of an oscillator, as the 555 is easily
|
|
configured into an astable multivibrator.
|
|
|
|
One difficulty with multivibrator outputs is harmonics; but the low power
|
|
levels I intended to use would minimize the effect of the harmonics. A quick
|
|
check in the IC Timer Cookbook (by Walter Jung) provided the needed schematic-
|
|
-all I had to do was determine the component values.
|
|
|
|
A minimum-component astable with the 555 Timer can be constructed with only
|
|
the 555, one timing resistor and capacitor, and a battery. Oftentimes, this
|
|
configuration will tend to put out triggers (very short-duration pulses) at
|
|
the desired oscillation rate--limiting the power delivered to the output load.
|
|
Hence I elected to add another resistor to square up the output signal.
|
|
|
|
After experimenting with different values, I found these on-hand components
|
|
gave the best results:
|
|
|
|
The timing resistor (R1) had a value of 2.49 Meg-Ohms,
|
|
the timing capacitor (C1) was labeled at 0.082 Micro-Farads,
|
|
and the "squaring-up" resistor (R2) had a value of 1 Kilo-Ohm.
|
|
|
|
Other component values will undoubtedly work--one should consult books such as
|
|
the IC Timer Cookbook for more information. Here is a verbal description of
|
|
how my circuit is configured on a breadboard.
|
|
|
|
The 555 Timer is an 8-pin chip.
|
|
|
|
Pin 1 is connected to ground (negative side of the 9-volt battery).
|
|
Pin 2 is jumpered to pin 6.
|
|
Pin 3 is connected to one of the soda-pop can transducers.
|
|
Pin 4 is connected to the positive side of the 9-volt battery.
|
|
Pin 5 isn't connected.
|
|
Pin 6 is connected to one side of C1 (the other side to ground), one side
|
|
of R1, and one side of R2.
|
|
Pin 7 is connected to the other side of R1.
|
|
Pin 8 is connected to the other side of R2 and also the positive battery
|
|
terminal.
|
|
|
|
The remaining transducer wire is connected to the ground side of the battery.
|
|
|
|
A short explanation of the effects of this device is needed. On myself,
|
|
once the device is energized, I get very sleepy after sitting quietly while
|
|
reading (I've NEVER fallen asleep when reading) for about 12 to 15 minutes.
|
|
The sleepiness seems to occur gradually. I must make a definite effort to
|
|
stay awake. Once disconnected, almost immediate recovery is noticed. The
|
|
only other one to try it was my 13 year-old son who was unaware of the
|
|
expected results. Similar effects to mine were observed.
|
|
|
|
Hooking the transducers to other parts of the body (forearms and fingers)
|
|
seems to render the device ineffective. My theory is that the signal is
|
|
capacitively coupled through the skin to the shin-bone, and the length and
|
|
size of the bone enables it to more strongly vibrate than shorter bones.
|
|
Further testing will ensue as time permits. Feedback would be appreciated!
|
|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|