I looked at the Monroe site, kat, but they lost me pretty quickly with the phrase "growth of human consciousness through personal exploration of profound states of expanded awareness." I'm not doing this so I can *grow*, I couldn't care less about *expanding my awareness*. (I hope that doesn't sound too shallow, but it's true :} ) (And my God, Robin, if it reminded me even remotely of elevator music, I wouldn't subject myself to it for even an instant.)

People meditate for many different reasons, I know. What I'm after are the known physiological benefits and their corresponding mental side effects - lowering my heart rate and cortisol levels, increasing levels of 'good' hormones, feeling more calm and centered, that kind of thing.

What I hear on my CD is primarily the sound of rain. The rain sound masks the tones that are used to induce different brain wave patterns. Paraphrasing from the literature, a tone of one frequency is introduced into one ear, and a tone of a different frequency is introduced into the other. Your brain reconciles the difference by creating a beat pattern corresponding to the difference in the two tones, which acts like a tuning fork - it causes your brain waves
to resonate sympathetically, which is refered to as entrainment. This is how they are able to influence your brain wave pattern to change from your normal walking around beta brain wave pattern to an alpha or a theta or a delta brain wave pattern.

I like the phrase techno-meditation.

On the one hand, a CD induced theta- or delta- brain wave pattern is just like what Huey Lewis was looking for back in the 80's - (I need a new drug, one that won't make me sick, won't make me talk too much etc etc) - it feels good, with no apparent side effects.

On the other hand, I share at least some of Rapaire's paranoia.

Amos' suggestion that I find the corners of the room and attempt to hold onto them for twenty minutes without thinking reminds me of an unfortunate experience I once had after eating some strange dried mushrooms given to me by some people living in a trailer out in the middle of nowhere with five rottweilers on chains in the front yard...