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Show Jfloatwith own alpha waves t By ELDON TUCKER ' Chronicle Staff !t" : h feedback, a method by which one trains to erjf lp"a sustajn alpha-frequency brain waves, et l Some wild claims made for what it can do. ne develop psychic powers in the alpha state? W Concentration heightened in alpha? Is a few r ' ,Pc in the alpha state an effective substitute el- ost of a night's sleep? ic) c Raskin, associate professor of psychology lh ,av'he university, has given the matter some nought and feels: 1 there are a lot of claims that people are making i hat are not supported by the data. It's a con-Lrsial con-Lrsial field.. .A lot of this stuff that gets into the unscientific literature about this is really just lath: 0CUS pocus. It's people who really don't know a, hat they're talking about: they're not well trained, bei : hey're just making fantastic claims from the dayman's point of view-not knowing anything e about it." ' 'it's like a lot of claims we've heard about drugs T' vhen drugs first hit the scene. A lot of claims about, (or example, the therapeutic and mind-expanding qualities of LSD and all the wonderful things that it .'Goes for making people creative and solving their personal problems and everything else. Really, 0 (here was a big bandwagon there for a while. But hat bubble burst so fast when people collected evidence that showed that those claims were Me unsupported. 1 E "We're seeing a little bit of the same type of thing SP with alpha. In California, there are even bars you B could go to that have these alpha feedback devices. 1,; Turn on an alpha while you're there and enjoy a social evening.' It's become a big rage. There's some question whether those devices themselves : are even measuring alpha." lis- y Dr. Robert E. Dustman, research physiological and js experimental psychologist at the Veteran's Hospital, describes the alpha state as one of relaxation, where one's eyes are closed and one is, doing nothing. Terms which best describe the state include: a blank mind, floating, no tension, state of peace, mentally relaxed, and no visual imagery. The question may come up: Should people spend a lot of time in alpha, is it good? Raskin, who has recently finished teaching a graduate seminar on bio-feedback replies: .", "Well, we have a strong tendency to prefer eating )' rather than going hungry. ..It's a matter of It;; values.. It's like saying that if somebody sleeps too much over and above what people normally do-is do-is he getting addicted to sleeping? Or, is he just C. tired and worn out because he's under a lot of stress j. and he happens to require more sleep than . somebody else? So the person, say, turning on alpha ' frequently may be solving an important bio-physiological bio-physiological problem for himself. If I sat in my chair and decided I wanted to relax for a few minutes, I'd be displaying a lot of alpha, especially ,f I closed my eyes. It's not uncommon from our everyday experience. Of the EEC states, the alpha state is only one of tour. First comes the delta state, found in deep sleep and at the time of death. Then comes theta, found in dreaming and visualizing things, which rarely occurs when one is awake. The third state is alpha, associated with a relaxed, contemplative state of mind. Finally, there is beta, in which one spends nearly all of his waking state. The alpha state is commonly associated with meditation, and one immediately leaves it upon having an aggressive, excited or emotional state of mind. It is usually found in the visual cortex (back of the head), although it sometimes can be found in the frontal lobes and is then called kappa. Kappa is usually associated with altered states of consciousness, con-sciousness, especially in practiced Zen meditators. In answering the question on if alpha meditation is a conditioned state, Prof. Raskin replied: "There's some question as to whether you're directly conditioning yourself or whether what you're doing is using a procedure by which people learn to produce different kinds of mental states or consciousness states which are then accompanied by alpha." "Are you modifying just the EEC activity which . then results in a change in consciousness,, or are you modifying consciousness states which are then accompanied by changes in the EEC activity?" "This is what I do to produce alpha I think in a certain way, I do certain mental kinds of things and I'll end up producing alpha. What I guess is that that is more likely to be the correct explanation than by giving somebody a tone, by turning on a tone every time they are producing alpha, that what you are directly doing is directly conditioning alpha." According to Dr. Martin Orme, director of experimental ex-perimental psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania Medical School, people trained to produce a relatively high level alpha output have shown that critical thinking interferes with the alpha state, although being in alpha does not mean blunted intellectual abilities. Preliminary tests at the U.S. Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research Unit in San Diego indicate in-dicate that a person deprived of sleep can return to an effective decision-making state by willing himself in a alpha state for a short amount of time. Although there are many speculative claims about what the ability to tune into the alpha state at will may do for one, no definite studies have yet come out to support any as yet. Dr. Dustmas does not "know of any real evidence" and Raskin concludes: "It's a very difficult thing to come up with any definitive answers." |