The Story Behind Binaural Beats - Cory Allen | Modern Wisdom Podcast 254

Cory Allen 0:00 So, in binaural beats, there's not rhythmic elements commonly because of that. We want the listener to lose track of time, as it were, to further sink into the actual effect of the thing. So, musically, there's generally just kind of textural things. Some people use nature sounds and stuff. Uh, it, it is interesting how the musical quality works as a sort of obfuscation of the technical element in some ways, so you sort of aren't really focused on that as much. You're listening to the top layer and the bottom layer is doing all the dirty work. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:29 (instrumental music plays) Corey bloody Allen in the building. How are you, friend?

Cory Allen 0:37 (laughs) I'm good, man. How's your Achilles?

Chris Williamson 0:39 It's slowly-

Cory Allen 0:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:40 ... reattaching my leg to my foot, which is-

Cory Allen 0:43 Nice.

Chris Williamson 0:44 ... what I wanted. I've been walking around for quite a while in flip-flops in Dubai, w- to which my physiotherapist said, "Cut them up and throw them in the bin immediately." Um-

Cory Allen 0:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:53 ... but yeah, I'm back. I'm back in the UK, uh, little bit of a tan, and ready to get back on the rehab.

Cory Allen 1:00 That sounds like a coming-of-age novel, Flip-Flops in Dubai. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:05 (laughs) Yeah, it is. I found myself, and it was a proper pair of shoes.

Cory Allen 1:09 (laughs) Nice, man. Well, I'm glad it's healing. I'd just remembered that as, as we started here.

Chris Williamson 1:15 Yeah, it was a serious, uh, a serious setback. But honestly, man, the ... I found a level of fortitude that kinda came out of me that I didn't even know existed. It was so bizarre. I thought ... I don't know. I thought I knew ... It was like opening a door inside of a house I'd lived in my entire life that-

Cory Allen 1:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:34 ... to a room that I didn't know existed, and, um, very much kind of found a level of resilience that was almost like ... It wa- it was almost endogenous. It almost surfaced when it was needed, um, in a way that kinda makes me question about just how cerebral and just how much I know about myself, um, which is-

Cory Allen 1:58 Yeah. So what were you fighting against?

Chris Williamson 2:00 It was more the, I presumed when I would reach a setback like that, some serious trauma, that ... I, I've gone through periods of depression and, and sadness and stuff like that before, and I just thought, "Oh, man. My constitution is not going to do well with this kind of a setback." Despite all of the stoicism and fantastic guests I've spoken to on this show and all the rest of it, I just presumed that I would ... I, I didn't think I would have had the sort of makeup that would deal with it fantastically well.

Cory Allen 2:32 Mm.

Chris Williamson 2:32 And honestly, like, a lot, a lot of it was hard work, and I can be proud of the development in myself that I've done to get myself to that point, but there was something else as well. There was another few gears inside of me that I didn't know I was going to find, and, um ... Yeah. I, I, I didn't have the world-ending inertia that I perhaps feared was going to occur, and very quickly was able to focus on doing what I could do. Um, and y- you hear this all the time, right? You hear about people who go through tragedies and who end up using that as the springboard for something even greater.

Cory Allen 3:07 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 3:07 Um, and I ... It's kinda just, it's a bit like a fable, that, isn't it? You just think, "Ah, well, yeah, that's good for them."

Cory Allen 3:13 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's also kind of good and bad, 'cause it, like, that's one of the things that is sort of a problem in, in culture right now, is the i- inability for people to accept themselves just as people. Like, everything has to be this extraordinary, you know, hero's tale, and no one's allowed to just, like, be a person. So, so, like, it makes people feel like if you're injured and you have this Achilles, uh, you know, time that you need to spend kind of just low-key relaxing, there's this weird feel because of sort of internet culture in some way that it's like, "Well, if you aren't using that as a springboard to change your life, then you're a loser," you know? (laughs) And it's like, no, it's also okay just to sit and do nothing and just be a person and be all right for a minute, you know?

Chris Williamson 4:00 Yeah. That's a function of seeing the highlight reel of everybody else, right? That almost-

Cory Allen 4:04 Totally, totally.

Chris Williamson 4:05 ... almost any, uh, incident is also a potential for content. (laughs)

Cory Allen 4:11 (laughs) Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:13 So it's like unless you're taking a selfie whilst the operation's going on and recording a podcast-

Cory Allen 4:17 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:17 ... and then, oh, it's gotta be in the newsletter, um-

Cory Allen 4:20 (clears throat)

Chris Williamson 4:20 ... and every- everyone just feels like a budget Gary V. So, yeah, I-

Cory Allen 4:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:23 ... I, I get that very, very much. So today, I wanted to talk about ... We, we've already had you on the show. You were episode like 12, and this is gonna be 200 and 50-something, so everyone that wants to find out about your approaches for meditation, go back and listen to that. It was a fantastic episode. But today, your other, I guess, internet commodity that you-

Cory Allen 4:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:44 ... that you, uh, travel in, that you, you end up shipping is binaural beats. And it's something that myself and some of the other guys I regularly have on the show, we have played around with, we use. I know Johnny's a huge fan of Brain.fm. He also uses some of your tracks as well to work to and to sleep to and for meditation. But I've never really heard anyone give a breakdown of what binaural beats are, why they exist, what their effects are, how they're made, all that stuff, so I wanted to, I wanted to get yourself in to, uh, kind of break down the fourth wall a little bit about it. So, where do we begin?

Cory Allen 5:20 Man, absolutely. Yeah, well, thanks for having me on, and, um, I'm happy to dive into it with you. Um, well, I think that beginning with just kinda defining some terms is useful because, like meditation, dealing with anything that's sort of, uh, effervescent or, you know, it's like, it's not a physical thing, so it's, it's ki- you know, conceptual, like audio is, is a bit harder to grasp for some people. So, just sort of introducing what the, the binaural beats are. So-First off, binaural means basically, you know, stereo. So, uh, monaural is, like, o- one single sound source, so if you think in your headphones, your, or whatever, you've got a left and a right headphone, that's, uh, you know, left and right. So it's two, bi, B-I, uh, and then aural, you know? So it's, it's two sound, you know? And a monaural would be a single mono signal, which is like an old record player or something that has, like, the horn, (laughs) the gramophone player, where it's the horn coming out. That's mono, that's one, (laughs) you know? But also a- all, like, voice recordings are mono, you know? Um, and for a bit of useless more detail, uh, I will say that, uh, m- in most mono s- sounds that you hear, you know, are then, they're split to, to stereo. So it's the same thing coming through both speakers, but it's just, uh, you know, it's still, uh, mono. Anyway, so then the beats, uh, part of binaural beats, so binaural is, you know, two, uh, audio signals, and beats is beating. So in music, uh, there's a, a phenomenon called beating, and that is whenever you have two audio frequencies, which of course, all sound and music are all audio frequencies, whenever you have two audio frequencies that are close together, uh, they vibrate, because sound moves in waves. So if you think about all sound as like, uh, it's physical, you know, so it's, it's moving through air. So it's literally like, uh, you just think of a, a wave going up and down and up and down, and it's literally just moving through air in a physical way. It's breaking through the air as it goes. And, um, the speed of that vibration of the wave, so, uh, you know, something very, uh, a deep sound like bass from, you know, like, uh, your Slammin' House track that we mentioned earlier, um, but more particularly, the bass line that, the deep, you know, bass line you would hear that's kind of hovering in the room during, you know, amongst the kick drum, that is a really, really, uh, slow-moving waves, wave. And that's why whenever you're standing next to a subwoofer, you feel air coming through. It's 'cause there's, like, so much force and it's so slow that it's literally like, as the wave goes up and down, it's like that negative space is actually pushing, like, physically pushing air through your actual- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:16 Shit, is that, that's why it happens.

Cory Allen 8:18 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:18 I never realized that. You can feel that whenever you put your hand in front of a, a little subwoofer you've got next to your TV, right? And-

Cory Allen 8:25 Yeah, totally. Totally.

Chris Williamson 8:26 ... it just does the little sort of pff, those puffs-

Cory Allen 8:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:29 ... coming out.

Cory Allen 8:29 Yeah. So it's literally like the sound wave is, like, pushing, it's, you know, moving s- the air out like that. Um, so then if you, uh, as you start to move upwards in frequencies, so this bass tone, let's move up to think of, like, something like a high hat or, uh, even, you know, even higher. That's gonna be, uh, really fast. So it's gonna, the sound wave is gonna be moving really, really fast, uh, and it's gonna look like kind of almost, uh, you know, crinkled or something like that 'cause it's moving so fast. And that's the high frequency, right? So, uh, that's like, or even the highest note on a piano or something is, is super fast. So if you really think about it, um, like, spinning something up, whatever it is, doesn't have to be sound or music or anything, if you've, if, if you have, uh, you know, something, you spin it up, it gets faster, the pitch kind of naturally rises, you know, on anything like that. The, it's just the same property, the physical property, that's happening in music and sound. So, um, in, on, back to the piano, you think about the piano, uh, so this beating thing. The notes on, like, a piano, for example, or a guitar, are all very close to each other. Like, the frequencies, the vibrations, they're very close. Uh, a- and so if you play, like, a white and a black key on a piano that are right next to each other, you think about that, you hear that sort of wobbling, that, like, bah-wah-wah-wah, that's the beating. Because their frequencies are, are tuned individually, you know, one key is tuned to that note, this key is tuned to, to this other note, but they're very close together because on a piano, of course, you start from the lowest note to the highest note, goes left to right. And they just kind of with each key, they're icro- incrementally tuned a little, you know, a few, uh, you know, hertz higher and higher and higher, and so you've got this nice, uh, system that you can play on that sounds good. Um, but if you play two notes that are right next to each other that are, you know, minor and, and major, then you're gonna hear that beating, 'cause they're, they're, they're so close to each other that they're actually, those sound waves are kind of interfering with each other. So if you think about that up and down wave thing happening, well, now you've got two notes, so you put two of those right next to each other, and they're fighting for space in air. So you think about that subwoofer pushing the air out, so since all notes are moving through air, you've got these two notes that are kind of fighting for space. They're cycling at a similar fre- uh, speed and frequency, and so they're colliding. And so as they're colliding, that's what creates that, that wobbling sound. So when, uh, again, on the piano, you get two notes, black and white key right next to each other, you hear that wobble, that's literally the two frequencies fighting for space, and that's what creates the, the beating. 'Cause they're fighting in physical space, you know, for, for room. (laughs) And so that's what creates that sound. That's called the beating. So binaural beats is two, you know, basically, o- one headphone in one ear, one in the other, and then beating is the idea of two frequencies, uh, creating that wobbling sound by being very close to, to each other and kind of fighting against each other. So that's just to define terms for binaural beats, the, of just the actual terms. Now, the actual functional process of the tracks themselves, um, this is, uh, a bit more detailed, but I'll try and make it as succinct as possible.So in all- th- the overall intended effect is to be able to listen to these tracks and change the way that you're feeling, change the way that you're thinking and the way that your mind is operating. So you can, with intentionality of which track that you use, kind of coerce your brain into a different zone. So that would be either something relaxation, you know, uh, creativity, extreme heightened perception and focus, uh, sleep, meditation, uh, just general kind of alertness, but still feeling calm. These kind of different states that we go in throughout the day. You know, whenever you sleep, you're obviously,

Cory Allen 12:30 uh, very relaxed. (laughs) And whenever you're in the peak point of your day, in the afternoon, you're drinking coffee, you've just worked out, that's when your brain is firing. You're not in the flow state per se, but you're like in the alpha-beta range where you're, you're really keyed up, um, in the ne- you know, uh, at a high performance level. Flow state is, like, the, the highest level of the brain. So throughout the day, we move through all of these different brainwave states, and those are, really quickly, uh, delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma. So that's from lowest to highest. Um, now, uh, w- what's interesting is that then these... (laughs) Okay, so in our brains, the way that thoughts and these brainwave states, uh, are defined is basically our brain is a collection of neurons. (laughs) It's a bunch of, uh... An- and you can please stop me at any time if this is, if I'm getting too far into a wormhole there.

Chris Williamson 13:24 No, please keep going. This is what we wanna know.

Cory Allen 13:26 Okay. Okay, okay. I'm, I'm trying to cut it down as much as possible. So, um-

Chris Williamson 13:29 In fact, you're just trying to explain the single most complex object in the entire universe to us-

Cory Allen 13:33 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 13:33 ... and how it relates with sounds that go into our ears.

Cory Allen 13:37 Well, one of my favorite things about the brain is it spends its entire existence trying to make itself realize things, which is just really bizarre. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 13:45 (laughs)

Cory Allen 13:46 Um, so anyway, uh, you know, so we, it, our brain is a collection of neurons, and by, you know, our brain operates on electricity. And so the way we have thoughts or the whole subsystems and different n- areas of the brain work at all is that those neurons, they fire e- an electrical signal from one neuron to the next neuron up- upon a little road called a synapsis. And that's basically the synapsises connect our neurons together throughout the brain. And there's, like, a, you know, a billion-ish or whatever, or two billion, a trillion, wh- who knows? They're always raising that number of how many neurons are in the brain. And so whenever we think, there's a series of neurons fire electrical signals through our synapsises to these other neurons and so on and so on in different areas of the brain, kind of, uh, they fire to each other, and it creates this interesting little dance. And those, the, the, the speed and frequencies of those electrical signals moving throughout the brain and the neurons firing are called brainwaves. So that's where we get the term brainwaves. This is literally, like, the same, just as you think of audio waves, it's like these rolling waves of electricity firing through the brain, and those are the brainwaves. So that's the dama- uh, uh, delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma. Those are the brainwaves.

Chris Williamson 15:10 So is it, would you be able to say that the brainwaves are like, uh, an aggregate of the individual firings moving in a particular pattern that commonly goes together?

Cory Allen 15:19 Yes, exactly, exactly.

Chris Williamson 15:22 Uh, we got it. Right.

Cory Allen 15:22 Uh, it's... Right, right, exactly. (laughs) So, um, so the idea with, um, with binaural beats is to be able to try and affect what brainwave state that you're in on demand, and so the concept behind the actual audio tracks is to put one tone, one of those, those tones in one ear at a particular frequency. So in the left headphone, you're gonna have one particular frequency. Then in the right headphone, you're going to have another particular frequency, just a tone that's going. Now, the difference in hertz between those two tones is going to be the same difference of, of hertz that your, th- that the, um, the speed of a particular brainwave state operates at. So, okay, so like, uh, a, for example, for a theta state, whenever the electricity, you know, the neurons are firing, it's moving through the brain, that's generally happening at the speed of four to eight hertz, somewhere in there-ish. Uh, and so whenever we get more excited, we get more, uh, the brain can, gets more amped up, we're processing faster, then that speeds up to, you know, eh- eight to 13 hertz or something like that. And it kinda continues to increase in these, these bands that they've labeled, uh, you know, these different things. So let's just make it really simple. So we think of theta, and let's call it four hertz, right? So our, we're, we're very relaxed. We're almo- this is almost like a meditative type of state that we're in with theta. We're super calm, uh, just kind of, uh, consciousness is very placid and open and everything. And so our brainwaves are firing signals slowly and calmly, and think of four hertz, so it's just this very slow kind of (imitates binaural beats) That's the, the audio waves, the subwoofer in the brain moving up and down. So what we'd want to do to, to replicate that with a binaural beat is to put one frequency in the left ear, let's call it 100 hertz. So that's, that's a tone. That's the, kind of like the crispest part of a kick drum, just for any audio engineers out there, kind of 100 hertz. Um, then in the other ear, the other headphone, we're gonna put 104 hertz.So just making it plain and using the metric system, (laughs) well, with 100 and then 104. So by putting 100 hertz in one ear, 104 hertz in the other ear, you think about what those two tones are doing whenever you listen to them together, right? They're creating the difference, that four hertz, because they're so close, they create that beating or that wobbling type of sound, right? And so in that creating of the four-hertz vibration, uh, the idea behind binaural beats is that then the brain, as it hears each of those tones in each ear, is trying to kind of mathematically make up the difference between those two frequencies as it's hearing those individual audio, uh, s- tones. And in that, it entrains... That's why they call binaural beats br- you know, brainwave-entraining music, is 'cause it's then, the theory is then it entrains the brain into that theta state. So the brainwaves start sort of replicating and sinking into the groove of the frequency that you're hearing. And then ideally, your, your consciousness is then shifted into that particular brainwave state. And so-

Chris Williamson 19:06 Can we hear, can we hear something that is that particular theta, that, that-

Cory Allen 19:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:12 ... bottom-end one?

Cory Allen 19:13 Yeah. We'll dra- Let's, let's play this, uh, this track called, uh, Opening Eye. That's the track that's theta, and we'll just play 30 seconds of that or something now. (gentle music) Okay, and we're back. And, I mean, I feel relaxed. I don't know. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:55 (laughs)

Cory Allen 19:56 Um, yeah. So if you, you can hear in that track, you know, and there's, there's other things going on. So we, we can hear the vibrating tones. But of course, um, in these tracks, of cour-... You know, you, whenever you, you find these, you'll see that they're also accompanied by other, like, musical elements to make them musical, to make them, uh, not just this technical sort of thing that's happening. And depending on the artist, you can really create a lot of emphasis. So sort of just the, the beating tones are sort of the bare minimum to get the function going. Also, as a side note, just to further illuminate the conceptual nature of this, uh, uh, isochronic, or, or... like, it's a term for monophonic beating as well. So something that, uh, their particular objects have the propensity to beat on their own, even though they're just w- a single object because of their physical character.

Chris Williamson 20:53 What, like-

Cory Allen 20:53 So a, a gong. So that's exactly where I'm going. So you think about whenever we're in a Buddhist temple, there's a giant gong there, and before they sit down to meditate, they hit that sucker and it goes (imitates gong) . Well, think about that sound. It's going bow, wow, wow, wow, wow. It's the same thing. It's the exact same thing. So that's the beating, right? Um, so, uh, you can take just that, that raw functional nature of it, and then based upon the, uh, you know, whatever the artist's, uh,

Cory Allen 21:23 talent or, or purpose is, you can then really scale that up to make it much more nuanced and succinct and impactful. And so you'll add... And, and of course, priority one is listenability. So you have two tones. You can add some... People usually put kind of textural ambient sounds on top of them to kind of give it a further, uh, relaxing sound. And also in ambient music, one of the points there is that you don't want rhythmic moments plotted in time per se, because you want it to be kind of off the grid. You don't want n- the listener to be... Even if we're not doing it consciously, we subconsciously, when we listen to any music, pay attention to the rhythmic nature of things. And if we hear, you know, one rhythmic sound, if we hear a kick drum and then a snare, we're gonna expect to hear on the same beat, you know, uh, in the same rhythm, another kick or snare and so on and so on. We expect that. Like, imagine if you had your favorite hip-hop track on and every, like, seventh kick drum was missing. You'd probably pull a hamstring or something listening to that. 'Cause you-

Chris Williamson 22:27 (laughs) Maybe that's how I did my Achilles.

Cory Allen 22:29 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 22:29 Maybe I was listening to something that was five to the floor or something.

Cory Allen 22:33 (laughs) Yeah. Because you l- you're expecting this thing and it doesn't happen, and you're like, "Uh-oh." You know?

Chris Williamson 22:38 Yeah.

Cory Allen 22:38 So we have this, uh, you know, this... And even in, you know, cinematic music, there's, you know, uh, very slow-paced rhythms. We still expect this resolution to happen musically. So anyway, so in binaural beats, there's, there's not, uh, rhythmic elements commonly because of that. We want the listener to, uh, kind of lose track of time as it were to further sink into the actual effect of the thing. So musically, there's generally just kind of textural things. Some people use nature sounds and stuff. I, I, I use those sometimes. Um, but I, I also tend to use... On some of the tracks I use my own, uh, just kind of some, uh, vocal drones, but also a lot of other kind of electronic sounds and various things. Uh, and, and just to go a little bit into my tracks and, and, uh, if you'd like, I mean, I'm just kind of talking endlessly here, but please tell me any, at any point if there's any, any direction I'm gonna go, but-

Chris Williamson 23:35 No. No. The only thing I was thinking before was that I imagine you could create a binaural beat without any of the extra elements to it, and it might perhaps have the desired effect, but be so unengaging that your thoughts might sort of drift off elsewhere without the...

Cory Allen 23:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:51 In Opening Eye, you've kind of got these cymbals and this sort of stuff in the higher registers as well that keep it more interesting, I guess.

Cory Allen 23:58 Yeah, yeah. And, and also just listening to the tones, yeah, it would make someone feel like they're in, like, Space Odyssey 2001, you know, floating ... (laughs) Uh, it's just ... It would be very abstract, and, and, uh, harder for people to relax into it because they're focusing on just this vibrating sound, you know. Uh, it, it is interesting how the musical quality works as a sort of obfuscation of the technical element in some ways, so you sort of ... You know, aren't really focused on that as much. You're listening to the top layer and the bottom layer is doing all the dirty work, (laughs) you know.

Chris Williamson 24:31 That's funny. You've Trojan, Trojan Horsed a really mindful-

Cory Allen 24:34 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 24:34 ... music set in with something-

Cory Allen 24:35 That's right.

Chris Williamson 24:35 ... that sounds nice on top.

Cory Allen 24:37 Yeah. That's right, that's right. Um, and so in, in my tracks, you know, I, I've spent 20 years, you know, as an audio producer and my whole life, you know, also in that same time being a, you know, a student of meditation and philosophy and studying consciousness. Just all the, uh, neurosciences, cognitive sciences. You know, neuroscience, consciousness, psychology, philosophy of mind, and et cetera, et cetera, and music at the same time. And those things are all ... Have always kind of woven into each other. They've been binaural beating my whole life, (laughs) those two things. Um, and, uh, so I ... You know, in my music, it, it's always ... The intentions have always been, uh, something that fascinates me a lot is, uh, listener expectation, the, the different things you can do musically, you know, harmonically with notes, the arrival, the attention and relief and expectation that people hear, and kind of the, the emotions and feelings that arise, uh, through listening to different, you know, orchestrated melodies and, and sounds. Also-

Chris Williamson 25:41 (clears throat)

Cory Allen 25:41 ... the way that you can make sounds arrive and depart, uh, in very ... I call it kind of musical sleight of hand, where it's like I, uh, have sounds that take, you know ... In, in my binaural beats, which are 30 minutes to an hour to two hours long, you know, some sounds will fade in for 10 minutes. It takes that long for it to go (laughs) from silence to its peak volume. And at the same time, other sounds are fading out for 10 minutes, and so they're kind of cross-fading and there's a lot of that happening all at once. And so before you even realize there's a change, you're already somewhere else. And then before you realize where you are, there's yet another change, and it's a real, um, sneaky and particular way to keep people, um, from really paying attention to time, you know. And, and when you're timeless, where are you? You're in the present, right? And so by doing that, it's a way to kind of musically guide people to the present moment.

Chris Williamson 26:42 There's an awful-

Cory Allen 26:42 So it's ... I mean-

Chris Williamson 26:42 ... lot going on, man.

Cory Allen 26:44 Yeah. There's a whole lot. Yeah, and I could, you know, of course, nerd out on, on, on it, uh, very deeply. But, uh, also I got really interested in binaural beats whenever ... Like, in the, like, early 2000s, because I was (clears throat) alwa- I've always been poking at my brain to see what happens. I'm just kinda u- using myself as a lab rat, you know, for all sorts of different chemicals (laughs) and experiments and whatever. Um, but I ... Really, what got me interested in 'em was reading some rather esoteric, uh, writings on, you know, Buddhism and kind of fringe, uh, tech- meditation techniques and stuff way back in the r- early 2000s-ish, and, uh, maybe even right before that. Uh, but I remember ... So one of the things I was reading was that these ... Some monks would sleep on the right side of ... On their right side if they wanted to have, like, a creative day the next day, and sleep on their left side if they wanted to have a more sort of systematic day. So the idea was that blood would saturate the right hemisphere of the brain, (laughs) or left hemisphere, and so on. And I don't know how much, you know, efficacy is in that, (laughs) that bit of thing, but I'm sure the ... Psychosomatically, that you're sort of ... It's, uh, a nice placebo effect. Um, but I was reading things like that and I was trying that, and that was interesting. And then I was also ... I've always been fascinated with what particular frequencies, uh, what they can do to the body. So the human body, that is. And so, you know, if you play certain tones ... Like, first off, if anyone doesn't think that tones can affect the body, let me remind you that there are, uh, weaponized audio devices that the military and, and, like, kind of the militarized police use. They're basically (laughs) these giant ... Well, not giant. Not so- ... Not giant. They sort of look like, um-

Chris Williamson 28:34 Mm.

Cory Allen 28:34 What is that? A dish, like the ... A satellite dish. And, uh, they play a really high-pitched audio frequency that you can't even hear 'cause it's ab- like, above the range of human hearing, which is, like, around 20,000 hertz, and it's ... So it's above that, but it's super loud and above that, and it literally makes you pass out, or ... And it ... Or it can cause extreme discomfort, headaches, disorientation.

Chris Williamson 28:59 No way.

Cory Allen 28:59 Because ... Yeah, yeah. You can basically, like, fry someone's nervous system with super high frequencies. So-

Chris Williamson 29:04 Shit.

Cory Allen 29:05 Yeah, this we-

Chris Williamson 29:05 Are those legal? Are they Geneva Conventioned-

Cory Allen 29:07 Well-

Chris Williamson 29:07 ... out, or-

Cory Allen 29:08 Yeah, they, they (laughs) ... They aren't in America anyway, (laughs) but, you know. (laughs) It's just kind of Wild West, so who knows?

Chris Williamson 29:13 Fuck.

Cory Allen 29:14 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:14 That's crazy. That's like the, uh, South Park episode where they try and find the brown note.

Cory Allen 29:19 Yeah, exactly. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 29:21 (laughs)

Cory Allen 29:21 Exactly. That would be so much more funny if they used that, if they could do that instead of the, the-

Chris Williamson 29:25 Just make people poop their pants instead of-

Cory Allen 29:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:28 ... passing out.

Cory Allen 29:28 Yeah. Totally. I mean-

Chris Williamson 29:30 Jesus.

Cory Allen 29:30 ... 'cause then at least it's hilarious. Um-

Chris Williamson 29:31 There's dogs in a nearby town when they're playing that thing going absolutely crazy-

Cory Allen 29:35 That's- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 29:35 ... having a party.

Cory Allen 29:36 Man, you know it. Yeah, or wanting to, you know, crawl out of their, their fur.So, um, yeah. So, you know, these, these sounds, you know, sounds, uh, really j- not only because they're just the physical nature of them, um, but also just the way that our, that our body holds resonance as well. So, you know, you, we like a kick drum. Uh, uh, a bass line makes it, like Daft Punk makes anybody want to kind of move a little bit because of the bass is like literally, (sniffs) you know, it's, it's hitting your, uh... There's a lot of research that shows that, like, the bass frequencies and the rhythm of, like, dance tracks, the reason why those rhythms and those tem- those BPMs, those like beats per minute make you want to dance, one of them is because they're like higher than the rate of resting heart rate. So if it's a little bit higher than your heart rate, it makes you want to kind of match that tempo.

Chris Williamson 30:26 Mm.

Cory Allen 30:26 You know, if you listen to something relaxing, you listen to some samba or something like that, it's like 60 beat- beats per minute, it's, you know, whatever, super relaxed. And you're like, "Ah."

Chris Williamson 30:34 Can you explain why Cardi B's WAP is done at 70 beats per minute then? (laughs)

Cory Allen 30:40 (laughs) Well that's, th- maybe you should like put, watch some porn, and then see if the rhythms in that match the rhythms in the-

Chris Williamson 30:47 (laughs)

Cory Allen 30:48 ... (laughs) in the s- in the track.

Chris Williamson 30:50 Fucking WAP, man. Yeah, I, um, I, I always noticed that. One of the things, I DJed for a, a short while, um, when I was younger, and even now, I can tell the difference between a DJ who's playing at sort of 125, 126 and 128, 129. Uh, 128-

Cory Allen 31:07 Mm.

Chris Williamson 31:07 ... being sort of the classic, I guess, dance rhythm, uh, the, the pacing.

Cory Allen 31:12 Right.

Chris Williamson 31:13 And, um, I went to go and see Ben Bomer from Anjunadeep, uh, on the beach at Dubai while I was out there, and the sun's setting over the horizon, and he's playing at like 123, and it's just so cool, super chill.

Cory Allen 31:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:28 Um, it was beautiful. And that insight, I even remember thinking back then, I was like, "This is so slow," but he's managed to get it right. So even that, that particular rhythm, if he'd been playing those tracks pitched up to 128 or 129, it would have given a very different sort of sensation. And I suppose that we're talking here about gradations of how music has an effect on us, right? Like-

Cory Allen 31:52 Right.

Chris Williamson 31:52 ... Cardi B's WAP had a different effect on me to the-

Cory Allen 31:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:57 ... the music of Anjunadeep being played at sunset.

Cory Allen 32:00 Right. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:00 And the rhythm is a part of that, as are obviously the lyrics, as is the kick drum, and all the rest of it. Bef- before we go on, let's, let's play another one, man. What, what should we listen to next?

Cory Allen 32:10 Yeah, sure. So this one, uh, let's go with, uh, w- this is kinda my personal favorite, uh, is one called Luminosity.

Chris Williamson 32:18 Cool.

Cory Allen 32:19 And this track is, uh, I had so many people over the years, um, we're kind of going out of order here in, in, just in the biography and the kind of the reason, uh, all these exist. But over the years, I had a lot of people hit me up asking me to make tracks for like psychedelic journeys or for, you know, like extended meditation retreats or something like that, basically how to get into that deep, deep part of the mind and really have some, some scaffolding and guidance there. And so, uh, for just rather sort of, uh, I would call them ethical reasons, I, I didn't call them like music for psychedelics or mu- whatever.

Chris Williamson 33:03 A trip

Cory Allen 33:03 Yeah, yeah, because one, I, I think it's a little corny, and also I'd never, you know, just kind of philosophically, I never want to be instructing people to do things or anything at all, much less, you know, uh, trying to, you know, influencing people. So people do what you want, you know? But, uh, anyway, so it's called Music for Deep Work is the collection. And, you know, and also it doesn't, uh, it, you know, I think w- we can do deep work in a lot of ways, you know, with or without chemicals, and it's important to highlight that as well. (music) So, uh, this is one of those tracks and it's Luminosity. Okay. So, um, yeah, you can hear, that track has more pronounced kind of musical qualities to it that are still sparse and stretched out. Um, but it, it is going in that, uh, that theta range, you know, to keep, to get in that deep kind of, uh, creativity, very, very calm, relaxed, uh, type of zone. And I'd... Some of the tracks, this one, uh, being one of those, I get a little tricky with them because I will take it from, uh, one brainwave state and slide down slowly over the course of the track sometimes, because people are already kind of keyed up as humans anyway. They're already kind of dialed up to... and like tense and weird and fidgety and just stressed and, you know, we all are over- overly stimulated and oversaturated. So kind of starting someone in place and then slowly have them sort of like sinking down into the sand, like as it goes on. Um, which I don't know if I've ever mentioned that publicly that I do that sometimes before.

Chris Williamson 35:07 Cheeky, cheeky, cheeky

Cory Allen 35:08 Um, yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 35:09 ... tori. But it's kind of like frog in boiling water type...

Cory Allen 35:12 Yes. Exactly.

Chris Williamson 35:13 ... argument, right?

Cory Allen 35:14 Except for it's a hot tub, not a boiling pot. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 35:18 Hot h- hot tub to cool, cool bath. Yeah, exactly.

Cory Allen 35:20 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, um, so anyway, so sounds affect the body. And I've bec- b- been really fascinated with that, you know, over my life. And there's a lot of research out there, some weirdo fringe, you know, stuff, some actually academic.... over what particular tones can affect the body in, in what ways. And there's like ... I mean, I have a huge archive of research o- from over, as I said earlier, you know, the time that I was in, uh, in my early 20s, er, late teens, early 20s, I got

Cory Allen 35:50 interested in this in the 2000, around the year 2000. And I just started, like, researching and reading and collecting these different things, and I would, I would make these audio tracks with different frequenzi- frequencies to kind of see how they made me and other people feel, and it just kind of ... My interest in that, you know, evolved from there. And so th- I did make some binaural beat tracks back then, uh, and then I guess probably five or six years ago, what was funny is that, uh, my friend Aubrey hit me up and was like, "Hey, I've been ... I wanna try binaural beats. You know, I've heard that they're really awesome. Um, but do you think ... Like, have you ever made any?" And I was like, "Yeah, you know, like, I don't know, 15 years ago." And, uh, he's like, "W- would you be down to make some?" And I was like, "Yeah, sure, sure." So I, I made some, and I was just, like, just making them to make them, and then I let him listen to them, and he was just like, "Dude, what the fuck is this? This is crazy." (laughs) You know, he's just ... Like, this is like a (laughs) blo- Like, what's happening here? And so i- in the course of me making them, uh, you know, the, the last, you know, the 15 years of compositional experience and music production experience all culminated in meditation, you know, just familiarity with consciousness, and, uh, that ultimately also the awareness of the texture of my own mind in any given moment. You know, I, I think becoming acutely aware of that became very valuable in making these tracks, and it's why they have kind of the, or one of the reasons why they have kind of the magical quality that they do, uh, is because through, you know, 20 years of meditation, I've gotten to where I'm very aware of, like, how my consciousness is shifting in the moment, where it's at. Like, m- as I said, you know, the texture of mind. And I also am aware of when that's being changed and influenced, and so in cre- in the creation of the tracks, I put a lot of detail, a lot of interesting little, you know, uh, tricky things in there, like I, I mentioned to you. And I'm kind of tuning them, all musically, you know, rhythmically, the actual frequencies themselves, until I feel that flow state shift in my own consciousness, and it's not even necessarily like a ... It's not like a mixing issue or a, you know, a spatial issue or a, a, particularly a harmonic issue. It's more of just listening and, and getting, like, the kind of the palette set, and then adding and, and moving everything until ... In whatever way necessary until I feel that shift within myself. You know, and if I feel that flow kind of o- like hyperpresence portal open and dilate, I'm like, "I, I got it. There, there it is." And so that's sort of why all of these tracks have that quality to them, is 'cause I'm literally, like, tuning them to my own mind until I feel them, like, um, turn the key, you know? And when they turn the key, I'm like, "There it is." Now it's just a matter of finishing it off.

Chris Williamson 38:48 Is it a different way to create a two-hour-long binaural beat track that you're aiming to resonate with your mind in a particular way? Like, if you were sat in a mixing studio, I imagine you must need to get yourself in quite different places if you're mastering down a hip hop track or something.

Cory Allen 39:02 (laughs) No, I mean, what's funny about that is that over s- I don't know. I've, I've gotten to where, over the years, I'm very ... I'm kind of like a surgeon with music. I, I go- It's not that I'm not clinical. It's not that I'm clinical about it in the sense that I don't have any feeling or care, but I'm very removed from, like, being influenced by whatever I'm listening to generally. Uh, I try and ... Uh, it's, it's because I sort of, like, want to remain objective in the process, and not get, like, swept up in ... I- it's strange. Like, it's one of the confusing things about, like, Buddhism as well, is they'll talk about, uh, cultivating a dispassion for e- for everything (laughs) , you know, even for pleasure. And people are like, "Why would I want to not want to feel pleasure, you know? It doesn't make any sense." But so kind of articulating that further, it's like, it's like, oh, well, you want to, you can enjoy the pleasure, but you don't want to, to crave and desire and to want the pleasure, or else it has control over you, and it becomes a, a point of suffering, because whenever that thing fleets, as th- all things do, then you have a void and you seek, you know, this pleasure again. You have the passion for the pleasure. You go look for it, and you begin to suffer, and then that kind of daisy chains on with all of the elements of suffering. So by cultivating a spacious dispassion for, for pleasure, then when a pleasure comes, you can deeply enjoy it and receive it, but still not be, you know, addicted and have the craving that creates the suffering. That's kind of how I look at music production (laughs) , is like, I have (laughs) I have kind of a, I have a dispassion for it in the sense that I hear, I, I'm here, I receive it when it's happening. I do instinctively and intellectually what I know needs to happen to it, uh, but don't get caught up in, in all of the human stuff with it.

Chris Williamson 40:51 I'm absolutely adamant that Cardi B felt the same way when she was recording-

Cory Allen 40:55 Definitely. Definitely.

Chris Williamson 40:55 ... the lyrics to WAP. And Megan Thee Stallion, she was v- very, very famous for her principle of non-attachment.

Cory Allen 41:02 Yeah, she's ... Well, that track had quite an effect on you.

Chris Williamson 41:05 (laughs)

Cory Allen 41:06 Uh, she ... And-

Chris Williamson 41:07 (laughs) I'm just-

Cory Allen 41:07 Yeah, I know. It's-

Chris Williamson 41:08 I'm absolutely blown away by it, man. I find it ... I find that track particularly, and then the, um, associated social media furor that came out after it, to just be fascinating, uh, and that's a, a whole nother discussion that I think we could get into. But, um-

Cory Allen 41:25 It's a great track, and Megan Thee Stallion is amazing. Like, her, her new album is, if you, if what ... I don't know if you've heard her, her album that came out last Friday, but yeah, I, I would recommend that.

Chris Williamson 41:34 Yeah, so next. What have we got next? Let's play another song. We've got, uh, we played the Luminosity and Opening Eye. What else have we got?

Cory Allen 41:41 Yeah, yeah. So I'll, I'll, we'll go into a, yet, uh, another direction. Uh, I'll just wrap up that, what I was talking about-

Chris Williamson 41:47 Yep.

Cory Allen 41:48 ... uh, uh, real quickly. And that is, you know, so I gave these tracks to Aubrey and he listened to them and was like, "Man, this is amazing." And so as we kind of talked about them a little bit further, we were like, you know, he's like, "Maybe, uh, maybe we should, like, offer these to people. We could sell them, put them on" his website. This is before I even had, like, the store on my website. He's like, "We could put them on w- my website and see, see who digs them." And so I did a, you know, we did some podcasts. We talked about them, and they just, like, the response was just crazy. It was like n- ... I never would have anticipated the amount of feedback and, like, response and, and stuff that listeners had to, to the binaural beats. And it started where I just, I think it's kind of since then, I've never not got a message, uh, you know, a day without someone saying, "D- dude, I l- these are ... I listen to these every day. Thank you." (laughs) You know?

Chris Williamson 42:37 What's the most common-

Cory Allen 42:38 And-

Chris Williamson 42:38 ... usage that you've found people use them for?

Cory Allen 42:42 I think two things, either meditation or for focus. So, uh, and we'll get to the focus thing right after this. Um, and so, yeah, man, uh, it was really fascinating. I ended up licensing those to Onnit, you know, and so that was, that was cool. Like, they became a, you know, a nice, uh, kind of fixture within the, the Onnit, you know, world and expanded out from there. And then, then I just kind of continued in my own way to, like, you know, "Okay, well, I made those. Let m- let me continue on to the different, you know, um, intentional purposes of each one that people are hitting me up and asking for." And also, uh, I'm constantly ... My curiosity and d- didn't drive to kind of, uh, uh, I don't know, I guess improve upon a craft and like hone in something just as, as natural. And so I'm always like, "Well, let's see if I can ... How powerful and potent can I make these? Let's keep-"

Chris Williamson 43:36 Dude, I mean, I, I, I still-

Cory Allen 43:38 ... tr-

Chris Williamson 43:38 ... say that the Release into Now meditation series that you did, which will be linked in the show notes below-

Cory Allen 43:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 43:43 ... is still my favorite guided meditation. For anyone who wants to take it to the next level, it's p- ... I- i- in my opinion, it's a, it's a big ask for a beginner, um, because the sessions are like half an hour. But if you've-

Cory Allen 43:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 43:56 ... spent a little bit of time and you've built up a, a, a base level of a habit, like that thing just super ... over the space of six weeks just totally supercharges you. There's not a single person that I've said, "You need to go and get this to kind of level up your meditation game" and they haven't come back and gone like, "What the fuck was that?" Um-

Cory Allen 44:13 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:14 (laughs)

Cory Allen 44:14 Oh man, that's awesome to hear. Thank you. Thank you. That makes me-

Chris Williamson 44:16 One of my, one of my buddies did it, um, and I think he, he really struggled for the first few ... This is a compliment, I think. Um, but he struggled-

Cory Allen 44:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:23 ... for the first few days to stay awake, um, during them, and he found himself just immediately going to sleep even if he'd slept perfectly fine the week before.

Cory Allen 44:31 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:31 This is also a friend, uh, to whom I sent Sam Harris explaining determinism and our lack of free will, uh, and it sent him into a two-week spiral of depression. So I've done quite a lot-

Cory Allen 44:42 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:42 I've done quite a lot-

Cory Allen 44:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:43 ... to this friend over the last year. So Luke, I want to apologize to you again, buddy. I didn't mean to-

Cory Allen 44:47 And also, man, Luke, check out compatibilism. That's another (laughs) that's ... Maybe that'll-

Chris Williamson 44:52 The antidote.

Cory Allen 44:52 ... settle better with you.

Chris Williamson 44:53 That is the antidote.

Cory Allen 44:54 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 44:55 Um, oh, there's a-

Cory Allen 44:55 But yeah, that's a, that's-

Chris Williamson 44:56 Sorry, I'll, I'll interject there, man. There's a, a recent Daniel Dennett paper that he just published on expanding free will. Have you seen this?

Cory Allen 45:04 Mm-hmm. No, but I-

Chris Williamson 45:05 I'll send it to you. I'll send it to you once I'm done, and anyone that wants to, to read it, it's available for free if you just search "expanding free will Daniel Dennett" on Google. Really, like, fascinating study. I was reading that sleep-deprived on the way back from Dubai and that made for like ... That was the visual equivalent of binaural beats, I think, as I'm reading this-

Cory Allen 45:21 Nice.

Chris Williamson 45:21 ... these words and I'm trying to work out what the hell is going on. Um, but yeah, man.

Cory Allen 45:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:26 R- release into now, like I say, anybody that wants to kind of really up-level their meditation game, just go and do that over the space of six weeks. You will, uh, you will change an awful lot about how you see meditation, I think.

Cory Allen 45:38 Oh, well, thank you, man. Thank you. And it's, it's interesting is that, again, I made that, you know, five, six years ago, and people still, you know, are, are, you know, supporting it and very interested and they're always coming to it, you know. And, uh, it's interesting to me, I, I actually went back and listened to some of it because I was like, "Well, it's been five years," like, and I (laughs) you know? That was my first attempt at ever, like, teaching anything. And so I was just like, "I hope it still holds up." And it was kind of refreshing. I clicked through some of it and I was like, "Oh, okay." It still (laughs) it still pretty (laughs) solid feeling to me.

Chris Williamson 46:08 Still embarrassed about that old, old work?

Cory Allen 46:11 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah. Um, also as a funny side note on Daniel Dennett, uh, I've been ... Uh, his book Consciousness Explained I got in the late '90s, I think, and that was a big impact on me whenever I was a teenager. Uh, and I really liked that one. And I actually emailed Tufts University whenever I was like 19, 20 or something and asked if I could come be a free, like an intern or assistant for Daniel Dennett. And, uh, yeah, they didn't reply. But it's b- (laughs) but-

Chris Williamson 46:39 Come on.

Cory Allen 46:40 I know, man.

Chris Williamson 46:40 Little did Daniel Dennett know that he'd just turned down the opportunity to get free binaural beats for life.

Cory Allen 46:45 Pshh. Exactly. Exactly. (laughs) Yeah. I think he's more interested in sailing and-

Chris Williamson 46:50 Yeah.

Cory Allen 46:50 ... hanging out on the coast. Um-

Chris Williamson 46:51 He's an interesting dude. So one of the things I've noticed is that the two ... the area, the two areas that you mentioned were deep focus and, uh, meditation. So quite-

Cory Allen 47:02 Yes.

Chris Williamson 47:02 ... mindful, quite open, quite present. But you mentioned that we've got these higher-

Cory Allen 47:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:07 ... higher ranges as well that we go into in terms of frequencies. Is that something that you just don't think people really need or that ... is it something that you actively tend to avoid in terms of creating binaural beats?

Cory Allen 47:19 No, no, it's, um, i- it's an important one, and it's one of the most popular. So that's what, uh, it's a good primer to move into the next thing. Um, and so a lot of ... I, I guess a lot of the work I do generally through the meditation course or my podcast or, you know, uh, the music, a lot of it is about trying to get people to calm down. (laughs) You know what I mean? Calm down, relax, be present and sort of wake up to their own awareness. Uh, that's what a lot of my stuff does.So, um, also, the other- the counterpoint to that, the balance to that is the extreme focus, the f- flow state, the gamma state. So the gamma state is the highest state. You know, it's- it is, you know, heightened perception, flow kind of existence, mind. And so, uh, yes, that is a very- a lot faster of a vibration. That's generally what, you know, 40 to 60 hertz. Some people clock it at about 100. Um, but I think that 40 to- 40-ish to 60-ish is right, just in the way that I've felt whenever ex- I've experimented with them. So on the first set of binaural beats I made, which I mentioned to you that I- I shared with Aubrey, there was a track on there called Gamma Flow. And that was like basically, you know, it's pretty self-explanatory (laughs) . But, uh, it was meant to be like the, you know, kind of- that was a- a collection, you know, so that you get all sorts of different tracks in that- that collection, and that was the Flow State track. And that one, I think, has been one of the most popular of all of all time, uh, because it's really apparently has had a- a profound effect on listeners helping to get into their- their concentration state and their flow state. And the amount of people that have emailed me over the years have said, "Hey, I wrote my entire book to this. I wrote my-"

Chris Williamson 49:05 (laughs) Shit.

Cory Allen 49:06 "... PhD." Yeah. Like, "I listen to this on repeat." So people have sent me like screenshots of their- their Apple, like n- you know, on iTunes, like the amount played, like the play count. They're like, "Here's Gamma Flow played, you know, 230 times." I'm like, "230 times? That track's half an hour long." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:24 (laughs)

Cory Allen 49:24 You know? And they're like, "Yeah, I listened to it for a year on repeat while I was finishing my PhD thesis or whatever."

Chris Williamson 49:29 Shit.

Cory Allen 49:30 And it's just like endless, endless. Yeah. And so, uh, that track people have really, really liked for flow state. And, um, yeah, so there's that one, and then after that, because people ha- you know, dug that so much, I ended up making the second volume of binaural beats I released with Aubrey, uh, are all flow state tracks. So it's four different flow state tracks. Um, so we can play some of Gamma Flow right now.

Chris Williamson 49:56 Yes.

Cory Allen 50:05 (ambient music plays) All right. So, um, so that's that one. Yeah, and that- it's pretty, uh, minimal and- and spacious, but you can, uh, you know, probably feel that flow happening. And, you know, these are, of course, you know, 30-second-ish samples that we're playing here. And the reason the tracks are so long is that, you know, in general, in play length from 30 minutes to two hours, is because the idea is, you know, the- f- kind of longer you listen to it, the longer your brain, you know, has the longer time, has to kind of sink into it, get into the zone. I think that generally they say it's about, you know, at least kind of two to four, five minutes to really enter the- open the door, you know, and then from there, it's another kind of five minutes to get further into... Sort of like meditation, you know, further into it, and then so on and so on. And once you kinda hit the- the 10 to 20 minute mark, you're- you're really sailing. Um-

Chris Williamson 51:21 What's the, um... It's like a whooshing sort of air, wind sound in that-

Cory Allen 51:27 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:27 ... Gamma- Gamma Flow track. What's that thing?

Cory Allen 51:29 Yeah. Oh, that's, uh, that's kind of, um, that's meant as a, uh, the stereo effect to really confuse time (laughs) . So, and it actually is the f- recording of s- of air that I took. It's like the coast recording of the, like, waves in Santa Barbara.

Chris Williamson 51:48 I was gonna say, how do you record air?

Cory Allen 51:49 (laughs) Yeah. Very sneakily. Very, very quiet room, yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:52 You gotta creep up on it, right? Because it's- it's vigilant.

Cory Allen 51:55 Yeah (laughs) , real, real quiet, quiet room in a powerful microphone (laughs) . No, um, you ever, speaking of that, as a side note, you ever heard of an anechoic chamber before?

Chris Williamson 52:05 Yes, but-

Cory Allen 52:05 It's-

Chris Williamson 52:05 ... I can't remember what it is.

Cory Allen 52:07 It's like a sound- soundless ro- room. So there's basically- it's designed inside to where n- there's no reflections. So basically, whenever we hear sound, we're generally hearing the reflections of sound, not the actual sound itself. So if you're in a room and you talk, you're not really hearing your voice. You're hearing your voice bounce off the wall behind you and off the ceiling and off the floor and so forth. Uh, but in one of the- that's why music studios have sound absorption and, you know, panels, because he wants to break those reflections and those resonances so that they- the microphone can actually record the source instead of the- the sound of the room. Also, interestingly enough, since we're in a- a sound wormhole, every space has its own frequency. So the, uh, the square footage of a room and the materials that the room is made out of, like the- the area of the room, it itself has a tone. So (laughs) if you're- when you're talking in your room, the- the width and length and height of the room itself, and as I said, the- the material of the walls, so h- how the reflections are coming, actually have its own tone. So if you- you speak in one room, it's gonna- there's a different kind of passenger in there with you v- and that's why auditoriums and music halls are very precisely, you know, designed so that they don't have that, or they- mainly they have an amplifying effect, but no real resonant effect. Um...

Chris Williamson 53:33 I remember once in one of the nightclubs that we were working out of, it had a huge back wall. So you can imagine, so it's got this high, high ceiling, and then halfway down the room, this high ceiling chops down into a low ceiling that continues to go. And the speakers at the front were throwing toward the back, and upon refurb, the guys, the builders had taken down this huge frame. It was like an image-... sort of poster, kind of like a poster, like a thick poster at the back on this main back wall. And they'd taken those down, and the guys s- soundchecked and threw the speakers back on in this new configuration. And it sounded so quiet. Like they were-

Cory Allen 54:11 Hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:11 ... blasting these speakers to Hell, and it sounded super, super quiet. And what we realized was that that back wall, the painting poster thing, had actually been a bunch of conical, uh, sound absorbers. And what you were-

Cory Allen 54:24 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:24 ... getting was the sound being thrown from the front, hitting itself on the way back from the wall and getting-

Cory Allen 54:29 Oh.

Chris Williamson 54:29 ... almost completely zeroed out, which was-

Cory Allen 54:32 Nice.

Chris Williamson 54:32 ... insane. You could turn it up super, super loud, and it would just sound like nothing because the sound hit the back wall, hit itself, and then just killed it.

Cory Allen 54:41 Yeah, that's like a L, like a low frequency oscillator, like an LFO. You, you'll see that in, on synthesizers or in, or even like a wah pedal, like, uh, for guitar, like Jimi Hendrix, you know? That's then like an LFO. So it's like creating a subsonic sound that actually... So subsonic sounds are frequencies that are below e- even, like, you know, human hearing, like, way below. Hence the term subsonic. And they're so deep and, you know, the wave is so big that it pushes every, like, sounds out of the air. And so with a wah pedal, that's why it sounds wah-wah whenever you move the pedal, is 'cause it's literally creating, like, a break, you know, in the actual sound. Or even, like, a tremolo effect when you hear something going, like, du- like, statically, da-da-na-na-na-na-na. That's because it's just, like, literally there's a, a subsonic frequency pushing out all of the audio there in a rhythmic way that's, like, just blasting it out so it cancels it out. And so- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 55:36 There's a, a club in Glasgow called the Sub Club, and that has a subsonic dance floor. So it's got subsonic-

Cory Allen 55:44 Whoa.

Chris Williamson 55:44 ... speakers built into the actual dance floor itself. So when you have bass tones that come through that, you feel it through your feet.

Cory Allen 55:52 Nice. That's awesome.

Chris Williamson 55:54 It's very cool.

Cory Allen 55:54 That's like elf- that would drive elephants mad.

Chris Williamson 55:56 (laughs)

Cory Allen 55:56 You know, they (laughs) elephants, they can send... I read something (laughs) sometime is that they can, like, hear each other from miles away, because, you know, bass travels, obviously. And they can send, like, sounds that are so deep that the bass will just travel, like, a mile or something. And of course, they got big ass ears. And so that (laughs) ... I just think it's so interesting for an animal. It's, of course, their size and, like, their resonance. There's just go- they're a big old, that's a big double base right there. But, like, just an, an animal being able to send that deep of a bass sound (laughs) is such a peculiar... It's like, what if you could emit a sub-woofer sound from your body, you know? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:37 (laughs) Upon demand.

Cory Allen 56:38 Yeah, that's, like, kind of what they're doing. It's sort of, sort of wild.

Chris Williamson 56:41 Some of the blue whale noises and stuff as well, those can go for absolutely-

Cory Allen 56:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 56:45 I know obviously that sound conduction in water is significantly better than it is through air, but-

Cory Allen 56:49 Totally.

Chris Williamson 56:50 Yeah, that goes for forever, right?

Cory Allen 56:52 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so I don't remember where we were really. Um, I remember talking about-

Chris Williamson 56:58 Flow state, gamma flow. We did that one.

Cory Allen 57:00 Yeah. All right, so yeah, we did that one. Um, and, uh, yeah, so that, that's a really great one. You know, people, people would dig that, and the second collection was for, you know, all for flow. And so since then, um, I've mainly created tracks that are for, you know, meditation, for relaxation, for, you know, the, the deep work and so on. And, uh, uh, I think that, you know, moving on to perhaps the, the last piece is

Cory Allen 57:30 one for sleep. So that's another thing that people hit me up so much about. And, uh, I got so many messages of people saying like, "Hey, you know, I've been, been working..." Like, uh, this is pre, uh, lockdown times, but people were saying like, "I've been working 10 hours a day and going to, you know, like, university at nighttime, and I have two kids, and I'm, like, on the verge of just a mental breakdown. And, like, I'm so fried and freaked out by the end of the day, I can't sleep. And the only thing I've been able to sleep is someone hooked me up with one of your tracks, and this has been helping me, like, deescalate and get to sleep at night. So just thank you." Whatever. I have gotten that message, you know, like, 100 times. And it made me realize, like, okay, people need something for sleep. And then, you know, of course, as tends to happen in this weird world, as I started thinking about that, of course I started having people message me requesting, like, "Hey, you ever thought about making tracks for sleep?" (laughs) I'm like, "Yeah, okay. That's clear. What is next?" Um, and so I made, yeah, I made the, the next, the tracks for sleep. Uh, and these are really deep. These are delta tracks. So these are, you know, to guide the, the mind literally to, like, dreamless sleep. Uh, uh, complete, like, lack, lack of body awareness type of zone. And obviously people aren't gonna be sleeping with headphones in most times, um, but I made the tracks, like, two hours long. So the idea is that you can... You get in bed, you know, and then you l- start listening to one of these, maybe you're reading or something like that. And then in that hour that you're kind of, like, chilling out before you actually try and sleep, you're already listening to that, getting into the zone. And then, you know, once you, you turn the, the lights off and probably take the headphones off, then you're gonna be, like, right there. So it can help you. It's kind of like a sleep primer is how I envisioned it, but-

Chris Williamson 59:22 Pre-workout. (laughs)

Cory Allen 59:23 (laughs) But yeah. But there's a lot of, uh... It's interesting. Th- There are actually a lot of people out there that do use. Like, there's headbands with, like, h- uh, ear, earbuds built in.

Chris Williamson 59:33 So Muse, the guys who do that portable E-K, EEG, EKG, the brain sensing headband for meditation-

Cory Allen 59:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:41 So I just got popped by one of their ads, uh, the other day, and they've created something that must track your brain waves or your, your brain states while you sleep.

Cory Allen 59:52 Yeah, that's their n- I, I, I talked... I know Ariel Garten, the founder of Muse, and she was telling me a while back, like last year, that was their next product, so...... it's cool that it's-

Chris Williamson 1:00:03 Yes.

Cory Allen 1:00:03 ... it's out. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:04 Yeah, it's come- it's come to market, man. I've seen it. But, uh, yeah-

Cory Allen 1:00:06 Nice.

Chris Williamson 1:00:06 ... you're totally right. The, the world for, for this stuff, um, there's State app, which is by Brian Mackenzie, which is a breath- breath work, um, application. And then there's SilentMode, which is a face mask with in-built headphones and, uh, accompanying music to do breath work to. And then-

Cory Allen 1:00:29 Wow.

Chris Williamson 1:00:29 ... there's wearables like Muse that were originally for seated meditation with audio feedback, and now are going into brain tracking whilst you're asleep. And, like, the wearables market is just, like, it's going-

Cory Allen 1:00:43 Out of control, man.

Chris Williamson 1:00:44 ... in all directions at once.

Cory Allen 1:00:45 Yeah, yeah. It's funny as I actually don't like any of that stuff. People, they send them to me, but I'm just sort of just like, "Uh, I don't, I don't need another, like, band to strap on." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:57 I keep a... Don't use the word strap-on. A, uh, a keeper.

Cory Allen 1:00:59 (laughs) Yeah, I don't need another strap-on to strap on. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:03 (laughs)

Cory Allen 1:01:03 I got so many.

Chris Williamson 1:01:03 I have three already. Um, yeah, I, being honest, man, I've, I've struggled with, with pretty much everything that I've tried. I keep my Whoop strap-on as an activity tracker, um, but, uh, we were talking about this while I was away, it really doesn't feel like anyone's kind of captured the wearables market in the same way. If you think about the kind of leap that Apple had with the iPhone and just how much of a chasm there was between that device and everything else that's bef- before it-

Cory Allen 1:01:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:32 ... and I don't think we've had that yet with wearables. You've got the Apple Watch, but a perfect example of this, Rory Sutherland, uh, Modern Wisdom, regular Modern Wisdom guest, he suggested that he thinks if Steve Jobs was still around, the Apple Watch wouldn't be made. He thinks it's too complex, too unintuitive, too highly priced-

Cory Allen 1:01:51 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:51 ... and too user inefficient. Um, and I'd never heard it before, but I actually thought, "Yeah, do you know what it is? I, I buy everything from Apple." Like, they bring something out, I upgrade my laptop, I upgrade my phone-

Cory Allen 1:02:01 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:01 ... fairly regularly. But I've never had any desire to buy an Apple Watch, and I think he might be right with that. And I... The, the idea of wearables is right, but I think the execution, thus far, pretty much industry wide, is just a bit lacking.

Cory Allen 1:02:17 Yeah, I agree. I'm not, I'm not a fan. Re- and yeah, I mean, I have an Apple Watch, uh, but I, uh, I'm not like, uh, you know-

Chris Williamson 1:02:24 Begrudging it.

Cory Allen 1:02:24 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, I like it, but I only wear it whenever I go out or, you know, go running or something like that. Um, but I just don't care about, like, data (laughs) , you know? Like, I just... I, I know every teacher their own, of course, and for some people it's very useful. Um, but to me, uh, there was, there was, uh, like, uh, there's a, the show Schitt's Creek, I don't know if you've ever seen that, it's quite funny, but Dan Levy is, like, going on a hike with his, his boyfriend and they, he's like, "Oh, my, my Apple Watch is dead," or whatever, and he's like, "There's no point in even hiking-"

Chris Williamson 1:02:56 (laughs)

Cory Allen 1:02:56 "... if it's not, like, if I'm not getting the, the track. I'm like, I don't care." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:00 We'll do it again tomorrow. Did you see-

Cory Allen 1:03:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:02 The, so one thing that I will say that was a, a fairly big game changer is, for me, knowing how much time I've been asleep, I'm aware that there's a margin of error here, but the waking up on a morning and being able to look and know that I got seven hours of sleep, or seven and half or eight or eight and a half or five, um, as opposed to the old world before wearables, which was just going to bed at a time and then waking up at a time and not really knowing. Um, that, that has definitely informed my, the way that I operate a lot, a lot more effectively, and I can-

Cory Allen 1:03:41 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:41 ... compensate for sleep debt and, and kind of play around with things. But you're right, if you're not drilling into the data, I think a lot of devices, almost all of them, put out so much more than you need. And then unless you act on the data that you get from a wearable, like-

Cory Allen 1:03:54 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:03:54 ... what's, what's the purpose of it? It's just like this sort of mas- masturbatory gl- game of producing data for the sake of indexing it.

Cory Allen 1:04:04 Exactly. (laughs) Exactly, man. Yeah, it's f- further distraction, in my opinion, in a lot of cases. Again, for me, but, you know, for some people, I'm sure it's incredibly useful.

Chris Williamson 1:04:13 I gotta-

Cory Allen 1:04:13 I have had a lot of people send me, speaking of, uh, you know, things like Muse and, uh, I think Whoop, uh, has s- some similar data just showing your, you know, uh, you know, neural feedback or also your, your, your kind of real-time heart rate or whatever change, is people have sent me screenshots where they're like, "Man, this is before, like, this is a six-month kind of like, uh, you know, shot here of before I started listening to, you know, you're using your meditation course with your binaural beats, and then after, and, like, look at the difference." And it's been, like, it's crazy when people send them to me. I should ask, I should... I'm trying to ask if I should put those on my site or something, but they, like, it's just, like, a complete, like, you know, inverse. It's like a total difference. It's really, really cool to see.

Chris Williamson 1:05:03 That's crazy.

Cory Allen 1:05:04 It's like, "Oh."

Chris Williamson 1:05:04 I've got a Joel Jamison from Eight Weeks Out, he works with a lot of UFC fighters getting them down to the right weight, but he's also-

Cory Allen 1:05:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:05:12 ... one of the world experts in HRV training. Like, literally, probably number one on the planet. And I've got him on the show later this month and, uh, I'm gonna bring up the binaural beats stuff with him because him, uh, affecting people's HRV in a, uh, a- appropriate way is pretty much what he spends his time doing.

Cory Allen 1:05:28 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:05:28 And HRV is an indicator of relaxation. Uh, inversely, you want a high HRV and a low resting heart rate, um, optimally. But yeah, i- that's, that's definitely one of them. And when you think about what most of the recovery strategies for athletes are doing, what they're trying to get them to do is just get into a parasympathetic, uh, state-

Cory Allen 1:05:50 Right, right.

Chris Williamson 1:05:50 ... uh, any- anyhow. Is it by massage? Is it by going on a recovery walk i- in nature?

Cory Allen 1:05:57 Right. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:05:57 Like, is it by sleeping more? Whatever it might be, just trying to get that HRV up and that resting heart rate down. So, yeah, man, I think-I'll tell you what, why don't we, why don't we listen to, uh, it'll be Into the Void? Um-

Cory Allen 1:06:10 Oh, yeah, okay.

Chris Williamson 1:06:11 ... is that, is that the sleep one?

Cory Allen 1:06:12 Yeah. No, that was Lunar Flow.

Chris Williamson 1:06:14 Oh. Well, "Lunar Flow."

Cory Allen 1:06:15 Um, so we'll do-

Chris Williamson 1:06:15 You're messing me up with the names now. Why don't we listen to Lunar Flow.

Cory Allen 1:06:21 Ah. (instrumental music plays) Okay, and so then now also, j- I think we're in the same, a good neighborhood, and of course time is shrinking here. So, uh, we can move into Into the Void, which that, uh, is, is also another, uh, deep delta track as well, so it's kind of a good companion. This is from the first collection way back when, um, but I think this is the one I think Aubrey has called the dry float, he's like, "It's like being in a float tank, but not in the tank." (laughs) So this is the Into the Void track.

Cory Allen 1:07:53 Okay, and then coming out of that one, I think just, you know, with, uh, a few minutes remaining, touching quickly on some of the research around this stuff is important because, you know, some people are willing to just try a, a binaural beat or something and see if it works for them, and they're, "Okay, cool. I, I like this, and it makes me feel a certain way." Some people, uh, are a bit resistant to do it because they're like, "Okay, this, this is-" you know, a little skepticism which I think is healthy. Um, ultimately I, at the end of the day I say, with anything like that, you know, just give it a shot, and if it, if it works for you then cool, if not then, uh, then that's cool too. Uh, but there, there is a lot of, uh, research and increasingly so in, uh, th- over the last few years even. They, they've become very popular and, uh, for treating anxiety, uh, and different traumas and kind of going through traumas and things like that, but really for treating anxiety and trying to get people out of their, uh, even in a clinical state of, uh, of dealing with anxiety. So, one case in particular that I enjoyed, I was actually a part of, was a, a research, uh, team in Australia at one of the universities, two actually. There were two, uh, which unfortunately now I, uh, can't recall which one it was 'cause it's been a year or two since I worked with them, but, um, one, one of the major ones. (laughs) And so they had a, a neuroscientist there that, uh, was basically playing my tracks, and I created some actually, like, test tracks so they could use, um, kind of a control, uh, study s- thing going on. So some of them-

Chris Williamson 1:09:29 So did you make a binaural beat that wasn't a binaural beat?

Cory Allen 1:09:32 Yes, yes. (laughs) So I made one with just the musical elements, and then one with the musical elements and the tones, so they had like a controlled track going on. So they would put people in there, mainly people that were, you know, struggling from psychological issues, you know, or anxieties or whatever it might be, put them in the fMRI scanner which is just kind of a, a brainwave, uh, reading machine, we'll call it that, and they would then monitor kind of how their mind was reacting and how their heart rate was reacting to it. And they showed, you know, very clear success, uh, through that brain imaging that the track with the tones was affecting, you know, the brain in the way it was supposed to in the sense of creating relaxation, slowing down the brainwave padding, patternings in the firing of neurons. Um, so it's very, very fascinating. I, I think that they're, a lot of them in the academic sense have been used for, or have been getting a lot more traction for use in, uh, in therapy sessions and stuff like that, and just general overall kind of wellness for people who are suffering psychologically and just kind of getting that recovery in.

Chris Williamson 1:10:38 That's the, I guess, the acute state change. Um, have we had a look, have you had any research to do with the trait change other than people sending you-

Cory Allen 1:10:49 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:49 ... their heart rates-

Cory Allen 1:10:50 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:10:51 ... steadily decreasing-

Cory Allen 1:10:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:10:52 ... over a six-month period?

Cory Allen 1:10:54 Yeah. There have, there have been several studies of, you know, uh, selections of people who have kind of been interviewed an- and taken readings and, and different data points and so forth on their r- kind of resting levels of stress and, and, uh, anxiety and whatever, and, and then kind of used the tracks over the course of time and then gone back and gone in for, you know, more testing and monitoring and so forth and shown i- improvements and a reduction. They're all, they're all based on anxiety. I think that's where you can get the funding for studies like that, uh, improvements on the reductions of, of their anxiety and kind of their resting heart rates and things like that. So yeah, it's, it's all, it's all interesting. Yeah, and I, and I like reading about those things now and, now and again. But, uh, I think for me, for stuff like that, uh, I'm mainly just kind of like, you know, you could go read a bunch of reports. It's ki- I don't know, I kind of feel like there are supplements too where it's like, you can read all about them or you could just take one and see how you feel. (laughs) You know?

Chris Williamson 1:11:50 See if it works, yeah. And that again, if you could bottle the placebo effect, you'd have the most powerful effect in all of pharmacology, right?

Cory Allen 1:11:57 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:58 So the, the point is whatever works for you works for you, and the mode by that happening kind of-... is a little bit irrelevant. So, if someone's thinking, "That sounds good, Cory, you've sold me on binaural beats, mate," what is your suggested dosing? Is it more effective with speakers, if they've got good quality speakers, or with headphones, and how often and et cetera?

Cory Allen 1:12:22 Yeah, definitely with headphones. Uh, the how often you can listen to them, that's up to you, you know, uh, how often you want to try and induce the effect. Uh, I, I listen to them during meditation. A lot of them are made for meditation, you know? Uh, and, uh, it's very viable and given that they're 30 minutes long, it's like you don't have to worry about a timer or anything. You just turn it on, and you know when the track's done, you're done. Um, and also, if you're ... I think another valuable time is that, uh, you know, I've had a lot of people reach out to me and say that whenever they're feeling kind of like in a crisis mode of just like really overwhelmed, really stressed with work or, or a relationship or whatever, and they're in that kind of like panicky, like, "Ah," that, that state, to drop one on, to remember to use them then and drop one on and just kind of lay down and, and take a little 10-minute chill, you know, very useful in times like that as well. Um, also apparently, uh, if you're writing a book or working on your PhD, then the, the Smashes it. ... game plan is very valuable but, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:13:22 I was listening to-

Cory Allen 1:13:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:13:23 ... Adam Gazzaley, who's a neuroscientist, on, um, the Sam Harris's podcast the other day, and he has got stage three. He's going into stage three FDA approval for brain training games that are made to force single focus, um, specifically to be used to combat ADD-

Cory Allen 1:13:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:13:49 ... but these games would actually require a prescription for you to get them.

Cory Allen 1:13:54 Wow.

Chris Williamson 1:13:54 Which I thought, uh, I don't understand. Like it's just a game, but as with many things, something that can cause a positive change can also cause adverse reactions if not used properly or supervised or blah, blah, blah. But I wonder if down the line we'll see prescriptions written or perhaps at least doctors recommending binaural beats as part of a, a recovery protocol for someone who's post-surgery or PTSD or anxiety, depression, any number of psychological issues.

Cory Allen 1:14:25 Yeah, a lot of therapists recommend them already for, just for people that are kind of dealing with just mental health challenges, you know, depression, anxiety, as you said, you know, PTSD, things like that. Um, yeah, they're just sort of, they're like, "Hey, take ... Listen to one of these and call me in the morning," you know? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:14:44 I love it, man. I absolutely love it. Look, Cory, it's been awesome to have you on two and a half years, dude, and it was very well worth the wait.

Cory Allen 1:14:50 Yeah, it's crazy how time flies when you're in the present.

Chris Williamson 1:14:53 Absolutely. Uh, people who want to check out your stuff, where should they go?

Cory Allen 1:14:56 Uh, cory-alan.com. That's just C-O-R-Y-sh Allen.com. It's all there. The binaural beats, they're released into now course, my podcast, of course.

Chris Williamson 1:15:06 Astral Hustle-

Cory Allen 1:15:07 Uh-

Chris Williamson 1:15:07 ... go and check it out.

Cory Allen 1:15:08 Yep, yep, it's all there.

Chris Williamson 1:15:10 Peace. Dude, thank you so much for today.

Cory Allen 1:15:12 Yeah, thank you, man. Really appreciate you checking me out. (instrumental music)