Modern WisdomThe Story Behind Binaural Beats - Cory Allen | Modern Wisdom Podcast 254
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
140 min read · 28,140 words- 0:00 – 15:00
So, in binaural beats,…
- CACory Allen
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)
- CWChris Williamson
(instrumental music plays) Corey bloody Allen in the building. How are you, friend?
- CACory Allen
(laughs) I'm good, man. How's your Achilles?
- CWChris Williamson
It's slowly-
- CACory Allen
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... reattaching my leg to my foot, which is-
- CACory Allen
Nice.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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-
- CACory Allen
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... 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.
- CACory Allen
That sounds like a coming-of-age novel, Flip-Flops in Dubai. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah, it is. I found myself, and it was a proper pair of shoes.
- CACory Allen
(laughs) Nice, man. Well, I'm glad it's healing. I'd just remembered that as, as we started here.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- CACory Allen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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-
- CACory Allen
Yeah. So what were you fighting against?
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- CACory Allen
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- CACory Allen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
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."
- CACory Allen
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?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. That's a function of seeing the highlight reel of everybody else, right? That almost-
- CACory Allen
Totally, totally.
- CWChris Williamson
... almost any, uh, incident is also a potential for content. (laughs)
- CACory Allen
(laughs) Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So it's like unless you're taking a selfie whilst the operation's going on and recording a podcast-
- CACory Allen
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and then, oh, it's gotta be in the newsletter, um-
- 15:00 – 30:00
So is it, would…
- CACory Allen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
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?
- CACory Allen
Yes, exactly, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, we got it. Right.
- CACory Allen
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-
- CWChris Williamson
Can we hear, can we hear something that is that particular theta, that, that-
- CACory Allen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... bottom-end one?
- CACory Allen
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)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CACory Allen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
What, like-
- CACory Allen
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, 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-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Maybe that's how I did my Achilles.
- CACory Allen
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe I was listening to something that was five to the floor or something.
- CACory Allen
(laughs) Yeah. Because you l- you're expecting this thing and it doesn't happen, and you're like, "Uh-oh." You know?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CACory Allen
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-
- CWChris Williamson
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...
- CACory Allen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- CACory Allen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
That's funny. You've Trojan, Trojan Horsed a really mindful-
- CACory Allen
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... music set in with something-
- CACory Allen
That's right.
- CWChris Williamson
... that sounds nice on top.
- CACory Allen
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-
- CWChris Williamson
(clears throat)
- 30:00 – 45:00
Mm. …
- CACory Allen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CACory Allen
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."
- CWChris Williamson
Can you explain why Cardi B's WAP is done at 70 beats per minute then? (laughs)
- CACory Allen
(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-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CACory Allen
... (laughs) in the s- in the track.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- CACory Allen
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... being sort of the classic, I guess, dance rhythm, uh, the, the pacing.
- CACory Allen
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- CACory Allen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- CACory Allen
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... Cardi B's WAP had a different effect on me to the-
- CACory Allen
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... the music of Anjunadeep being played at sunset.
- CACory Allen
Right. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
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?
- CACory Allen
Yeah, sure. So this one, uh, let's go with, uh, w- this is kinda my personal favorite, uh, is one called Luminosity.
- CWChris Williamson
Cool.
- CACory Allen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
A trip
- CACory Allen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Cheeky, cheeky, cheeky
- CACory Allen
Um, yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... tori. But it's kind of like frog in boiling water type...
- CACory Allen
Yes. Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
... argument, right?
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Mm-hmm. No, but I-…
- CWChris Williamson
that he just published on expanding free will. Have you seen this?
- CACory Allen
Mm-hmm. No, but I-
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- CACory Allen
Nice.
- CWChris Williamson
... these words and I'm trying to work out what the hell is going on. Um, but yeah, man.
- CACory Allen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- CACory Allen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Still embarrassed about that old, old work?
- CACory Allen
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-
- CWChris Williamson
Come on.
- CACory Allen
I know, man.
- CWChris Williamson
Little did Daniel Dennett know that he'd just turned down the opportunity to get free binaural beats for life.
- CACory Allen
Pshh. Exactly. Exactly. (laughs) Yeah. I think he's more interested in sailing and-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CACory Allen
... hanging out on the coast. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- CACory Allen
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... mindful, quite open, quite present. But you mentioned that we've got these higher-
- CACory Allen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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?
- CACory Allen
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-"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Shit.
- CACory Allen
"... 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)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CACory Allen
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."
- CWChris Williamson
Shit.
- CACory Allen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- CACory Allen
(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-
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Yes. …
- CACory Allen
product, so...... it's cool that it's-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- CACory Allen
... it's out. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it's come- it's come to market, man. I've seen it. But, uh, yeah-
- CACory Allen
Nice.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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-
- CACory Allen
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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-
- CACory Allen
Out of control, man.
- CWChris Williamson
... in all directions at once.
- CACory Allen
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)
- CWChris Williamson
I keep a... Don't use the word strap-on. A, uh, a keeper.
- CACory Allen
(laughs) Yeah, I don't need another strap-on to strap on. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CACory Allen
I got so many.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- CACory Allen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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-
- CACory Allen
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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-
- CACory Allen
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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.
- CACory Allen
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-
- CWChris Williamson
Begrudging it.
- CACory Allen
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-"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CACory Allen
"... if it's not, like, if I'm not getting the, the track. I'm like, I don't care." (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
We'll do it again tomorrow. Did you see-
- CACory Allen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- 1:15:00 – 1:15:29
Astral Hustle- …
- CACory Allen
Allen.com. It's all there. The binaural beats, they're released into now course, my podcast, of course.
- CWChris Williamson
Astral Hustle-
- CACory Allen
Uh-
- CWChris Williamson
... go and check it out.
- CACory Allen
Yep, yep, it's all there.
- CWChris Williamson
Peace. Dude, thank you so much for today.
- CACory Allen
Yeah, thank you, man. Really appreciate you checking me out. (instrumental music)
Episode duration: 1:15:29
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