If you’re skeptical about the effects of binaural beats, aka “digital drungs”, which some believe can be used to entrain your mind into specific states, this is a free way to try it out for yourself.

If you try out AmbieSounds+, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Description:

AmbiSounds+ will help you fall asleep faster, help you relax and even help you get your work done by eliminating noise/annoyance in the environment. The application is an atmosphere enhancer that will help you create an ambient environment of your liking. With abilities to layer multiple tracks, your environment possibilities are virtually endless.

FEATURES – HIGH QUALITY BINAURAL sound tracks – Combine as many tracks as you like to create your custom layered track – Find yourself listening to your favorite tracks over and over? No problem. To make it easier, AmbiSounds is the only application of its kind to feature track ‘FAVORITES’ to make it faster for you to listen to your track – CONVENIENT options to configure your track playback on the front playback screen – Settable TIMER with playback stop or playback fade out – Option to automatically EXIT the application when timer expires – Auto saving settings – More than 20 tracks – Ability to select tracks from multiple categories for simultaneous playback – Configurable ‘Favorites’ track listing *** SAMPLE TRACKS(These are only a subset of the 80+ tracks in the application) *** – Bird Song – Church Bells – Frogs – Light Rain – Thunderstorm – Spanish Banks – Mountain Stream – Pendulum – Ocean Waves – Waterfall + many more! **

RECOMMENDATIONS OF USE** It is recommended that the tracks should be listened to using a headphone in order to maximize the binaural sound effects. However, headphones are not mandatory to listen to the high quality tracks that are part of this application. ** Requirement ** iPhone OS 2.2 *** Bugs/Improvements/Feedback *** Please feel free to provide feedback or suggest improvements and bugs that you may encounter. Simply contact me via email at vikas.singla.7@gmail.com.

Binaural beats are illusory “beats” that you can hear when pure tones of slightly different frequency are separately and simultaneously presented to each ear.

It’s an interesting psychoacoustic effect – one that at least some people think can help you do things ranging from concentrating to opening your chakras. Mainstream media has picked up on this so-called “digital drug”, though, and is offering hysterical coverage that recalls the days of Reefer Madness.

Binaural Beats is a free download.

Description:

Binaural beats helps you concentrate, relax or fall asleep by inducing the brain to perceive different brainwave states such as: beta, alpha, theta, delta.

Combining with different nature sounds, you can make your own themes for many purposes such as: Sleep induction, study aid or headache treatment etc. Blocking noise from the outside world, no more distraction!

Features:

• Free combination of binaural beats, background noise and ambient noise to customize your own theme.
• Separately configure the volume of all 3 sound layers. 
• Interval (loop) setting for ambient noise. 
• 6 pieces of high quality stereo background noises and 16 ambient noises. 
• Set ambient noises as loop sound like raining or occasional sounds like thunder or seagulls calling. 
• General volume control in playback window. 
• Programmable application shutdown timer. 
• Sound volume fades out at the end of timer. -
• 7 preset themes with binaural beats: 
  • Pre-sleep induction 
  • Headache killer 
  • Quick relaxation 
  • Study aid 
  • Deep meditation 
  • Memory helper 
  • Busy thinking 
• 6 Background noises: 
  • Autumn Wind 
  • Calm sea 
  • Heavy rain with thunder 
  • Hurricane 
  • Rain forest 
  • Soft tide 
• 16 Ambient Noises: Birds; Bubbles; Campfire; Chimes; Clock; Corbie; Creek; Crickets; Owl; Rain; Rain (heavy); River; Seagulls; Thunder; Waterfall; Wind in trees 
• 9 Binaural tones: Deep dreamless sleep, Dream creation, Deep meditation, Memory helper, Lullaby, Headache killer, Relaxation, Concentration, Busy thinking.

Note: 

• This application requires stereo headphones to take effect.
• It’s dangerous to use the application while driving drowsy.

How it works:

Binaural beats may influence functions of the brain besides those related to hearing. This phenomenon is called frequency following response. The concept is that if one receives a stimulus with a frequency in the range of brain waves, the predominant brain wave frequency is said to be likely to move towards the frequency of the stimulus (a process called entrainment). In addition, binaural beats have been credibly documented to relate to both spatial perception & stereo auditory recognition, and , according to the frequency following response, activation of various sites in the brain.

Mainstream media has picked up on this so-called “digital drug”, though, and is offering hysterical coverage that recalls the days of Reefer Madness. USA Today recently warned about binaural beats, saying that these “digital drugs promote drug use”.

Now Mediahead has is bringing binaural beats to the iPhone. mindFreek (App Store link) is a unique application designed to put you to a certain state of mind.

According to creator Jakub Koter:

The binaural tones i’ve included in mindFreek are unique and may produce some interesting effects.

This application focuses the following sessions:

• Astral Projection
• Crazy High
• Out-of-Body Experience
• 3rd Eye Float
• Weightless

You may start feeling heavy, or like your arms are really heavy, like your floating or even may see things that aren’t there.

mindFreek retails for $1.99.

I’ve been checking out Crazy High while writing this post and, somehow, I remained fairly lucid. If there are any other iPhone Mind Freeks out there, let me know what you think of this app in the comments!

Background (from Jakub Koter):

Let me give you an example of a binaural beat/tone. Right ear is given a steady tone of 400Hz and the left one is given 410Hz, these tones combine in your brain to achieve a 10hz difference. This 10Hz tone is formed by your brain. This can only be achieved when using stereo headphones since the right and left channels do not mix until in your brain.

There are four frequency stages: Delta (0.5Hz-5hz), Theta (4Hz-8Hz), Alpha (8Hz-14Hz), Beta (14Hz-30Hz

For example: Theta stage (4hz-7Hz) has been found to increase learning abilities. Children spend more time in theta stage than adults, which could explain their accelerated learning capabilities.

NOTE: You must wear stereo headphones in order for this application to have any affect. Although binaural waves are considered safe, Koter says to “use at your own risk.” That probably got him an extra thousand downloads!

It’s an interesting psychoacoustic effect – one that at least some people think can help you do things ranging from concentrating to opening your chakras.

Mainstream media has picked up on this so-called “digital drug”, though, and is offering hysterical coverage that recalls the days of Reefer Madness.

Check out what USA Today’s Kim Komando has to say about these new age-y audio files:

The sites claim binaural beats cause the same effects as illegal drugs. These drugs impair coordination and can cause hallucinations. They’ve caused countless fatal accidents, like traffic collisions.

If binaural beats work as promised, they are not safe. They could also create a placebo effect. The expectation elicits the response. Again, this is unsafe.

At the very least, digital drugs promote drug use. Some sites say binaural beats can be used with illegal drugs.

The sites also look favorably on the effects of illegal drugs. So, talk to your children. Make sure they understand the dangers of this culture. It could be a small jump from digital drugs to the real thing.

Yeah – talk to you kids, Kim Komando. And while you’re at it, tell them that Mom’s a gullible buffoon – that for some scary reason – has a national audience.