Theatre of the Mind Podcast Episodes

A Symphony in the Brain with Jim Robbins
Kelly Howell: [0:34] Welcome once again to Theater of the Mind. Your host Kelly Howell. Our show today explores Jim Robbins' book, "A Symphony in the Brain" [0:44] Jim is a freelance journalist who writes regularly for the science section of the New York Times. He also coauthored the book we just recently covered, "The OpenFocus Brain" with Les Fehmi.
[0:54] His fascinating book explores the evolution of brain wave biofeedback and its power to treat many conditions, ranging from the treatment of epilepsy, autism, ADD, ADHD, head injuries, addictions and depression with no drugs or side effects.
[1:09] Hey, Jim. Welcome to the show.
Jim Robbins: [1:11] Thank you.
Kelly: [1:13] Thanks for writing your book. I learned a lot.
Jim: [1:15] Great.
Kelly: [1:17] It was fun to read.
Jim: [1:19] Yes, that was the whole idea was to make it a narrative so that people who don't know anything about a very complex subject can learn something and something that will give them a little entertainment along the way.
Kelly: [1:30] Yeah, I read it like a story, like a novel. [laughs]
Jim: [1:33] You mentioned, by the way that the book is coming out in its second edition next month, in August.
Kelly: [1:38] Great!
Jim: [1:41] A couple new chapters and some other new material.
Kelly: [1:44] Well, let's start with the most obvious question for those who don't know. What is neurofeedback?
Jim: [1:47] Neurofeedback is biofeedback. Bio simply means information about the body that's returned to the user. And biofeedback started out with people doing hand warming by holding a thermometer and when they could see the temperature of their fingers getting lower it meant that they were getting relaxed. [1:55] So, that's a very simple form of biological information that's being given you and that's a very empowering thing to do is to have information like that.
[2:27] Neurofeedback is a type of biofeedback; it's information from the brain. It involves putting sensors on the scalp, picking up the EEG and then displaying the EEG on a computer screen, often in the form of a computer game. When you are doing well on the game, your brain is being directed in specific directions. So, you gain some control over your EEG.
[2:57] That really, that idea of control is at the heart of the whole field of neurofeedback. The concept is that we can gain control of something called the thalamocortical generator in the brain and control the brain's rhythms. And it is a very simple concept. It's very real, but it is something that science hasn't explored, which is why neurofeedback has kind of been a bit of a stepchild in the healing field. People just haven't quite gotten it.
[3:29] Not that's changed in the last few years. It's changing rapidly. But, it's a little bit ahead of the science. That's part of the problem.
Kelly: [3:36] I remember being so excited reading, oh, years and years ago, reading Alice and Elmer Green's book, "Beyond Biofeedback." I don't know if you ever read that.
Jim: [3:41] I did. It's a landmark text. I have talked to Elmer a couple times. He is a very interesting guy.
Kelly: [3:51] Yeah and I was so... In fact, that's what really led me to do the work that I do in audio. But, it just seemed like there was a whole energy and movement towards voluntary controls, learning how to control the mind and the body and our nervous system. [4:00] It just seems that it is gone a little bit off. It's been marginalized and moved to the fringes.
Jim: [4:29] Well, it has, although it is moving out of the fringes and into mainstream. Here is something that was proven really in the 1960s and '70s and was on its way to even more science. And then, in part, because of a lot of the claims that were made that were ahead of the science and in part because of the whole "flower child" association.
Kelly: [4:42] Well, they were going off to India and measuring gurus.
Jim: [4:45] The Greens were. They were doing yogis and putting them in a box and measuring their respiratory rate and their heart rate and things like that. They were trying to show that... The field was called the "operant conditioning of autonomic parts," well I can't remember the last part of that phrase, but it's getting control over those things that we don't think we can control, like the thalamocortical generator in the brain, your heart rate and things like that. [5:13] All those things have been well demonstrated that we do have control. It's just a little more difficult and they were studying that. Because they were studying yogis and mystics, they were marginalized and the whole aspect of flower children, the hippies, who were part of the field. It really gave it some... certainly in the mind of funders and the mainstream scientists it gave it a bad name.
[5:39] And so, that's one of the reasons that it wasn't funded and the research wasn't done. That's changed. It changed in the '80s. Barry Sterman at UCLA did a lot of work with epileptics and other people, particularly epileptics. He published it in top journals, but it was ignored.
Kelly: [5:58] Why? The research was fascinating in your book.
Jim: [6:04] It was fascinating. And research done by others was fascinating. There was research that showed that we could gain control. We could control things down to just a few cells in the body. [6:18] They hooked up cells to a speaker and it made a clicking noise when you activated those cells. And people could play drum rolls and they could play different kinds of rhythms just by activating those very small cell groups. That should have proven that we had this exquisite ability to control parts of our body.
[6:40] But, it's outside of the model. The model is a drug model. That's a big part of why this didn't get anywhere, because when it was only one or two people doing it, or a handful, and it just doesn't fit the way most scientists think.
Kelly: [6:58] now, what about all the moneys that is being pumped into programs like Richard Davidson is doing at the Keck Laboratory. They are using FMRI or...
Jim: [7:10] Yeah, they've been studying monks, Tibetan monks. I interviewed Richard Davidson. He used to be in the biofeedback field and he says there is something very real going on there. He just is also like a number of people wants to see more science. [7:24] That science is happening. In the last couple, three years, it has really started to materialize. There's a fellow named Doctor Mario Beauregard in Quebec, who has proven that there's a very substantial effect from neurofeedback from pre and post studies with FMRI.
[7:47] This is a landmark, because there is nothing like that in the literature at this point. I just read that the national Institute of Mental Health is funding a study with some Ohio State University professors. So, it's happening.
Kelly: [8:02] Is there evidence that a series of neurofeedback sessions can permanently change and improve the brain?
Jim: [8:09] I'm only treating ADHD and ADD.
Kelly: [8:10] Pardon?
Jim: [8:11] Can permanently change the brain and treat ADD and ADHD.
Kelly: [8:16] Wow.
Jim: [8:18] So, the science is coming. And there has been science in Europe. There's been work done by Doctor John Gruzelier at the Imperial College of London with musicians, showing that their performance increases after alpha training. [8:36] So, the science is there. It's in bits and pieces. It isn't a large body of science yet, but part of it is not just how much science or how good the science is. It's a matter of mindset. And that's a little bit of the battle right now.
Kelly: [8:51] Yeah. It was interesting. It was Barry Sterman who did a study with cats?
Jim: [9:01] Right.
Kelly: [9:03] Right, because they don't have any placebo effect.
Jim: [9:05] Exactly.
Kelly: [9:06] Right.
Jim: [9:07] He taught them to control seizures using neurofeedback.
Kelly: [9:09] Yeah, can you tell that story?
Jim: [9:13] Well, he had been doing research on the effects of... with cats that UCLA Sepulveda Veterans Hospital. He was doing work with cats, trying to find out at what level rocket fuel... The Air Force is interested in understanding how rock fuel affected astronauts and people who worked around it. [9:34] At what level cats went into seizure because of it. and what other affects occurred. And so he took these cats and exposed them to rocket fuel and then hooked them up to the EEG to see what their brain was doing and so on. Then, he got another grant to study the first study didn't involve EEG. The second study did.
[10:04] The second study was simply him trying to understand the cat EEG. And he found that the cats that he had trained to the specific frequency he was studying didn't go into seizure from the rocket fuel. He didn't know why. He said for a long time it had really puzzled him.
[10:23] Then he realized that by training them to the specific frequency, he had strengthened their cortex. Their brain was stronger and it was more able to resist the seizures.
Kelly: [10:32] And it stayed.
Jim: [10:33] And it stayed.
Kelly: [10:34] He didn't even know when he did the second experiment, right? He was perplexed. Why did some of the cats go into seizure and some were fine? It was the ones that he had previously trained, right?
Jim: [10:47] That's right. And it took him a long time to figure it out. It was a bit of serendipity. Then he went on to test monkeys the same way. Once he figured out what was going on, he would do lesions on a monkey brain to cause seizures, and then he would teach them to reverse the seizures and then to go back into seizure again. He could do both, in and out, just showing that the brain could be strengthened and be taken back to where it was. [11:16] It shows the brain is very nimble and can be brought under control and do amazing things. They've taken pictures of people who play a violin, pictures of their brain, FMRIs, before they start playing and after, and the part of the brain that governs the hand and different aspects of playing the violin gets bigger, more robust. That's kind of what was going on with the monkeys.
[11:40] After he did the monkey work, he did a human subject. It was a woman who actually worked in his lab, who was having seizures, uncontrollable seizures. She eventually got to the point where she could get a driver's license, it really changed her life.
[11:53] This was with very primitive equipment at the time. It has grown leaps and bounds since then. Part of the reason people don't believe this stuff is because the stories are too dramatic. I mean, it really does do dramatic things to people. Not to everyone, but for some people it is a kind of miracle because it is outside of the model.
[12:18] I spoke with the editor of a journal called Clinical Electroencephalography. He's not a neurofeedback person; he just is a highly trained encephalogor...
Kelly: [12:35] Yeah, we got it.
Jim: [12:38] He edits this journal and he wrote and said that if any other treatment had shown the kind of efficacy in the studies that EEG have already, it would be widely used. But, again, it's this mindset problem that this just can't work the way people said because it's so far outside the model. [13:04] That's unfortunately how science is. If it doesn't fit within the mainstream, it's not going to be considered too often.
Kelly: [13:09] Yeah, there's a mental block.
Jim: [13:10] Enough people are doing it now, enough people with credentials, and enough universities and so on. Especially with Autism and ADD and some other things that. . .
Kelly: [13:18] Yeah, tell us what conditions are most effectively treated with neurofeedback in your research that you've found.
Jim: [13:28] A lot of different things. Anxiety, migraines, ADD, ADHD, depression. There are a couple of good studies on alcoholism or addictions. Those are the broad range of things that they use. They use it to treat Autism. There are some new protocols for Autism that are widely effective. [13:53] Again, the field is maturing and so is the treatment protocol. They used to just train on one spot on one side of the brain, and then on the other side. That was pretty much the protocol. Now they're moving the sensor around on the scalp and they're getting very different effects.
[14:13] One of the things about neurofeedback is there just isn't one kind of neurofeedback. There are probably 25 different approaches to this. Everyone has got their own ideas and their own approaches. It's kind of a wild west out there in terms of how this is being done. Everyone is getting effects. So, there's something fundamental going on. Everyone argues about who is getting the best effects and how it is best done. But, I think the real power of neurofeedback will be seen in the future when good studies show exactly what is going on and where these things are best done.
[14:53] A lot of this work is just being done trial and error, and so we don't have a good understanding of what is happening. But, once that understanding comes about this will show itself to be a really profound intervention.
[15:06] They are already doing some work with functional imaging. They are using FMRIs to do FMRI biofeedback.
Kelly: [15:16] That is not cheap, I imagine.
Jim: [15:19] It is not cheap. And it is not out there yet for people to use. But, there is research being done and people are starting to understand it. It is so powerful because you can see these cells you are trying to activate and you can sometimes just activate a few cells. It may be something that small that needs to be handled, or needs to be trained. And with that kind of pinpoint accuracy you can do amazing things.
Kelly: [15:46] Can you explain how altering brainwave patterns, which is what we are talking about in neurofeedback, how does that change the nervous system and biochemistry? People just think of brainwaves, there is alta beta, delta beta and there are different states of mind.
Jim: [16:08] There are certain frequencies that we don't use anymore. We get into these habitual frequencies that we use. I think these things are complicated, I think they are more complicated than we know. There are still aspects to this that have to do with things like emotional stress, and things like shame and fear, and those kinds of things that play into this. And you don't hear too much about that in the field. And I think that is something that the field really has missed. [16:49] Can you just go in and start tuning up the brain, or should you take these other things into account? And some aspects of neurofeedback, or some schools of neurofeedback do take those things into account. But, basically, what I think is going on is that as some of those emotional stressors cause the brain to function in fairly high frequency realms, and we forget how to go back into the more relaxed places, the alpha.
[17:14] For people who don't know the different categories, basically the brain works from one to 40 hertz, and 0 to two is delta; theta, that twilight area is just above delta; and then alpha. But, most of where we live is in the upper ranges of about 13 to 40.
Kelly: [17:50] In the book that you wrote with Les Fehmi you said that we are addicted to beta, you and Les.
Jim: [17:57] Yes, the world demands beta because we need to pay attention to everything. And so we need our cell phone and we are reading our computer and so on. We don't go into the lower frequencies because that is where our memories live, our painful memories, and we learn to stay away from those. [18:22] What neurofeedback does is it finds those frequencies that bring your brainwaves into lower frequencies and teaches you how to become more flexible. Rather than being stuck in the high range and rather than being addicted to beta, it teaches you to bring the frequencies down into the more relaxed realms where you can be more restful and more calm.
[18:49] That is really what a lot of this is about is learning how to move into those lower frequencies. A lot of us just drive in two speeds we are either all on and go all out or we are sleeping. But, this aimed at teaching people to function in the broad range of between...
Kelly: [19:07] I never got around to it with Les, could you tell us about synchronous alpha training, which is the subject that you are on? What is synchronous training?
Jim: [19:17] Synchronous alpha training, again there are many approaches, and it is one approach that Les has pioneered in his work, Open Focus. And that is what the other book is about, The OpenFocus Brain. And it says essentially what I just mentioned, that we are stuck in these upper ranges and we need to learn how to remove some of those painful feelings and to be able to function in a broader range to, kind of, claim all of our frequencies rather than just staying in a few. [19:55] And some neurofeedback again all neurofeedback puts a sensor on the scalp, but again where you put it and how many sensors and so on, and they are all different. Les uses an unusual number, five sensors, and he puts across a different part to the brain the whole idea is to bring a low relaxed frequency to all parts of the brain at the same time. And there have been studies that show that monks who have meditated for years are able to do this.
[20:27] That's what neurofeedback does. It allows you to get into some state, as monks who train for years and years, very quickly because of the feedback aspect, I mean, that's what feedback does as it's very fast and it's very powerful. And Les's approach rewards people with light and sound when they are in that frequency, and you bring lot of this feeling of a little very, kind of, soft light and a little bit of sound, it's a reward, and it goes there and sits there and dwells there in that frequency. It's very easy to do because it's automatic. You don't have to think about it or make anything happen. You are just allowing the brain to do its own thing.
Kelly: [21:12] So, it's kind of like a game when you are doing it?
Jim: [21:13] Well, his is less like a game than others. You are not looking at a computer screen or anything; you are just you have your eyes closed and you are getting you are getting feedback in light and sound, and it's very faint but it's enough to move you into that space and to stay there, and it's amazingly powerful. I mean, you can feel I have done it quite often and I can feel muscles letting go and deeply relaxed. Sometimes people fall asleep, but if you can maintain that alpha state, it's the anti tress.
Kelly: [21:47] How long does it take you to get into it?
Jim: [21:49] Not long, ten minutes, and then, you know, four sessions about half hour/35 minutes, and the whole idea is the longer you spend there, the more you reverse the effects of stress in your body. I mean the brain is the other point here about neurofeedback is the brain is the master control panel, and when you make changes to the brain and teach it to go into these places where healing can occur, healing occurs throughout the central nervous system and the body, so you are making not just changes to the brain, you are making changes to everything.
Kelly: [22:25] The whole system.
Jim: [22:26] The whole system responds.
Kelly: [22:28] Yeah. So, what techniques are used to help the client change their brainwaves? You have probably witnessed and had a lot of neurofeedback sessions yourself; what are different techniques that are used to help people change their brainwave patterns? [22:49] Well, you know, the standard model for the higher range training is for kids and clients to look at computer games big one is like a racing car that travels through a tunnel. As long as you are in the right frequency range that the clinician determines you need to reverse your problem to treat your problem, as long as you are in that frequency ranger, your car is moving through the tunnel, but as soon as you wander and look at the clock or whatever, the car stops.
[23:27] So, the whole idea is that it's something that kids or adults want to do, they want to keep that car moving, and so they get a reward. That's the whole thing. There are these different things that people get rewards from, whether it's light and sound or whether it's a computer game. It's a reward, and the brain particularly wants to keep doing it. That's the whole idea.
Kelly: [23:53] What is the high frequency training used for?
Jim: [23:56] ADD and ADHD and anxiety and things like that, and...
Kelly: [24:02] Oh, so they do beta training for anxiety?
Jim: [24:05] Yeah, unhum. Lower the beta, you know; it may be high beta that you are trying to bring down. And how all this stuff is exactly affecting the brain is no one knows. You know, we don't have pictures inside the brain doing this training; we only have most neurofeedback studies are just preimposed. They know people are benefiting, but they don't know why, and that's really the story of neurofeedback is there just haven't been studies to show what might be going on in the brain with all these different approaches. [24:35] But, it started to really take off the whole field is taking off, a number of athletes are doing it, Italian soccer team used it to great effect. They have a something called mind room, and four or five of their best players have trained on neurofeedback and other kinds of feedback.
[24:54] What they will do is they will show them pictures of their mistakes videos and they are hooked up to the EEG equipment and other biofeedback equipment, and when that mistake occurs, they start to get anxiously upset. They are taught to bring their body and their mind back to a rest state, and teaches them during the game then to maintain that kind of, you know, physiological equilibrium, so they don't get upset and after they miss one goal, get upset and start playing a bad game because they, kind of, lost of their game.
[25:29] They won the European Championship not this year, but last time they had them, and it's widely considered a success with a number of athletes. Chris Kaman of the Los Angeles Clippers he had serious problems focusing in his basketball game with the LA Clippers, and it really turned his game around. He became an advocate, outspoken advocate, for neurofeedback because of how much it helped him in his game.
Kelly: [26:02] It's amazing. Well, it's really obvious there because when you are playing a sport you have to be recovered quickly mentally from its finish...
Jim: [26:11] Recover quickly and not be distracted; that's the big thing, as you can get easily distracted, and off your game. And the thing about neurofeedback is it really enhanced his focus.
Kelly: [26:22] I wonder if golfers are using it.
Jim: [26:26] It's very big. I have talked to a couple of golfers they are mentioned in the book who use neurofeedback.
Kelly: [26:32] What other things can it treat that aren't necessarily medical conditions?
Jim: [26:37] Well, there're a couple of different clinics that use it to treat...they just use it to do something called a peak performance. There's no diagnosed medical condition. It's just people want to enhance their life, they want to sleep better, they want to be able to pay attention better and they want to feel better, and they will go in and pay for 20 sessions and come out feeling different, and they are more able and more in control, more emotionally in control. Again, it's a very powerful tool for that kind of a thing. [27:19] In fact, a lot of the filed tries to steer clear of diagnoses, because what happens with neurofeedback is the diagnoses break down if you do one kind of training and you treat ADD and ADHD and anxiety and depression well, those aren't really separate categories at all; they are just symptoms of a nervous system that is unstable. That's the whole realm of neurofeedback is instability. Changing arousal levels and making the brain more stable that's really the two main things that people on neurofeedback do. And so, the whole diagnostic model dozens or hundreds different problems really boil down to just a couple of simple changes in the brain. So, anyone can benefit, no matter what their problem is.
Kelly: [28:15] It's been also found effective in the treatment of alcoholism and addiction.
Jim: [28:22] That is another different kind of approach again uses the same equipment but it comes at it from a different angle. A lot of neurofeedback training is done in an office with the patient wide awake, watching the computer screen, or relaxed and watching light and sound feedback. [28:41] Alphatheta training is used for addictions, and that's where the client lays down in a chair, covers himself up with a blanket, and the clinician guides him into a relaxed state. And they get a series in one approach, they get a series of soft sounds that guide them into what's called the alphatheta crossover. It's a deeply relaxed state above sleep, and in this state painful, repressed memories emerge, and it's almost like a form of computerized psychotherapy. And as these memories emerge, they are processed out.
[29:21] And they might do a series of 10 or 20 of these sessions to allow these painful memories to come up. And in this very relaxed state, those painful memories come up very softly, almost like a dream. And then after the 10 or 20 sessions are done there would be 10 or 20 sessions of the high range training, which helps stabilize the brain in a way that releasing repressed memories alone can't do.
[29:50] There have probably been three studies published in different medical journals showing that alphatheta treatment helps not only addictions, but also PTSD, which of course, a lot of people who are in wartime situations get from fearful situations they're in, such as a friend being killed. It's widely seen as very effective for PTSD. It just hasn't been utilized that much.
[30:25] There's a fellow named Dr. Eugene Peniston who's done a lot of work with veterans, both with alcoholism and PTSD, using the alphatheta crossover. They're both about painful repressed memories that block the brain from producing selfsoothing chemicals and reaching some of these lower frequencies where people feel relaxed.
Kelly: [30:50] It's interesting that when you get relaxed and get into that deep theta, memories do arise.
Jim: [31:08] Yeah, the theta area is down around the 47 hertz range. It's that place where just before you're asleep, you might have memories come up, and your body twitches. That's where those memories are, and that's where they're accessed. That's why a psychotherapist will have you lay on a couch, face away from them, and maybe draw the curtains so you can be relaxed. You start to access some of these memories. They dwell in that frequency range. It helps people bring them up. [31:40] What a lot of clinicians and researchers say about PTSD and alcoholism is that we're staying in these very high frequencies to stay away from these painful repressed memories. We do it automatically. It's not something we do on purpose. But, if you have these highly charged memories of things that occurred, you don't want to go near those feelings, and so you keep them buried in the basement.
Kelly: [32:04] Also, children are primarily in theta, up to a certain age, and any early childhood trauma gets buried.
Jim: [32:10] Kids are very suggestive. A lot of those painful memories are much more painful than they would be for you or I, because these kids are in a very suggestive state, and really painful. [32:24] All of these things need to be factored into neurofeedback in a way that hasn't been done yet. It's started to be done, but how do you understand this kind of ecosystem of the mind and emotional stress, and as I mentioned earlier, shame, forgiveness, and things like that and blend it with this technology?
[32:42] There are some technologies that do blend it. There's a guy that does a week long alpha training scenario in California named Dr. James Hart who really tries to move people toward forgiveness with alpha training over that week long treatment. He says the bottom line for all of it is moving people toward forgiveness, selfforgiveness as well as forgiveness of other people who may have abused or wounded you somehow. I think there's something to that.
Kelly: [33:12] There's a lot to that.
Jim: [33:14] No doubt there's a lot to that. We need to understand those kinds of things as well.
Kelly: [33:20] We need to connect the brain and the heart, the mind and the heart.
Jim: [33:26] Right. I don't know if you've talked to the people that do heart biofeedback.
Kelly: [33:30] I did. I interviewed Deborah Rozman from the HeartMath Institute. Did you go over there?
Jim: [33:35] No, I haven't, but I mentioned them in the new edition of the book.
Kelly: [33:40] It's fascinating what they're doing.
Jim: [33:42] And another approach using the heart... There are 60,000 neurons in the heart, and that's a lot. There are also neurons in the stomach...
Kelly: [33:53] Yeah, our gut reactions and gut feelings.
Jim: [33:57] ... Neurons of the enteric nervous system. Nothing has brought all this stuff together. I think it's important people understand what causes all this, and that's why I think relying on technology alone is not enough. We need to understand what happened to us. People may have inadvertently or advertently abused us, and that's part of it. [34:26] Now you can't... I'm convinced you can't make all the changes you need by understanding those things forgiveness and shame. But, at the same time, you shouldn't make all of them with technology. So, it is good to use the two. A lot of times you can do highrange training and really help sharpen the brain; sharpen the focus and so on, after you do the other kind of therapy or as you are doing it.
Kelly: [34:54] huh. Hey Jim, have you done any research on athome biofeedback, neurofeedback devices. I bought the HeartMath Computer Program, which was very rudimentary. It just clipped onto your finger and I'm wondering if you found anything a little bit more developed?
Jim: [35:11] Well, the BrainMaster is kind of the standard in the field. I think it is one channel which means it goes... Well, no, they are using something called Z scores now, which use four channels.
Kelly: [35:25] Yeah, because if it is one channel you can't really see synchrony or right or left brain.
Jim: [35:28] Well, no but... right. But, let me tell you a couple of things. One is the BrainMaster is widely used and widely thought of. A lot of clinicians will train people in the clinic and then give them a BrainMaster, which is under $1000 I think. It goes in their own computer and then teaches them how to put a sensor on their scalp and do the training on one side. [35:44] Now, BrainMaster is also pioneering something called Z scores, which are using four sites at once...
Kelly: [35:49] That sounds better.
Jim: [35:54] ... Which the brain can figure out and multiple sites are powerful. So, there is some home training aspect there. You know, I have to say, Les Fehmi's approach, OpenFocus, while he does five channel training in the office and other people who use it, do it. He has these exercisesthe whole part of it that I left out to streamline this discussion and make it a little easier to understand is that he uses exercises that involve becoming aware of space. [36:24] Early on in his process, he hooked people up to an EEG and he did a series of relaxation questions. Can you imagine a rose? Can you imagine lying down in a bed in a field? Or something like that.
[36:34] Two questions that got the most response to alpha, that got the best alpha response were Can you imagine the space between your eyes and can you imagine the space between your ears? Imagining space absolutely shuts the brain it doesn't shut it off, but it sends it into this deep relaxed state. And he uses these exercise now that involve imagining space of different kinds along with the neurofeedback. Together, they are a very powerful way to get into this alpha state very quickly.
[37:04] But, his CDs with these exercises on them and there are a series of probably 20 or so are really powerful alone. I've used them a lot here before I had the equipment, which I don't have anymore. But, I did use the equipment for awhile. But, the exercises alone and how they lead you through these different exercises of learning to dissolve pain and unwanted feelings and so on are truly amazing.
[37:34] I talked to people who never heard of this and they've done one or two sessions. They've just had a tremendous response. There was a guy who emailed me right after the book came out. He was going by a bookstore in New York and he bought it. He knows something about the brain and tension. He'd never heard of Dr. Fehmi's work. Bought the book; read it; was absolutely intrigued; did a couple of exercise. He said it was amazing. The hair on his arm was standing up after a couple.
[37:54] He went to see Dr. Fehmi down in New Jersey, Princeton, New Jersey. And he had had a life not a lifelong, but a longterm problem with his eyes. He could only read the top line on an eye chart. The muscles around his eyes were really tense. He got tension headaches and so on. After about three or four sessions on the equipment with these exercises he was able to read five lines on the chart because he could dissolve this physical pain around his eyes.
[38:14] I have known people who have done that without the equipment. Strictly learning to do these dissolving pain exercises are powerful. What that shows you is how powerful our bodies are and how we've been given these healing mechanisms that we just for some reason, don't know about.
[38:29] Anxiety, fear and tension and all of these things; we can deal with a lot of that on our own if we are taught how. Elmer Green said, "We've not been told that our bodies do what they are told if we know how to tell them." Biofeedback is how we tell our bodies what to do. Hopefully, after you do biofeedback, you can do it without the biofeedback. These are skills you gain, and you don't need the help after a while.
Kelly: [38:44] Yeah, you can do it at home. Jim, for listeners who are interested in trying out neurofeedback, would you tell us what they should be looking for online? Is there an association of some kind? How do you find a neurofeedback therapist?
Jim: [38:59] The top scientific organization is called ISNR, which is International Society for Neuro Regulation. I' m pretty sure that's the title. It's www.isnr.org, and you'll find papers, names, and so on from people who are the top researchers in the field. [39:09] There are a number of different companies and outfits that teach neurofeedback. EEG Info is one. That's Siegfried and Sue Othmer's organization, and they're pioneers in the field. There's something called Neuropathways, which is Margaret Ayers' organization. She's since passed away, but she founded techniques and was one of the first to do this.
Kelly: [39:19] Did she work with brain injuries?
Jim: [39:24] She worked with a lot of head injuries. That's the other thing that we didn't even get into.
Kelly: [39:29] No, I know.
Jim: [39:31] Head injuries are greatly affected with neurofeedback. There's miracle story after miracle story with head injuries. There's essentially no treatment for head injuries. It's a natural recovery process, and after about a year and a half or two years, you get all that you're going to get. Neurofeedback has done amazing things with head injuries. There's a new kind of...
Kelly: [39:46] Has it helped with comas?
Jim: [39:51] Margaret Ayers is the only one I know who did work with vegetative states like comas. She claimed to have a great affect on people and brought them out of comas. I go into this in detail in the book. There are some precautions about her work; it hasn't been studied. At the same time, I've talked to a lot people who have been treated this way or had family members treated for comas, and they say it's truly amazing. [40:11] In fact, not long before Margaret Ayers died, she was credited with bringing Rodney Dangerfield out of a coma after he'd gotten sick in the hospital. After having been in a coma, he then had a party with Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and some other comedians who came to visit him in the hospital. He got an infection, or something, not long after that and died, but...
Kelly: [40:26] How did she do it, though?
Jim: [40:31] She had something called a coma box. Her thesis was that for most of these patients, there's consciousness. They're in there, but they can't communicate. She shined a light into their eye. I think it was, a green light. Then she said, I'm going to turn this light off, and I want you to make the light come on. She coached them to make the light come on, and how they make the light come on is by getting into the high frequency realm.
Kelly: [41:01] So, she had electrodes...
Jim: [41:06] She had electrodes hooked up to their scalp.
Kelly: [41:11] And then the light was attached to the machine somehow.
Jim: [41:16] Right. So, when the patient gets into the beta frequencies, that green light comes on. They want the stimulation, and they want to come out of their coma, so she talked to them and coached them saying, come on now; make the light come on; you can do that. The patient can gain control over this generator in their brain and get into those frequencies. After a few sessions, or it may be longer she, and some families, claimed the patient can come out of these states.
Kelly: [41:36] Isn't that amazing?
Jim: [41:41] It truly is amazing. Who knows who these things work for the best and why they work for some people and not others? [41:46] My whole reason for writing this book is to get scientists to take it seriously and research it to find why it works, how it works, and how it can work better. There are too many good people involved, and it's too powerful, and it's been around too long to say this is all just a placebo, or something. It is a silly thing to say if you familiarize yourself with all the history of what has gone on here.
Kelly: [41:56] Yeah, and also the miracles.
Jim: [42:01] And on top of that I would say there is a kind of neuro well, the jury is still out on whether it is neurofeedback. But, there is a longtime practitioner; he has been doing this for 18 years. But, his new approach has got some real powerful effects... He had some research done on head injuries particularly and again, this was not in the first book, but there is a chapter about it in he second book. [42:16] A fellow named Len Oaks has been doing something called LENS, Low Emission... I can't remember exactly what the acronym means. But, it is widely used now in the field. If the miracle stories of neurofeedback are something; the miracle stories for this approach are even more powerful and in a very short period of time.
[42:31] Sometimes just one or two sessions, people had these profound experiences. It involves a sensor on the scalp. But, instead of just feedback it also includes an extremely low dose of radio frequency, less than you would get from a cell phone. But, it is directed into the part of your brain that you are treating.
[42:46] There are people who have had lifelong head injuries and been absolutely crippled by them who in five sessions have totally turned their life around. There are probably at least six practitioners who I have talked to who have the same kind of stories. Again, my whole... This is head injuries. We are talking about something that has no treatment. We need to research it. We need to research this stuff and the sooner the better. There are just too many people suffering needlessly out there.
Kelly: [43:06] Do you see any help for a kind of group gathering where biofeedback, neurofeedback could be more organized and focused?
Jim: [43:16] Are you talking about in terms of a scientific meeting?
Kelly: [43:21] Yeah.
Jim: [42:22] Well there is a science... that's the ISNR Group that I mentioned.
Kelly: [42:27] Right.
Jim: [42:28] That group is pretty much everybody in the field who has any kind of effective treatment and is a scientist, therapist and so on. I mean there is the big meeting...
Kelly: [42:33] They're part of that.
Jim: [42:38] ...for the people who do neurofeedback.
Kelly: [42:39] Right.
Jim: [42:44] Even, well there is a lot of neurofeedback in Europe. They don't have the association with the whole hippie thing particularly.
Kelly: [42:47] Right.
Jim: [42:52] And so it has been more widely accepted. It is being used in hospitals and by doctors and so on in Switzerland, Norway, Germany, Italy and other places quite freely because it is not seen as it doesn't have that...
Kelly: [42:57] Stigma.
Jim: [43:02] ...kind of reputation.
Kelly: [43:07] Right, right. Jim what are you working on now? Do you have another project?
Jim: [43:12] No, I am actually working with Dr. Fehmi on another book about pain and using his techniques just to treat pain.
Kelly: [43:17] Pain management, huh?
Jim: [43:22] Yeah and again, just using intention and intentiontraining techniques you can do a lot with that.
Kelly: [43:27] Do you have a website?
Jim: [43:32] I do not but Dr. Fehmi does and we kind of share it a little bit. His website is www.openfocus.com. People can contact me there through a button, an email button and can find out more about this kind of neurofeedback.
Kelly: [43:47] Jim, I really thank you for taking the time today. I've enjoyed it.
Jim: [43:52] So have I.
Kelly: [43:57] It's been fun. And again, Jim Robbins book is called, "A Symphony in the Brain." Hey Jim, thank you so much.
Jim: [44:07] You're welcome.
Kelly: [44:12] OK. Take care.
Jim: [44:17] All right. You too, bye.
Kelly: [44:22] Bye. Hey everybody, thanks for listening. Until next time, be well.