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'Digital Drugs' (Like Herbert's Semuta?) Dismays Saudis
Three Saudi Arabian governmental agencies have vowed to get rid of “digital drugs”, a type of sound-based entertainment experience that is available via audio files across the Internet.
The commission also commissioned consultants to study the possibility of this new drug being accessible in the Kingdom, and officials have confirmed that no cases have yet been recorded. The type of drug is not new and has been mostly used in America and Europe, he said.
He said exposure to these sound tones lead users to loss of consciousness and awareness.
The National Committee for Drug Control has also been working in coordination with the Director-General of the Anti-Drug Commission, Ahmed Al-Zahrani, and the Telecommunications Commission to “curb the spread of this scourge,” confirmed Al-Sharif.
The National Commission for Drug Control, the Directorate General for Drug Control, and the Communications Authority are exploring measures to prevent the arrival of these “sound drugs” to the Kingdom. Abdullah Al-Sharif, secretary-general of the National Commission for Drug Control, said: “The three parties have held urgent meetings to study this type of drug.”
(Arab News)
(Digital drugs by Binaural Beats)
How to use binaural beats:
Find a comfortable place free of distractions. It's important not to listen to binaural beats when you need to do something that requires your full attention like driving. Avoid any tasks that are mentally demanding because the meditative state is not conducive to quick, action-oriented critical thinking.Listen to binaural beats when you want to relax, clear your mind, get your creative juices flowing, engage your intuition to help solve problems and for personal development work such as repeating affirmations and doing visualization.
Be sure to give yourself enough listening time! The brain requires about 7 minutes to entrain, or fall in sync, with the audio stimulus. Give yourself at least 15-30 minutes of listening time to experience the benefits.
You must use stereo headphones for binaural beats to work. Why? Because the 'beats' themselves are created in your brain The word binaural means "having or relating to two ears." It works like this: each ear receives a slightly different frequency at the same time, and the brain perceives the tone that is the difference of the two. If 210 Hz pulses into one ear and 200 into the other, the brain will process the two sounds into a 10 Hz frequency, which happens to be the same frequency produced by the brain during meditation.
I have no idea whether or not this technique actually provides some sort of experience; it is apparently complete in and of itself. However, I'm still reminded of Frank Herbert's semuta music which is used in concert with a specific drug:
The guard captain, Iakin Nefud, squatted on a divan across the chamber, the stupor of semuta dullness in his flat face, the eerie wailing of semuta music around him.Also:
The effect (described as timeless, sustained ecstasy) is elicited by certain atonal vibrations referred to as semuta music
Binaural beats, also called binaural tones, were discovered in the 1830's and are thought by some people to induce relaxed, creative mental states.
The brain produces a phenomenon resulting in low-frequency pulsations in the amplitude and sound localization of a perceived sound when two tones at slightly different frequencies are presented separately, one to each of a subject's ears, using stereo headphones. A beating tone will be perceived, as if the two tones mixed naturally, out of the brain. The frequencies of the tones must be below 1,000 hertz for the beating to be noticeable.
(Wikipedia)
Via Dazed
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