Brainwave Entrainment to External Rhythmic Stimuli: Interdisciplinary Research and Clinical Perspectives

Presentation Abstract - Judith Becker, Ph.D.

As an ethnomusicologist, my work focuses on music, emotion and altered states rather than clinical practices. But this work may have clinical applications. I will present some video footage of two rituals that involve intense, repetitive music in rituals of healing and trance. The first example is of a Buddhist healing ritual from Sri Lanka in which the drummers successfully attempt to induce trance in the sick person. The second example is a ritual from Bali , Indonesia , that involves neutralizing the negative power of a magnificent witch. This ceremony will be performed whenever the village is presented with untoward events, such as an epidemic, crop failure, or an outbreak of what we would call psychotic behaviors. An essential part of the ceremony is the trance induction of a group of village volunteers, not necessarily directly connected with the problem, who after initially attacking the witch, turn their daggers upon themselves, but are seldom harmed.

I will conclude by presenting some findings of my current research with EDA and musical listening by presenting three representative audio/video GSR graphs of 1) “deep listeners” (persons who are profoundly moved by listening to music), 2) non-deep listeners, and 3) Pentecostal trancers, all three listening to music they find moving. In my research, the deep listeners and trancers out-respond, by magnitudes, our control groups. I believe that deep listeners and trancers are pre-disposed to altered states by their emotional responses to music, their focused attention, and their likely entrainment as well.