The History of Brainwave Technology

Brainwave technology goes by many names: Binaural beats, brainwave entrainment, and hemi sync are just a few of the terms you may have heard. It is reassuring to know that this technology has been around for 40 years.

In a 1973 issue of Scientific American, Dr. Gerald Oster examined how combining 2 pure tones resulted in a rhythmic beat which he called Binaural and Monaural Beats. In comparing Binaural beats against Monaural beats, Oster noted that Monaural beats were shown to elicit extremely strong cortical responses, which is the electrical activity responsible for entrainment.

Robert Monroe, who is featured in the video on this page, was experimenting with brain learning while sleeping. During his experiments and tests, he started using binaural beats and developed an entire research lab on the use of sound for consciousness exploration.

Michael Hutchison wrote his landmark book MegaBrain in 1981, outlining the many possible uses of entrainment from meditation to enhancing creativity.

The Monroe Institute still conducts extensive research in the field and has been attended by half of the SoulTranSync team.