The Inspiration for Harmonic Resonance Meditation: An Interview with Eric Thompson

John Dupuy: Good morning Eric! I’m talking with Eric Thompson, the creator of the whole transformational line and library of iAwake Technologies. I’m excited to talk about the new product release Harmonic Resonance Meditation. In preparation for our talk, I sat for an hour and did all four tracks this morning. I am really impressed. Can you tell us a little about your inspiration in developingHarmonic Resonance Meditation?

Eric:  Sure, John. One of the things that is always pushing me to create new things is simply to keep upping the technology. I have become aware of how drones, in particular, can be really great accompaniments for going deeper and deeper in meditation, partially because your mind doesn’t get caught up in guessing where the song is going to go next. A steady drone allows you to keep going deeper, and deeper, and deeper.

I have some specific new brainwave entrainment techniques that I wanted to add to the drone, to make the meditation deeper, and one of them is a new form of brainwave entrainment we’re calling “waveform modulation.” That’s where you get into the actual soundtrack and change the waveforms of the music in order to modulate them in sync with specific brainwave patterns. In Harmonic Resonance Meditation, I added this component to our unique “triple pulse” binaural signals. The idea behind this was to create a very simple meditation soundtrack that allows the mind to really get lost in it.

I wanted to create a setup that will allow us to do a lot of different things. Like when I first tried this out, I thought, I want to go for a mini-marathon that will last for two hours. So, I listened to Track 1: alpha, Track 2: theta, then Track 3: delta, twice, then Track 4: epsilon, twice, and then back to Track 2: theta, twice (to go back up into theta, which is a kind of a dreamy state). When you’re down in delta and epsilon, you’re in the deep unconscious, and theta allows you to bring more of that up into the subconscious.

John:  Right.

Eric:  My goal has always been to push the technology forward and create a deeper experience. So, with HRM, if you wanted to just have a really good alpha meditation, you could create a playlist where you have Track 1 repeat over and over again. In this case, you would experience a deeper alpha than usual, because listening to Track 1 repeatedly has the effect of entraining more brainwave activity into the alpha range.

If you wanted to do alpha/theta, you could do Track 1 twice and then Track 2 twice—this would give you a full hour of alpha/theta meditation. And, if you wanted to do just deep delta for an hour and a half, then you could use Track 1: alpha and Track 2: theta as your ramp, and then take Track 3: delta and repeat it four times. That would give you an hour and a half of full meditation, with delta lasting for the last full hour. That’s what makes this really kind of unique.

John:  Do you recommend that we use it sequentially, in other words, we start with alpha and go on to theta, delta, and epsilon? Or can you mix it around, like start with epsilon, go to theta, put in delta, then do alpha, or something like that?

Eric:  You could do that, but it’s important to understand that because there’s no ramp from the predominant beta brainwave (15 Hz to 39 Hz – that most people are experiencing) all the way down to epsilon (below .5 Hz), you’ll likely not experience deep results immediately. If you start with epsilon, your brain will not lock into the epsilon rhythm within the first 15 minutes as quickly as it would if you ramped down through theta and delta beforehand. So, in this case, you might want to listen to epsilon at least twice or more, in order to let your brain really lock in deep.

John:  I also wanted to say that I really like the drone. It feels like a kind of line, or core, that I’ve tied onto, keeping me anchored down. It’s really aesthetically pleasing, but it’s also deeply provocative. It just takes me down and keeps me in the zone.

Eric:  Yes, there’s a certain simplicity to it. There are multiple layers to the drone that you can hear as you go deeper and deeper, but because it’s a drone, the layers basically stay the same throughout the soundtrack. It allows the mind to ride deeper into the zone.

John:  While I was doing the Harmonic Resonance Meditation this morning, I went through about 15 minutes of deep yawning and releasing stuff in my body. There wasn’t really any intellectual content, but I could tell that the tiredness, or whatever it was, was coming out of my body. Towards the end, I got into a really deep center, no thoughts, but a very warm, resonant place. It was really remarkable, and it changed the quality of my day.

Eric:  The biofield strength in this one is very strong, with alpha, theta, and delta brainwaves embedded in it as well. People are saying that they often go into deep bliss during the meditation, but later during the day, they realize, “Whoa! I got pushed, too.”

It’s a different kind of a push. These particular types of states of bliss are not about getting away from suffering, or trying to bypass your shadow, they are actually opening you up to greater levels of your being. When greater levels of your being start to flow through your nervous system when it’s not used to them, it really pushes you. What I find is, when you get into these deep, deep states of bliss, they start to push your emotional tendencies up, up, up, because they represent your resistance to further awakening. They create a pressure, like water in a hose. During the meditation, you might not feel deeply pushed, but afterwards, if you had a particularly blissful meditation, you’ll start to notice you’re actually a little on edge and you may react a bit more than you normally would. That’s because the kundalini fire has been awakened and is moving upward against your resistance. It’s working as a kind of pressure to push the impurities up and out; this includes your emotional tendencies.

I’ve been asked if I think that Harmonic Resonance Meditation could replace Profound Meditation Program 3.0, and, in principle, yes, it could. In fact, we have gotten reports from some of our long-term users that they switched to Harmonic Resonance Meditation, because it is more gentle. They’re still going deep, and they’re still getting pushed, but they don’t have the overwhelm that they get when listening to the primary meditation tracks.

I’d say that if Harmonic Resonance Meditation works as a daily meditation for you—if it feels like it’s getting you down to that meditative groove that’s allowing you to stay mindful all day, if it’s helping you to shift your daily experience, if it’s not creating too much overwhelm, but still giving you a nice little push, then just stay with it.

I always tell people, find one of our tracks that you really like and just use it every day. One of the reasons that that I create a variety of different tracks is because the mind gets bored, and sometimes it just wants to hear something different. This something different can be in terms of both the soundtrack and the states evoked. A cool thing aboutHarmonic Resonance Meditation is that you can do alpha for a few days, then switch to just theta, or you can do alpha/theta and a long delta, or you can do alpha/theta/long epsilon. We create these different varieties to keep things interesting, so people have a few choices to choose from in terms of states of consciousness.

It’s like your spice cabinet: my staples tend to be salt and pepper, which I use most every day. I’ll use garlic powder pretty often, too. Then, occasionally, I’ll want to throw in some cayenne, or some ancho pepper, or make some curry. It’s good to have those other spices in the cabinet for that reason, even though you may not use them every day.

Learn More About Harmonic Resonance Meditation

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Adapted from iAwake Technologies’ free, weekly teleconference call on July 24, 2013. 

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Eric Thompson is a co-founder of iAwake Technologies, LLC and was its Chief Technology Officer. Although no longer with iAwake Technologies, his contributions have been immense. Eric is also an inventor, researcher, and producer, and is considered one of the world’s foremost brainwave entrainment experts. In addition, Eric is a pioneer in the development of biofield entrainment technology, which digitally captures and transmits life-enhancing and beneficial subtle energies to the human biofield via any digital medium, including pictures, audio, and film. By combining this emerging technology with an unconventional, innovative, and original approach to audio brainwave entrainment, Eric strives to make profound spiritual development and emotional freedom more easily accessible to all. He writes and speaks on the intersection between neuroscience, psychology, subtle energy, and spirituality. 

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John Dupuy is the CEO of iAwake Technologies and the founder of Integral Recovery, a holistic addiction treatment approach inspired by Ken Wilber’s Integral Model. He is also the author of Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to Alcoholism and Addiction, recently published by SUNY Press. As a pioneer in the use of brainwave entrainment in therapy and personal development, John has dedicated his life to helping others deepen their spiritual practice and transform their lives.

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