I recently decided to purchase a mind machine AVS (Audio Visual Stimulation) devices which is basically a light and sound generator that alters your brainwave states through entrainment. Why do this? Altering your brainwave state can help decrease anxiety, pain, depression and even help with ADD and memory tasks.

In a nutshell, our brain operates at different frequencies throughout the day depending on what we are doing or thinking. (see graph on left)

When we are wide awake and concentrating we are operating in Beta and as we relax our brain waves shift to a slower Alpha state. Then next lower state ,Theta, usually occurs when we are ideating or day dreaming followed by Delta which is the sleep and dreaming state. Finally, When we when we are in a deep dreamless state our brains are operating in Sub-Delta.

The mind machines in this comparison are designed to induce the desired brainwave state using pulsing tones and flashing lights which cause our brain to sync or entrain to the frequency of the chosen brainwave state.

The first mind machine I ordered was called Proteus. The device is about the size of a pack of playing cards and has an large red led display on the front to show the session number that you are using.

The Proteus comes with 50 preset sessions. You use the up and down arrow buttons to skip to the session you want. The Proteus comes standard with red/green LED light goggles that flicker in sync to the audio tones.

I had a great time with this unit and really enjoyed the included audio strobe CD which sync the light glasses to the music.

What I liked about the Proteus unit:

Great battery life
Compatible with Audio Strobe (works perfectly with Neuroprogrammer 2 software and Audio strobe Cd’s)
You can program the unit with the free included software
The light goggle are bright and have two color leds
Less expensive than other units
External input to feed music or other source into unit
Great forum area where users can share their custom sessions

What I did not like:

The preset sessions do not mention any health benefits so I had to do some research on the web to see what frequencies were clinically shown to help high blood pressure, anxiety, pain etc.
The red leds tended to create more anxiety
Cheap sounding headphones with poor ambient noise isolation

In short, a great little unit that has many more features than most mind machines. A Best Buy in my opinion.

Review by www.vuvee.com