By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com
What if the brain gains associated with meditation practice could be married to the soothing elements of music in an incredibly comfortable cocoon of darkness? What if technology can be used to foster positive mood and mind states?
Jay Vidyarthi says he’s a dreamer, because he “wants to help people achieve a state of peace and then apply their happiness forward to generate more positivity.” But he’s also one heck of a practical guy who has woven his interest and expertise in brain function, music and technology into a new device — the Sonic Cradle — that is premiering this week at the exclusive TEDActive conference in Palm Springs, California.
What if the brain gains associated with meditation practice could be married to the soothing elements of music in an incredibly comfortable cocoon of darkness? What if technology can be used to foster positive mood and mind states?
Jay Vidyarthi says he’s a dreamer, because he “wants to help people achieve a state of peace and then apply their happiness forward to generate more positivity.” But he’s also one heck of a practical guy who has woven his interest and expertise in brain function, music and technology into a new device — the Sonic Cradle — that is premiering this week at the exclusive TEDActive conference in Palm Springs, California.
TEDActive is part of TED[1], a non-profit organization devoted to the spread of ideas and innovation across a broad spectrum of culture. Vidyarthi applied to the TechArt exhibition even though his device is not art per se but a self described, “research artifact which also has an aesthetic appeal.”
The Sonic Cradle is a sensory deprivation chamber in which individuals sit suspended in total darkness. A monitor is attached to the chest to track breathing, and the breathing activates a digitized compendium of musical sound bites from 30 musicians from across North America, including recordings of falling rain, flute and guitar arrangements, meditative chimes and even spoken poetry. Each visit to the Sonic Cradle is musically unique.
Vidyarthi, a musician who earlier studied psychophysics and neuroscience at McGill University, is now pursuing a master’s degree at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology. He explained his goals for the Sonic Cradle in an interview with Better Brain Better Life: “The goal is twofold. In the short-term, I want to provide a meditative experience that decreases stress and anxiety and helps people relax during the experience and directly afterward. But also, in the long-term, I think the experience of meditation in a sensory-deprived context will help people understand that meditation is not necessarily religious but truly a psychological phenomenon. This is important because science has shown it to be a very beneficial process. We also want users to experience themselves as capable of achieving meditative experience, and give them an intimate, experiential understanding of meditation. The hope is that this will motivate them to establish their own practice. I anticipate that a Sonic Cradle experience will help users to understand a little better what they’re aiming for if and when they try to get their own meditation practice going.”
Vidyarthi, a musician who earlier studied psychophysics and neuroscience at McGill University, is now pursuing a master’s degree at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology. He explained his goals for the Sonic Cradle in an interview with Better Brain Better Life: “The goal is twofold. In the short-term, I want to provide a meditative experience that decreases stress and anxiety and helps people relax during the experience and directly afterward. But also, in the long-term, I think the experience of meditation in a sensory-deprived context will help people understand that meditation is not necessarily religious but truly a psychological phenomenon. This is important because science has shown it to be a very beneficial process. We also want users to experience themselves as capable of achieving meditative experience, and give them an intimate, experiential understanding of meditation. The hope is that this will motivate them to establish their own practice. I anticipate that a Sonic Cradle experience will help users to understand a little better what they’re aiming for if and when they try to get their own meditation practice going.”
Vidyarthi was taught meditation as a child but didn’t fully appreciate the benefits it conferred until he was older. “Being of East Indian descent, I was introduced to meditation at a very young age. But it was just another thing my parents asked me to do — I didn’t truly get it until years later. When I found music and began passionately exploring it, I understood that the feeling of getting into the jam was a form of meditation; I just saw this clear connection. It would be tough to share this exact experience with others as not everyone is interested in grabbing an instrument and rocking prolonged psych-jam sessions. The Sonic Cradle was an attempt to share the beauty and impact of this moment of realization surrounding music and meditation with others. By using breathing as the control paradigm I am tapping into exactly what Eastern philosophies have been getting at for centuries: respiration is the core of life, a periodic oscillation which defines who we are, something that everyone can do, a phenomenon that we innately understand, and finally, a perfect microcosmic metaphor for the duality of our subjective experience: we can assume control of it, but it also carries on independently of our conscious intervention.”
Sensory deprivation is seen by Vidyarthi as a ‘lubricant’ that helps the Sonic Cradle user more easily enter the world of the mind. “This is similar to how we turn off the lights when we watch a movie, thus limiting access to our physical world in order to better immerse into the world depicted on film. As meditators, we often close our eyes to help this process, but new meditators are easily bored. So why not give them a choiceless environment: eyes open or eyes closed, all they see is black when in the Sonic Cradle.”
Vidyarthi believes that the Sonic Cradle may help address the common obstacles that come up when people are learning to meditate, but not a replacement for traditional meditation techniques and practices.
One of Vidyarthi’s broader objectives is to help move forward the idea of employing technology for positive psychological effects. “Technology has been far too focused on productivity and efficiency. I want to see more talented people around the world start seriously considering applications and devices designed to help people develop self-knowledge, inner peace and a sense of calm. Or perhaps more practically, what if the designers of everyday devices start to minimize the negative psychological effects of their devices and instead design them to maximize their ability to generate a sense of calm along with their primary functions? Instead of beeps, ringtones, notifications and bright screens, maybe we can take a mindful approach to contextual design for calmness and introspection!”
It looks as though Vidyarthi has his dreaming work cut out for him.
[1] Perhaps most widely known for its stimulating TEDTalks videos available over the Internet, TED defines itself thus: TED (www.TED.com) is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.
Sensory deprivation is seen by Vidyarthi as a ‘lubricant’ that helps the Sonic Cradle user more easily enter the world of the mind. “This is similar to how we turn off the lights when we watch a movie, thus limiting access to our physical world in order to better immerse into the world depicted on film. As meditators, we often close our eyes to help this process, but new meditators are easily bored. So why not give them a choiceless environment: eyes open or eyes closed, all they see is black when in the Sonic Cradle.”
Vidyarthi believes that the Sonic Cradle may help address the common obstacles that come up when people are learning to meditate, but not a replacement for traditional meditation techniques and practices.
One of Vidyarthi’s broader objectives is to help move forward the idea of employing technology for positive psychological effects. “Technology has been far too focused on productivity and efficiency. I want to see more talented people around the world start seriously considering applications and devices designed to help people develop self-knowledge, inner peace and a sense of calm. Or perhaps more practically, what if the designers of everyday devices start to minimize the negative psychological effects of their devices and instead design them to maximize their ability to generate a sense of calm along with their primary functions? Instead of beeps, ringtones, notifications and bright screens, maybe we can take a mindful approach to contextual design for calmness and introspection!”
It looks as though Vidyarthi has his dreaming work cut out for him.
[1] Perhaps most widely known for its stimulating TEDTalks videos available over the Internet, TED defines itself thus: TED (www.TED.com) is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.