Monday, 5 December 2016

Psychedelic light trip

For a relaxing mellow psychedelic experience without resorting to illegal substances I bought myself a Kasina light & sound machine  Mindplace Kasina Mind Media.

To find out more about what these devices do,  just check them out out youtube, but basically they provide a multicoloured light experience with sounds that combined entrain the brainwaves  into different states of being.

This is not the first device I've had from them, there's been  a number of  Mindplace products over the years beginning in the 1990s with a multi buttoned Mindlab which at the time blew me away with what it did... for the first time ever I was so relaxed using the Mindlab device that actually heard myself snoring. My body actually went to sleep whilst leaving my mind  in an awakened state enjoying the light show. I then got a proteus model which was more like a walkman in appearance and again it was  so incredibly relaxing. So to present day and the Kasina is the ultimate model now sold by Mindplace. The Kasina  also does many other things besides relaxing you, there's a whole science behind these machines and how they entrain your brainwaves into various optimised states for relaxation, meditation, sleeping, learning and sports performance. You can even quickly program your own sessions without knowledge of the technical side with their free software... yes this mind machine does all that and more.

This post is about a modification I made in the goggles and as I am one of those people who don't really like earbuds the first thing I did was to buy a really cheap but comfortable fleece headband with built in speakers from ebay at £3-30 inc postage.  I also wanted to improve the led glasses experience, as the glasses were very flimsy that came with the machine but  luckily Mindplace sells the 3 colour LED light insert strips complete with cable for $15 plus $5 p&p to the UK.  So I emailed Robert at Mindplace and a few weeks later they arrived. In the meantime I ordered some tough snowboard goggles from ebay, again cheap but really good and solidly made, a snip for £3 inc P&P.

The first thing to do is test the strips before you begin... both pairs of mine worked just fine!



Then  using the thick translucent plastic from a Tesco bubble bath container, I cut the template to fit inside the goggles...









Add some insulation tape over the cable where it joins the strip to add a bit of reinforcement, then feed the LED in through the side slot of the goggles and also under the central vertical bar to center and align the LED strip. Peel off the backing tape and stick the strip in place. Test again to ensure the LEDs are still OK.



Position the cable to run down the side pillar of the slit and secure tightly in place with 2 or 3 small cable ties, the wire is now going nowhere!

Then gently work the plastic template into position by pulling back the foam, you may need to make one or two small adjustments but the translucent plastic will sit snug inside over the top of the LEDs.


And that's it!

One or two other things I did... I added clear textured window film to further diffuse the light on my first pair and on my second pair I used two pieces of the bubble bath bottle to really diffuse the light. The red LED can tend to be slightly more prominent when in use so this helps blur everything. Also as in meditation practice if the lights are just above eye level, and your eyes are only partially open but looking downward, then for me I found this the best way of using the goggles. As I said these goggles are remarkably tough, polycarbonate front face and with the elastic headband they are super comfy especially with the headband speakers. The whole lot including the Kasina fits snug inside a small tin box.... Perfect!!!!



Mindplace Kasina Mind Media