After the reassessment comes a change up in treatment protocol.* Instead of three gamma brainwave biofeedback screens, I did two, the bowling and maze screens, then the “feeling” screen. Huh? During that three-minute screen, I had to pay attention to how I felt and answer the questions: What does it feel like when my alpha waves are low, that is, below a set threshold, the threshold being a number determined from what I'd produced in the previous screens? And what does it feel like when my alpha waves are above the threshold? “You mean, I just sit and watch the bar representing my alpha waves go up and down?” I asked. “Yes. And pay attention to what it feels like.”
Next to the bar I had to watch, were two boxes with zeroes in them. Only after I began and saw the count-up numbers in the bottom box rise rapidly from zero as my alpha waves remained stubbornly below the threshold did I recall: I'd done this screen before! Sometime in 2006 to 2007. But I don't recall for which brainwave frequency or why.
Anyway, I hated it.
I don't know if it was the constant tone representing auditorily the alpha waves or the tone’s particular pitch that sucked the energy out of me. Or if that is what low alpha output feels like… But I soon felt like an elephant had sat upon my chest and settled in while my limbs became heavy. By the time I was done, all I wanted to do was sleep! Can I sleeeeeep now? I thought wearily. No. Time to write. About six to eight minutes into my SMIRB, I began to wake up. Hurray for gamma waves! My trainer said, “Writing is an aphrodisiac to you.” In other words, of course it would wake you up!
So I have to do that screen again in our next session. Let’s hope it does more than dance briefly above the threshold; let’s hope that next time it stays up there long enough for me to feel what alpha waves above the threshold feel like.
*Will write later about that amazing reassessment/progress test on January 23.
