Brainwave Synchronization 1p

All is without form. There is only the whirling static, like being held afloat in the currents of a tornado. Tape hiss. Something like feedback: droning notes awash in static. Soon a voice emerges. This is the first step along your path to a gateway.

A clean note is sounded in your right ear. This drops out and a different note is sounded in your left. After a moment the first note returns to the right ear and both notes play simultaneously. There is a vibration as they meet in the brain.

The two hemispheres of your brain are starting to act and perform electrically as one unit. This is what is described as Hemispheric Synchronization.

NAM (Mark Baker, 1981)

In June 2008, Wrnlrd was interviewed by the Washington DC City Paper. The questions focused on the document Oneiromantical War (6), which was nearing its release date of June 24.

The interviewer asked about "influences". We found ourselves talking about the Hemi-Sync method for brainwave synchronization, Be My Baby by the Ronettes, and Mark Baker's NAM.

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I first read NAM some time around 1984. The book enjoyed a wide readership at that time. When the first Fugazi EP came out in 1987, I recognized the band's name from Mark Baker's glossary. Everyone seemed to be reading it.

By late 2007, when recording for Oneiromantical War began, the book was long out of print. Initially all that remained in my memory of NAM was a hazy scene of a few soldiers... a dirt road... a fallen bicycle... someone removing a woman's breasts with a knife.

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During our work on Oneiromantical War, we would dig out the old copy of NAM and read passages at random to help guide our improvisations. It seemed to be an entirely different book from the one we read in '84. In the 20+ years since then, it had grown in our mind to something like a religious vision or prophecy. Soon we abandoned the book and relied on our own recollections.

Over the course of several weeks "in the studio", our memory of the text served as an emotional framework or guidepost. During this time we made a habit of going to sleep listening to Hemi-Sync tapes on headphones. Synchronizing the hemispheres of the brain. The next day, memories of NAM would stir, entwined with memories of the night's dreams.