The Monroe Institute® regularly receives emails and letters from people around the world describing their personal experiences using TMI programs and Hemi-Sync® CDs. The Hemi-Sync Experience articles are a collection of their letters and testimonials.

Using Binaural Beats to Treat PTSD

I have a very strange story to share; it happened about 17 years ago and I've been reluctant to share it because I don't want people to get the wrong idea. Around 1998 I had just started a telemarketing job and on my first day they told me to write down my initials so they could create a login/password for me; so I wrote my initials "RFM". Apparently my "F" looked like an "A" and my login name became "RAM". I tried to correct this but they told me it was too late; it was already in the system - my name is now RAM ... just to rub it in everyone in the office started calling me "RAM". Fast forward about a week, I was driving home from work and had just finished reading "The Celestine Prophecy" so I was paying particularly close attention to my gut feelings & instincts. Out of nowhere (while driving home) I had this sudden urge to turn left into a parking lot I wasn't even looking at - I was looking forward; driving down Ventura Blvd somewhere close to Encino. I didn't question it; I turned and as soon as I saw what was in the parking lot, I knew where I was going - Crown Books. I parked; went inside and allowed my feet to guide me to roughly the halfway point when my "gut" told me to turn left down the next aisle. As soon as I entered the aisle ... ONE book jumped out at me in a way I can't really explain. It wasn't that it was more colorful or anything - and I couldn't even see the title from that distance but I grabbed the book and opened it to a random page; read the first thing my eyes hit (randomly). My eyes hit the letters "RAM". I looked at the cover - it was "Far Journeys" by Robert A. Monroe.

So without even knowing what the book was about (I didn't even read the back cover; I went straight to the counter) I paid for it & looked closer while walking to my car. That book changed my life; I bought the Gateway CD's and had two OOBE's since then (one was spontaneous while in training at Fort Gordon Signal School).

Another strange thing happened. When I was in my early twenties I kept having this recurring dream; a flying dream (I have them all the time). In this dream I'm running along the ground as fast as I can; going faster and faster until I lift up of the ground and begin flying - at some point in the dream I end up flying toward power lines, but it's very strange because they seem to go UP into the sky forever and by the time I notice them I'm too high and moving too fast to go under them - but I try to anyway. The dream always ended right before I almost crashed into the wires.

Fifteen or so years later I saw an interview with Robert Monroe in which he's describing a very similar dream. I don't know what to think of it - and I don't want people getting the wrong idea (I don't believe I'm Robert Monroe reincarnated ... it's simply a very strange experience I can't explain).

Fast-forward about 15 more years. I'm now a professional actor and I teach a free acting workshop for veterans with PTSD at the Sepulveda VA. Our goal is to prevent veteran suicide through the healing gift of acting (I'm also a union certified clinical hypnotherapist). We're developing our own acting method which is specifically designed to help those with PTSD and one of the things I have been experimenting with is Binaural beat frequencies which were inspired by Hemi-Sync - I created a program on my own to help with anxiety which is the sound of rain & birds chirping with binaural beats playing faintly behind that.

The effect that I experience from listening to this combined Hemi-Sync & rain program is that I literally go from an anxiety state to a calm and relaxed, creative state within a period of fifteen minutes.

Then one day I get an email from a producer - I have an audition to go to in three days. I didn't have time to memorize my sides because I was busy preparing for our next acting workshop; out of desperation I created a recording of my dialogue and added a layer of binaural beats to my recording. I then went to sleep with that recording playing over headphones as I slept. I woke up the next morning and had every single line of my sides memorized after having put ZERO effort into memorization. This method will end up getting incorporated into the workshop I'm developing ... BUT the interesting thing about the other recording I made is that it's only 15 minutes long (the one with rain); in fifteen minutes I go from a PTSD stress state to a creative state and I start getting ideas; I start writing (I'm also a screenwriter - in training).

- Robert F. McPhalen

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Note: Hemi-Sync® is a registered trademark of Interstate Industries Inc., dba Hemi-Sync®.