This new practice is called i-Dosing and requires a pair of headphones and something to play music. Proponents of i-Dosing say the ecstatic feeling listeners supposedly feel is caused by the binaural beat effect.
This effect is the result of two slightly different audio waves being heard separately by the left and right ear. The two tones played at slightly different frequencies makes the listener think they are hearing a quick beat.
YouTube is littered with videos that include these audio files, and even more reaction videos of teenagers freaking out after getting an i-Dose.
I was pretty skeptical about the whole idea of getting high with an audio file, so in the name of science and journalism, I decided to give it a try. I didn't pay to download an i-Dose, because there are plenty of videos on YouTube, and I didn't want to fill out an expense report for Discovery News asking for a four dollar reimbursement so I could get high.
The video I watched is called the Leviticus Green, named not only for everyone's favorite Old Testament book but also for a sound drug developed in 1993 as a pain killer for wounded soldiers, or so says the intro to the video. It also claims that the project was abandoned a year later after soldiers who were listening to the music reported having Biblical hallucinations.
There is some research in the area of binaural beats for scientific and therapeutic uses, including research for hearing and sleep cycles and reducing stress and anxiety. But using it as a drug is new.
I have to admit, I got a little nervous. The first two ominous minutes are filled with warnings and rules, like you have to listen alone on your headphones in a dark room, which I did. And you should never stop the iDose when it's in session, because "stopping suddenly can result in nausea, tunnel vision and in extreme cases has caused irreparable brain damage."
Not only did I dare watch the video and maintain enough of my senses to type out this sentence, but I also stared death in the face and turned off the video, before it was over.
Needless to say, the video production looked like a cross between a blurry ultrasound and the static you see on a television channel without any programming. The sound was mostly annoying. A humming, buzzing, dissonant drone that was anything but ecstatic. I had more of a rush in the first two minutes of the video that was jam-packed with hypnotic warnings and creepy Biblical cartoons than after the i-Dose began. Big letdown.
So, what does this development mean for our society? Nothing, probably. Teenagers have always had the remarkable ability to get high using just about anything (apple bongs, anyone?). This type of thing is nothing new.
But Wired's Threat Level asks, "Will future presidential candidates defend their i-Dosing past by saying, 'But I had it on mute'"?
Mute would certainly offer a more pleasant experience.
Doser FAQ
Digital drugs
i-doser
"Hope,... which whispered from Pandora's box after all the other plagues and sorrows had escaped, is the best and last of all things. Without it, there is only time. And time pushes at our backs like a centrifuge, forcing outward and away, until it nudges us into oblivion... It's a law of motion, a fact of physics..., no different from the stages of white dwarves and red giants. Like all things in the universe, we are destined from birth to diverge. Time is simply the yardstick of our separation. If we are particles in a sea of distance, exploded from an original whole, then there is a science to our solitude. We are lonely in proportion to our years."
— Ian Caldwell (The Rule of Four)
Leviticus: Nazareth Green. Newly unearthed iDose i-Dose Sound Digital Drug iDoser iDosing
1. Listen alone
2. Listen with headphones
3. Listen in a darkened room or with a face covering
The effects can be lucid and violent!
Most importantly: Never, ever remove the headphones before the track has ended
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