Binaural Beats

Home / Shop / Binaural Beats

A binaural beat is an audio tool that makes it easier to explore the larger reality with your mind. Listening to binaural beats can help you get into a stable meditation state that would otherwise require months or years of diligent practice to achieve.

What They Are and What They Do

Most people are unaware of it, but we all have the capacity to do things with our minds that provide first-hand evidence that reality is not material and objective but information-based and subjective.

We can, for example:

remote-view objects and places that lie beyond the reach of our five senses
access data about the past or the probable future
have out-of-body experiences (OOBEs)
communicate telepathically (consciousness-to-consciousness)

These and many other paranormal phenomena sound like the stuff of science fiction to those who haven’t experienced them yet. But they are real – and with the right practice and perseverance, almost anyone can learn to experience them for themselves.

Using binaural beats is a great way to do that.

How to Obtain Binaural Beats

There are several ways you can obtain binaural beats audio files:

you can create your own binaural beats – there are multiple websites that let you make your own customized audio files for free
you can purchase a set of over a dozen binaural beat audio files that Tom has developed himself and used at MBT workshops

Which option is the best? Only you can answer that with experimentation – everyone is different. Either of the above can help you learn to be a good meditator and explorer of the larger reality.

Buying MBT Binaural Beats

If you want to rely on something tried and tested, you can purchase the sound files Tom has developed specifically for MBT workshops. In 2015, Tom created a set of binaural beats for use at his residential sessions at the Monroe Institute that year. Since then, he has also used these files at the MBT Immersive workshops and regularly optimized them based on participants’ feedback – in 2017, 2019 and again in 2020. You can buy the latest set of binaural beats used at the MBT Immersives from the online store at MBT Events.

20th Anniversary Binaural Beats

2023 is the 20th anniversary of the publishing of “My Big TOE” in 2003. To celebrate, Tom has created a new set of binaural beats. These 15 new audio files provide a powerful boost to your meditation practice.

Whether you are new to meditation or an “old hand”, these beats will support your exploration of consciousness. As any good explorer knows: as you change over time, your tools must change.

These beats are distinct from Tom’s past binaural beat offerings. They complete the practical spectrum of frequencies for meditation use. The result is more possibilities to find the “just-right” file for every season of your developing consciousness.

How Binaural Beats Work

Modifying Brainwave Patterns

Listening to binaural beats will help you modify your brainwave patterns to induce an altered state of consciousness similar to a very effective and practiced meditation state. Binaural beats are best listened to using stereo headphones.

The binaural beat frequency is the difference between two base frequencies. A pure tone generated at the first base frequency goes in one ear and the base frequency plus the desired beat frequency goes in the other ear – for example, a 100 Hertz (Hz) tone goes in the left ear and a slightly higher-pitched 104 Hz tone in the right ear (1 Hz is a physical unit signifying one oscillation per second). The two tones combine in the brain, producing a “beat” frequency that equals the difference between the two pure tones. This beat frequency (which you can “hear”) drives your brainwave pattern toward that same frequency (4Hz in the example above). This process is also called brainwave entrainment. Binaural beats are tuned to support brainwave patterns between 4 and 8 Hz, thus falling into the theta frequency band.

Listening to a binaural beat doesn’t force an altered state of consciousness upon you. It is merely an aid to help you create a stable theta brainwave state. The main effort still has to be made by you.

Getting from a Stable Theta State to Point-Consciousness

The theta state is associated with focusing inward. This shift away from processing external data is conducive to deep meditation and exploration of consciousness. It helps you to let go of sensory input from physical reality and become open to accessing other types of data. The theta state occurs naturally just before we fall asleep, during the relatively brief moment when we go from a relaxed and restful alpha state to the delta state associated with deep sleep. The theta state can also be induced and maintained through specific meditation techniques. In order to explore the larger reality, we need to get into a state in which we stop processing the data from our physical reality, undisturbed by thinking and other mental processes. This is what MBT calls point-consciousness – a theta state in which we feel like a point of consciousness floating in a black void of perceived nothingness. Getting into point-consciousness can be greatly facilitated by listening to a binaural beat.

Why We Need a Calm Mind to Access the Larger Reality

Some people are naturals when it comes to paranormal experiences – they have them without knowing how or why. When they find out that most other people don’t, they stop talking about their experiences for fear of being considered crazy. Quite a few actually fear something could be wrong with themselves. To them, getting a rational explanation for their experiences from a model of reality such as MBT comes as quite a relief. Paranormal experiences are not talked about in polite society because they neither fit the materialistic worldview championed by mainstream science nor the beliefs promoted by most organized religions. This is why we don’t learn in school or in church how to explore the larger reality, and why many people think those who claim to have experienced anything paranormal must be deluded or frauds. The MBT model of reality rationally and logically explains how paranormal phenomena work and how we can explore the larger reality with our mind. If the physical world is like a virtual reality rendered to our consciousness via a personalized data stream, then it seems natural that we should be able to shift our attention away from that data stream immersing us in the physical world, and thus become open to accessing other types of data from the Larger Consciousness System.

How Our Virtual Brain Can Impact Our Mind

In a virtual reality like our physical universe, our brain and body are virtual. That doesn’t mean they have no causal power over our minds, though, as anyone who has ever drunk alcohol will confirm. The body and brain represent the constraints with which our consciousness has to operate. Any modification made to our brain will be reflected in the way this virtual reality is rendered to us.

Our personal data stream is always being calculated so as to accurately reflect our brain’s present state. This is why binaural beats, although they are a “physical” tool operating on a virtual brain in a virtual universe, can support our mental efforts of reaching a stable, undisturbed meditation state.

Once you stop processing your sense data from this physical reality, you become open to accessing the Larger Consciousness System

What (Not) to Expect

Don’t expect any magical results right from the beginning. Even with a binaural beat, you may have to keep practicing for a while before obtaining significant results.

Some first successes, however, are not uncommon even with beginners. It all depends on what you bring to the table. Having no expectations and being open to whatever happens is the key to success.

Many individuals find binaural beats helpful, some don’t. If you’re an experienced meditator, you may not need this audio aid to reach the state of point-consciousness.

Binaural beats are like training wheels on a five-year-old’s bicycle – at some point you should wean yourself from the training wheels and take them off or they will retard your development by locking you into specific altered states when you should be free to shift states as easily as you shift your attention.

Eventually, you will even let go of formal meditation because you no longer will have a need for the process. You will be able to accomplish the same thing (actually better, being unencumbered) instantaneously. Do not become habituated or addicted to this tool or any tool – or the tool that was once so helpful may turn into a self-limiting crutch.

A Word of Caution

Never listen to binaural beats while operating a vehicle or doing anything else in this physical reality that requires you to be attentive. The same may apply for some time after listening (this varies with individuals). Be cautious – after listening, ground yourself in physical reality before engaging in any activity that requires your focused attention.

History of Binaural Beats

Binaural beats were developed in the 1970s by Tom, his friend Dennis Mennerich and Bob Monroe, the famed pioneer of out-of-body experiences (OOBEs). Tom and Dennis helped Bob to build a lab in which people could learn to have OOBEs while lying safely in a supervised cabin cell. That lab eventually became what is known today as the Monroe Institute (TMI).

For more information about how Bob, Tom and Dennis developed binaural beats, see the dedicated page about Tom.