Sound Healing

" ...the ear, the vibration sensor, serves to charge the organism with electrical potential. It is thanks to the ear that external stimuli are able to charge the cortical battery."
                                                                            - Alfred Tomatis, M.D.

It is somewhat inevitable and actually of great value that each person who becomes a healer brings their own particular past skills and competencies to bear in their individual approach. For me, growing up in a musical household, and having had a lifelong love affair with music, it was quite natural that sooner or later, I would begin to appreciate some of the applications of sound and music for healing purposes.

As research by Dr. Thomatis and others has pointed out, our sense of hearing is one of the first that is developed and activated, in utero. Each one of us, while in our mother's womb, floated in a dark environment, filled with different sounds. The mother's heartbeat (approx. 50-60 beats/minute); the mother's breathing, a soft whooshing in and out, sounding much like distant surf coming in and going out (approx. 12-15 cycles/minute); the mother's voice, muted and high pitched, sounding a bit like dolphin sounds; these are some of the primary sounds… in the background were other sounds from the outside coming through in a muffled way.

We are rhythmic creatures. In as much as all matter is vibrating, our bodies are a series of overlapping rhythmic patterns: heartbeat, pulse(s), brainwave activity… When we speak, there are variations of pitch and tone, volume and rhythm that, according to research, are responsible for 38% of the communication (the remainder of human communication is 55% nonverbal, and 7% the words we use). So, we are all using sound and music as part of our ongoing human experience and communication network, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.

There are many applications of the use of sound and music for healing, and hypnotic work; three primary uses that I have researched and utilized effectively in my practice are (1) How to choose (and use) Himalayan "singing bowls" for entrancement and truly amazing "sonic baths", (2) How to use drum or rattle to pace and lead brain-wave activity of your client (neural entrainment), and (3) How to develop a more sonorous voice, and clear sinuses and thinking through the practice of overtone singing.