AUDITORY MODULATION OF BRAIN OSCILLATIONS AND CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE DURING WAKEFULNESS

Altered states of consciousness (ASCs) involve transient changes in perception, cognition, emotion, and the sense of self. Although low-frequency activity is commonly associated with reduced consciousness, recent evidence indicates that conscious experience can persist across markedly different oscillatory regimes, including states with prominent delta activity, suggesting that spectral dynamics should be considered together with measures of neural complexity. This study investigated whether binaural-guided audios from the Monroe Institute’s Gateway Experience modulate brain activity during wakefulness and whether these changes are associated with subjective alterations in consciousness. Twenty healthy adults aged 20–30 years completed training with selected audios and subsequently underwent an approximately one-hour, 32-channel EEG recording. Signals were preprocessed using notch, band-pass and low-pass filters and independent component analysis for artifact removal. Power spectral density, Lempel–Ziv complexity, and Shannon spectral entropy were calculated to characterize frequency-specific activity, signal diversity, and spectral organization. Subjective experience was assessed using the 11D-ASC. Results will be interpreted in light of current models proposing that oscillatory activity and neural complexity provide complementary information for characterizing conscious brain states.