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Minnesota, USA July 28, 1999
"I wanted to write this to remind you what a wonderful, powerful and very important technology you have developed. The DAVID. Paradise is a tool that has irreversibly altered my life in untold ways
I have spent the majority of my last 38 years a prisoner of intractable depression. Suicidal ideation was part of my everyday thought processes. After years of psychotherapy with about a dozen (or so) therapists, quality nutritional interventions, regular efforts toward exercise, work with Tony Robbins, studies of NLP and other approaches, numerous tape programs, mediation, hypnosis, spiritual exploration, various healing methods, visualization and even antidepressants (I am fortunately endowed with being incredibly resourceful AND persistent) I was still stuck with a relentless undercurrent that was depression. It's not that these other interventions did nothing - on the contrary. Many of these interventions gave me a tremendous new dimensionality, depth, humanism and understanding and served to improve, in some cases VASTLY, the quality of my life. But depression has a physiological component that these other things could not address in a physically foundational sort of way. Nutrition and exercise were mostly management tools, medication merely an effort at symptom-relief (which, ultimately, created more problems than it solved).
Then, one miraculous evening I stumbled across an article about a new type of technology known as Light and Sound (also known as Audio-Visual Stimulation, or AVS). I had heard of Biofeedback and Alpha-training, so the concept of brainwaves corresponding to mind states wasn't entirely foreign to me. A light went on in my head. Of course! It only made sense to me that if the bioelectric functioning of my brain was off - if the brainwave activity of my brain was disregulated - so would the biochemistry be. This technology presented the possibility of renewing my entire nervous system and finally getting at and repairing the cracked foundation. Although I was also inclined to feel skeptical (if not jaded) and quite frankly pessimistic about anything new that came along, that didn't thwart me from doing a little research. I began making calls to anyone who was anyone in the country (and Canada) willing to talk to me. I got my hands on books, other publications and articles and devoured them. I was convinced there was something here worth trying. I did a little more ground work and decided, after looking at everything else, upon your machine. It was clearly state-of-the-art AND, without doubt, the best researched of any other such AVS device. I reasoned that if I was going to hook something up to my brain, I wanted it to be "properly calibrated". I told no one (save the person living with me at the time) what I was doing. I simply ordered the DAVID Paradise and suspended both belief and disbelief.
When it arrived I unpacked it immediately and hooked myself up. In those days, few had heard of "beta training", and alpha-training seemed to have some rather interesting, if not mystical potential. So I took the grand leap and launched right into a theta session. Down...down...the frequencies went until my heart began to race and I grew suddenly short of breath. Panic attack. Many types of memory are "state dependent", particularly traumas. It is theorized that they get encoded in certain frequencies that the mind then "quarantines" in order to protect the psyche from re-experiencing something highly negative. The alpha-theta border is the mind's richest repository of repressed material, and I have stumbled across and apparently opened some hidden anxiety closet. After composing myself and reassuring my psyche that it was not in danger of unraveling I elected to climb back in the saddle again and give it another go.
Subsequent sessions yielded little, if any trouble. They were, in actuality, rather pleasant and uneventful excursions that left me feeling relaxed and refreshed. I continued my experiment for the next two or so weeks, oblivious to the profound impact this was actually having on my psyche. Finally, a friend who had noticed a quantum shift in my attitude and overall demeanor approached me. They wondered what I was doing that was changing me so dramatically: "What ARE you doing with yourself - I've NEVER seen you like this before..." It was at this moment I realized that I was feeling considerably lighter, more confident, clearer than ever before and, in fact, free, for the first time, from depression. Never before had my psyche known such liberation. I was ecstatic. I knew I was onto something here. Here was this device, simple to use and relatively affordable, that I was able to own and use at my personal convenience. And it had applications to my psyche I had not even begun to explore. A whole new universe of possibility had opened up to me and I was bound and determined to explore it to its farthest reaches. I am still on that journey today.
Although I have since refined my gains with AVS and have gone on to solidify things with Neurofeedback, which has given me the ultimate freedom and autonomy, I find the combination to be quite powerful. Some recent research has even demonstrated that AVS use can cut the number of Neurofeedback sessions needed roughly IN HALF. And at a fraction of the cost. Nonetheless, I continue my wonderful work with Neurofeedback and AVS, along with some other technologies from time to time - all to enhanced and cumulative effect.
Today, I am indisputably FREE. Panic attacks, which frequently plagued me, have vanished. I have also lost a significant amount of weight - probably around 30 lbs. I now have far too much energy and passion to be sedentary. I run 3 miles around a lake daily (rain or shine) at 5:00 am expect for a couple of days a week when I weight train. I also play tennis, kayak, bicycle, camp, hike, backpack, chop wood (I'm from Minnesota - I have a cabin that heats with wood), body-build and rock climb. I also X-C ski and snowshoe in winter. Before, I had to FORCE myself into the gym once or twice a week – and even then, inconsistently. Other than that I watched a lot of TV. Now I THRIVE in physical activity. It is hugely enjoyable to me. I am extremely fit. It feels effortless; not obsessive. Honestly. I work hard at my job, which I love (EEG Spectrum's US/Canadian Midwest Regional Representative - the world leader in Neurofeedback), do some nutritional counseling and lead a full life socially, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. I am also much more easily consistent with my diet and supplementation. My health and immune system are superb. All the incredible energy that once went into mere survival is now free (at long last) to accomplish other things.
It has been roughly 5 years to-date since my introduction to the D.A.V.I.D. Paradise – I now have an XL. I have seen many others, with a variety of problems, dramatically benefit from your work in that time, as well. My focus (for myself) with AVS and Neurofeedback is much more on Peak Performance now. I am tempted to say I am a new person, but in truth I am actually much, much more of Who I already was. My human potential is now available to me.
What a breathtaking gift.
Thank you, Dave, for your wonderful machine and all the quality research and integrity you put into it. You greatly deserve the growing legitimacy and acclaim for what you do. The importance of your work cannot be underestimated. Thank you, in part, for my freedom. And thank you for your warm, loyal, wonderful and ongoing friendship. I shall treasure it always."
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