Hi All,
I've been a regular user of Holosync for over a year and a ahlf now, currently finishing Awakening level 2.
Here's what I have to say : Holosync works. That's all ! It really works, whatever you do, however you do it (I used it for several months lying in bed and falling asleep over it and it still worked !)
I concurr : some of the effects of using Holosync are, as some have said here, very much akin to withdrawing from alcohol addiction. Actually what Holosync does is to break the myriad of micro-addictions that you have (addiction to behaviors, to people, to situations, etc...) and of course although most of the time it's a very pleasant process ("Gee, I DO feel better WITHOUT the need to yell at my wife whenever she mentions her male friends !"), sometimes it's really painfull, especially when you're on the verge of realizing that something unpleasant in your life is really of your own making...
At Centerpointe, they call this "Owerwhelm". I think it's quite accurate, although it could have simply be named "meditation stress" ! Meditation will provoke that sometimes. Stress is part of the process of growth (and Holosync meditation does force you to grow, wether you like it or not). Traditional meditation people know quite well about this phenomenon. Chinese Taoists (quoted by B K Frantzis in his book "The Great Stillness") call meditation "jumping in the dragon's mouth" : you will get bitten, and it will hurt ! To put it rudely, meditation is not for sissies ! And Holosync is meditation on steroïds. So it's bound sometimes to hurt bad.
Looking back at my year and a half of using Holosync, I'm beginning to see patterns.
At the start of each level, things were all rosy and nice : my daily meditation would make me so "high" I had energy aplenty for the rest of the day. Then later in the process I'd start to get antsy feelings, that would nag me all day long, and then depression, and then I'd be completely falling apart, like my whole life was a mess, feeling I'd better hang myself than go on with it all. At those times, my life would or would not objectively be particularly difficult (Hey, I got laid off while my wife made plans to leave me, at a time when I was living abroad in a VERY foreign country ! That was a tough time ! But I also got terrible overwhelm at times whan all was rosy, so there's no real rule). And then someday things would clear up, and I'd be looking at mself like from a higher standpoint, and realizing : "Hey, it's not that bad. It's just a situation, and I know how to handle it.". After that I'd be back in my pleasant "high" state, and the cycle would repeat.
At other times, I would get the feeling that thoses CDs were really a waste of time, and why bother with them. Discouragement is another form of overwhelm (at least for me. Every one has one or several "prefered" ways of feeling stress).
This could go on and on, until I got the feeling the CDs were "not working" anymore. That's the signal that it's time to go to another level. At that time, I just felt good, and comparing my state with how I was before doing that level of the program, I'd rejoice at the obvious progress I'd made. Then I start a new level, and I get some different (deeper) crap to deal with, in a similar pattern involving temporary stress, anguish, and discouragement (although I do notice that it gets easier with each level).
Why am I telling you all about this ? Not because I'm a realy very interesting person, but to illustrate one thing : I have (and I believe most Holosync users have) gone through everything that you're describing. The pain, the doubt, the freaking out, and all ! And that there were rewards at the end of the ordeal !
What kept me going on despite the incomfort and pain ? The fact that Centerpointe people very accurately described beforehand (over the phone, and in their support material) everything that could happen to me in the course of using Holosync, and they gave me simple ways of helping out all those unpleasant feelings. That helped me trust them and gave me the courage to go through the whole thing.
Now I know the pattern, and although Level 2 has been somwhat painful, knowing what was happening made it a lot easier than Level 1 (which, I admit, was gruesome for me, far worse that Awakening Prologue). With that experience, I can now see things coming, and make more readily use of the simple solutions Centerpointe people pointed out to me te make things easier (breathing exercices, artistic expression, sports, and most of all practicing the "witness" attitude).
Meditation and growth are not easy. Centerpointe doesn't pretend that their Holosync Program makes either a stroll in the park. What the program does is make meditation and growth FOOLPROOF. That's the value that they sell : follow the instructions (and they're really simple), and there's NO WAY you can blotch it. Compare that to the extreme difficulty of learning traditional meditation, or of applying succesfully most self-growth methods ! Especially when you're a person with extremely low self esteem and sense of personnal capacity to succeed, like I was before starting Holosync, and like I believe most people who come to Holosync tend to be.
SO I'd like to say to all those who bought Holosync, and think they've fallen for a scam : "Stick to it, listen daily to your CDs! Procrastinating wont make the process easier, but it'll make it definitely slower, and you'll stay in the rut longer than you really need to. Re-read the support material they hand out, and call their Hotline if you really need some immediate relief. IT IS WORKING, YOU WILL REAP THE BENEFITS"
One thing I like about Centerpointe is that although their marketing is quite agressive (but hey, I've seen much worse lots of places on the Internet !) they'll never push you to purchase a level of the program before you've REALLY finished the previous one. They really want you to get value from what you buy.
By the way, if you think their marketing has something fishy, consider that Holosync is a VERY UNUSUAL product, so it's really crucial for them to get A LOT of attention from potential buyers before they make a decision. I myself hesitated for 2 full years before buying Awakening Prologue (their first, introductory, level in the program). Now I kick kick myself for not having entered the program earlier. I am so much happier today compared to a year and a half ago, that I'm just mad at myself for having missed the opportunity to be today over three years into the program, and probably light-years away from where I am now !
Finally, on a technical note : someone wrote that Holosync is taking you into Theta, and that Theta brainwave rythm is associated with ADD, so it might not be wise to delve too much there, as you might get ADD yourself !
First, Theta has been associated with ADD, this is true, but Theta is also associated with emotionnal healing, creative insight, and many other positive aspects.
The problem with Theta in the case of ADD is that the children try to use theis brainwave state in situations where it's sub-optimal. But Theta itself is not a "problematic" brainwave state, quite the contrary.
Second, let's put things straight : the basic information in the argument is wrong. Holosync desn't put you in prolonged Theta. Actually it goes much deeper, into deep Delta (Frequencies of deep sleep, brain restoration, neural growth, and natural production of DHEA and growth Hormone to name a few).
Also experience has shown (my personnal experience and the collective experience of Holosync users, archived by Centerpointe) that staying in prolonged Delta (or any state for that matter, including Theta) has naver made anyone stay "stucked" in that state. Otherwise since Delta is the frequency of deep sleep, Holosync users would never wake up and stay in a permanent coma ! This has not been observed, and surely if there was ever one such case reported, Centerpointe would have gotten severely sued, and we wouldn't miss having heard about it (lol).
I'll finish with a word about the absence of communication between Holosync users.
At first I wondered why Centerpointe didn't set up a Forum for the participants in their program to exchange views. I thought it would be a good thing, and that it was a shame that they didn't do it. Now with some experience, I have come to think that it was wise of them not to set up a forum. Beginners would have flooded the forum with their doubts, their angst, all of their bad feelings, as we see in too many forums. Using Holosync makes a lot of crap come out, so inevitably the forum would have quickly become a very unpleasant place. Part of the process of personnal growth is learning to take responsibility for what you feel and experience, and stop blaming it on outside events, other people, the government, or the meditation CDs one listens to. The CDs provoke the emergence of e lot of stuff, but the stuff itself comes from the listerner in the first place. To get rid of it, paradoxically, one has to accept it. People who go on a forum and yell out their pain and discontent, who blame the CDs or the company that sold it to them, are not in the process of taking responsibility. SInce there is no forum, if they want to yell at someone, they'll have to call the Centerpointe Hotline, and this will give the Staff at Centerpointe a chance to help them, at a moment when they clearly need it the most.
All in all, I think they're doing it the right way.
That was my (pretty long) 2 cents. I hope it helps clarify the issue a little and provides some usefull info to those who are lookinbg for it.
Be all well,
Erwan
PS : I am not a part of Centerpointe, or in any way affiliated to them. I will not benefit in any way if any reader of this post decides to go for the program, except if he decides to let me know about it, in which case I will feel good for knowing that I helped someone make a wise decision.
