ABOUT SOUNDBATHS
Gong baths and sound healing
We all know the power music has to change our mental state. Music has a deep emotional resonance and can lift our energy or relax us, disturb or excite us, and can bring about blissful and trancelike states.
Sound is an incredibly powerful and transformative medium. I have worked for many years with gongs, Tibetan bowls and various other sound sources to aid meditation, and over many hundreds of group and private sessions I have witnessed the ability of these ancient instruments to alter one’s state and bring about a contemplative/meditative mind space.
Soundbaths have helped people with various difficulties including anxiety, depression and addiction issues, as well as helping with pain management and insomnia.
WHAT IS A SOUNDBATH?
A soundbath is a form of meditative practice using sound to help bring about shifts in consciousness. Participants lay comfortably (or sit if they want to) whilst gongs, Tibetan bowls and other sound sources are played in such a way as to create a complex and ever changing soundscape.
The combination of pulsing waves of sound and the flowing oceanic nature of the sonic environment help to deeply relax the listener both physically and mentally, and create a change in the the brain's state which allows conscious awareness to access subconscious content that is usually only accessed in the dream state.
It is in this deeply relaxed and passive state that emotional blocks can be released, previously repressed memories can be examined and processed, and numinous and visionary experiences can arise. The experience differs from person to person but the overwhelming response to a session is reaching a state of deep stillness and relaxation.