Bridgend, depression and infrasound

[noel emits]

Another young suicide in the Welsh county of Bridgend on Monday. That's 22 since the beginning of 2007. Police and social services have mostly maintained that there's been no link between these but it's certainly a large jump above the numbers to be expected in an area that size.

So I was thinking about 'below-the-radar' causes of psychological disturbance and came across this article on infrasound and it's possble effects.

What is the sustained influence of infrasound on humans and human behavior? Mysterious desert humming sounds fill the night of nomads with superstitious dread. Deep, buzzing, and threatening, these continuous humming tones have produced anxiety and fear among bedouins for centuries. The "ghost wails" appear in the mythology and folktales of the desert people.

But these deep and virtually inaudible humming tones are not confined to the desert plains, where they thrash among themselves across sandy dunes. The Mistral, the northward winds of the African continent, sweeps over the southern Mediterranean coastlands during late fall. These familiar hot winds emerge from their desert journeys with a strange power, lasting throughout the winter. These winds leave an indelible trace among exposed communities, a phenomenon which has been misunderstood for centuries.

Also, did anyone here take part in the Infrasonic experiment at the Purcell Room in 2003?

The two Purcell Room concerts were identical in every aspect, except the use of infrasound. If the generator was on in one piece in the 3pm show, it was off in that piece in the 5pm show (see which pieces had infrasound below). We were careful to use the infrasound at moderate levels so it would be on the cusp of perception. The music masked the infrasound - in theory this meant the audience were never fully aware of its presence. Varying where we put the infrasound enables us to rule out the emotional effects of the other elements of the concert (the music, performance and film).

 

[swears]

Anyone remember conspiracy nuts in the UK (maybe elsewhere, I dunno) who claimed that the government had placed infrasound transmitters in strategic locations to control the population, particularly those who would reveal their evil plans? I saw a TV documentary a few years back with this rather sweaty middle-aged businessman-looking fella who said that he could feel the effects of these devices all the time, there were even areas he couldn't travel to at all because it would be agony for him.

 

[noel emits]

It is possible that a body or a part of it could form a vessel or chamber of just the right size to resonate with vibrations at a particular frequency. There's an interesting bit on the wikipedia infrasound page:

Research by the late Vic Tandy, a lecturer at Coventry University, suggested that the frequency 19 hertz was responsible for many ghost sightings. He was working late one night alone in a supposedly haunted laboratory at Warwick, when he felt very anxious, and could detect a grey blob out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to face it, there was nothing.

The following day, he was working on his fencing foil, with the handle held in a vice. Although there was nothing touching it, it started to vibrate wildly. Further investigation led him to discover that the extraction fan was emitting a frequency of 18.98 Hz, very close to the resonant frequency of the eye (given as 18 Hz in NASA Technical Report 19770013810). This was why he saw a ghostly figure — it was an optical illusion caused by his eyeballs resonating. The room was exactly half a wavelength in length, and the desk was in the centre, thus causing a standing wave which was detected by the foil.

Of course infrasound is pretty much everywhere and can have many causes and unacknowledged physiological effects. Would be a highly inefficient way to achieve population control I should think. Hmm, so not so implausible that the government was behind it after all

 

[nomos]

That Tandy story is really interesting. They did some follow up work on it too - found a very similar standing wave at another 'haunted' site.

It is possible that a body or a part of it could form a vessel or chamber of just the right size to resonate with vibrations at a particular frequency.

From a book I picked up recently...

Resonance phenomena of the human body:
- rib cage ~60 Hz
- spine (axial mode) 10-12 Hz
- head (axial mode) ~25 Hz
- wrist 50-200 Hz
- abdominal mass 4-8 Hz
- eyeball, intra-ocular structures 30-80 Hz

and so on.

 

[matt b]

old thread that touches on some of this here:

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=4929&highlight=infrasonic

 

[bassnation]

Another young suicide in the Welsh county of Bridgend on Monday. That's 22 since the beginning of 2007. Police and social services have mostly maintained that there's been no link between these but it's certainly a large jump above the numbers to be expected in an area that size.

So I was thinking about 'below-the-radar' causes of psychological disturbance and came across this article on infrasound and it's possble effects.

mate, i love this post - its gone off topic half way through which has to be a first. i grew up near bridgend and yeah its fucking depressing but no more so than any dull uk town. and these days its certainly a better place to live than it was when i was growing up in the eighties. but i never noticed any brain-altering subbass when i lived there, apart from in my mates souped up fiesta as we tore around playing hardcore to the unwilling peds.

 

[noel emits]

old thread that touches on some of this here:

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=4929&highlight=infrasonic

Ah yes of course, going over old ground. I did a search for 'infrasound'. I do think that it should be standard health and safety practice to 'scan' for low frequency emissions at sites where you get these pockets of unexplained maladies, it can't be that difficult?

There's a huge list of sound frequencies and their possible effects / resonances here: http://www.lunarsight.com/freq.htm

 

[bassnation]

That Tandy story is really interesting. They did some follow up work on it too - found a very similar standing wave at another 'haunted' site.


From a book I picked up recently...

Resonance phenomena of the human body:
- rib cage ~60 Hz
- spine (axial mode) 10-12 Hz
- head (axial mode) ~25 Hz
- wrist 50-200 Hz
- abdominal mass 4-8 Hz
- eyeball, intra-ocular structures 30-80 Hz

and so on.

and thats not to mention a deeper resonation, less about vibration and more about deep emotional or semiotic recognition. ok, its not going to burst your blood vessels even thought its sometimes felt that intense in the middle of a rave.

 

[bassnation]

Ah yes of course, going over old ground. I did a search for 'infrasound'. I do think that it should be standard health and safety practice to 'scan' for low frequency emissions at sites where you get these pockets of unexplained maladies, it can't be that difficult?

There's a huge list of sound frequencies and their possible effects / resonances here: http://www.lunarsight.com/freq.htm

talking about using sound as an offensive weapon, the bland maddingly repetitive train announcement chatter you get when commuting in the morning make my head throb when i'm hungover. even in the quiet carriage its turned up to eleven which i find way more offensive than a loud ipod. in fact i wear sound cancelling head phones not even playing music a lot in london in the morning, otherwise i'd end up attacking someone.

 

[noel emits]

mate, i love this post - its gone off topic half way through which has to be a first.

Ha. Well I guess the topic is really 'possible sibliminal causes of psychological and physiological effects'. I just happened to be thinking about the two subjects. Might look a bit random but it's not!

 

[bassnation]

Ha. Well I guess the topic is really 'possible sibliminal causes of psychological and physiological effects'. I just happened to be thinking about the two subjects. Might look a bit random but it's not!

people accuse me of this all the time. the association between topics makes perfect sense when you are prior to your own internal monologue, and if people can't keep up, well....

 

[noel emits]

It's that old Sherlock Holmes maxim. If you've looked at all the usually accepted causes of a phenomenon and found nothing, you've got to start looking beyond that. I don't even think low frequency disturbance is that unlikely. I just get the feeling that most of these official investigators lack imagination.

 

[bassnation]

It's that old Sherlock Holmes maxim. If you've looked at all the usually accepted causes of a phenomenon and found nothing, you've got to start looking beyond that. I don't even think low frequency disturbance is that unlikely. I just get the feeling that most of these official investigators lack imagination.

well, that sounds a lot more likely than "its those evil social networks" like as if bebo is all about assisted suicide rather than a bunch of teens chatting shit. but theres definitely something very weird about it. like i say, it was infinitely more depressing 20 years ago and you didn't have phenonoma like that going on. maybe the harder peoples lives are, the less suicides there are - look at sweden for fucks sake. i've got no figures or hard evidence to back up this theory other than idle conjecture, but this is teh internet and the bar is lower, everyone knows that.

 

[Mr. Tea]

maybe the harder peoples lives are, the less suicides there are - look at sweden for fucks sake.

Yeah, I've always thought this whenever people talk about Sweden like it's some kind of socialist utopia. Although the country's high latitude and correspondingly long, dark winters have to be taken into account, I guess.

 

[hucks]

And the fact that 30 countries have higher suicide rates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

 

[Mr. Tea]

And the fact that 30 countries have higher suicide rates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

It's still nearly twice as high as ours, despite almost daily headlines about how drunk/stoned/shallow/slutty/violent/stupid/indebted we all (allegedly) are.

But let's face it, neither us nor our Nordic chums hold a candle to the ex-Eastern Bloc countries in the suicide stakes.

 

[hucks]

It's still nearly twice as high as ours, despite almost daily headlines about how drunk/stoned/shallow/slutty/violent/stupid/indebted we all (allegedly) are.

But let's face it, neither us nor our Nordic chums hold a candle to the ex-Eastern Bloc countries in the suicide stakes.

Yeah, first thoughts turn straight to post Communist dislocation, but I wonder if there's a longer term trend? Be hard to get reliable data from that time from eg the USSR, I should think. Five year suicide target met in four years!

 

[noel emits]

Suicides 'Linked To Phone Masts'

The spate of deaths among young people in Britain’s suicide capital could be linked to radio waves from dozens of mobile phone transmitter masts near the victims’ homes.

Dr Roger Coghill, who sits on a Government advisory committee on mobile radiation, has discovered that all 22 youngsters who have killed themselves in Bridgend, South Wales, over the past 18 months lived far closer than average to a mast.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Suicides 'Linked To Phone Masts'

The spate of deaths among young people in Britain’s suicide capital could be linked to radio waves from dozens of mobile phone transmitter masts near the victims’ homes.

Dr Roger Coghill, who sits on a Government advisory committee on mobile radiation, has discovered that all 22 youngsters who have killed themselves in Bridgend, South Wales, over the past 18 months lived far closer than average to a mast.

It's subconscious cerebral absorption of bitchy text messages and happy-slapping videos, innit.

 

[noel emits]

It's subconscious cerebral absorption of bitchy text messages and happy-slapping videos, innit.

Could be.

John C. Lilly interviewed by Rebecca McClen & David Jay Brown

RM~DB: Do you think that the brain acts as a transceiver?

John Lilly: Yeah, that's right. The brain, the biocomputer, is a huge transmitter/receiver, and we're just beginning to see what it is. Have you ever seen anything like a TV show on ketamine? They're real. The first time I saw that I thought, "My God, all we're doing is increasing the sensitivity of the brain to microwaves." And the problem with microwaves is that they're influencing us below our level or awareness all the time. This morning for instance, on ketamine, I went into this place where all these people were interacting and I got involved. When I came back I realized that I had got into a soap opera on TV and was taking part in it as if it was reality!

Now kids must do this all the time. Marvelous! But you've got to watch out because you may be taken in and think they're extraterrestrial or something, unless you can see something that cues you in that this is a TV station.