EEG headset for EEG entrainment and meditation

Help create neurotechnology that helps people learn and make meditative progress faster!

Scott Alexander is a rationalist writer most known for his two blogs AstralCodexTen and SlateStarCodex. He recently opened grant applications for charitable and scientific projects — anyone can apply and potentially get money.

I want to get funding to work full-time on two projects:

Both projects require hardware — an EEG headset . It’s certainly possible to ask for this hardware as part of the grant. However having hardware increases chances of getting a grant for several reasons:

Your donation would make a difference and increase chances of success of both projects.

About me

About EEG headset

I’m fundraising for OpenBCI’s Ultracortex “Mark IV” Headset, which requires an amplifier board (which is more expensive than a headset itself). OpenBCI bundled hardware (headset, amplifier, electrodes, etc) into an All-in-one Biosensing R&D bundle that’s more price-efficient than buying things separately.

The bundle costs $3729.99. I live in the UK, so I’d need to pay import taxes (20% VAT), and according to the calculator recommended by OpenBCI (with HS code 85444200) the total cost would be 3567.09 GBP. I’m rounding it up to 3600 GBP to account for fluctuating currency exchange rate.

Details of the projects: EEG entrainment

In Quests And Requests : projects that need incubating (#1) Scott Alexander requested a replication of a 2022 study which found that brain entrainment — delivering an optical pulse at each participant’s individual alpha wave frequency — boosts learning rate on a certain quick perceptual task (distinguishing Glass patterns between each other). For this grant I teamed up with a Postdoctoral researcher & EEG expert, https://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/people/andrew-stewart&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1702235423674430&usg=AOvVaw0EQkRFs9utATRwrj6xeioc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Andrew Stewart and we’ll be working together. More information about this project is on this living google doc . Our goal is to replicate the effect and find its application to day-to-day things normal people would want to learn. Our team is optimistic about chances of replicating: we think they are 70%+.

Details of the projects: EEG meditation neurofeedback

I want to work on a prototype of an EEG neurofeedback device for speeding up meditative progress, sort of Jhourney but for Vipassana progress rather than jhanas. In Vipassana, reaching the stage of insight “Knowledge of Arising and Passing Away” (aka A&P) is almost as important as reaching stream entry (the first stage of enlightenment): it’s the first important milestone after a meditator finally “gets” meditation and is able to do Vipassana (aka insight meditation) properly.

When a meditator reaches A&P they penetrate a solid sensation of a meditation object into a series of subsensations rapidly flickering in and out of existence. The frequency of these sub sensations seem to correlate with brain wave frequencies (e.g. alpha rhythm).

If — and that’s an if — these two frequencies (brainwaves / flickering subsensations) actually correlate and the correlation is important — then perhaps we can pick up e.g. the actual brain wave frequencies of a meditator and generate a custom rhythmic meditative object like a custom mesmerizing gif. There is already an open-eye meditation technique called Fire Kasina, so perhaps a custom generated object could work really well.

It’s far from guaranteed that this idea works, but I think it has ≈10-25% chance of working — and this means it’s worth trying because the potential upside of progressing to A&P would be huge: improved mental health benefits from more effective meditation as well as increased hedonic baseline.

Meditation has been hugely helpful for me personally and that’s why I am interested in working on this project. I recently wrote my full personal story about my path in an essay on substack: “Zen and the Art of Speedrunning Enlightenment” .

What happens if not enough money gets raised

I apply for ACX grants asking for less money. If I get a grant, I buy the exact headset needed.

If I don’t get an ACX grant, I try to get money elsewhere, perhaps getting a grant from other sources like Long Term Future Fund or EA Infrastructure Fund.

If I don’t get these either, I’ll fundraise at meetups I run. If I don’t get these either, I’ll probably delay buying the headset until I have a full-time job. I might also evaluate option of other headsets, although OpenBCI’s bundle is currently the best in terms of price/(flexibility+usefulness) ratio.

I currently don’t have a full-time job — so I am well-positioned to work on this project because I can work full-time. So I’d really appreciate your help in advancing the science of learning and meditation. Your donation would make a difference in both projects' success. And I commit to publishing my findings — whatever they are — to my psychotechnology substack.