Q: WHAT?????????? You are zapping your brain and seeing crazy lights? Yep! What's going on?!

A: Phosphenes and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

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Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (TDCS) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_direct-current_stimulation) is something people have actually been doing for quite some time. It was originally created to help people with brain injuries, but people have begun using it on healthy adults for therapeutic reasons. There are all sorts of claims surrounding TDCS, (many supported and many that are less supported) like that it can "enhance language and mathematical ability, attention span, problem solving, memory, and coordination." I've heard about hard-core gamers and the military using it for concentration reasons. This company, Thync, even just raised 13 million dollars with this idea!

At Comingle, we don't care as much about these Utopian claims of perfecting your mind, and instead we just think it can be something super fun to experience!

According to many places it's actually quite safe (if you keep the current limited, which we do!) and has almost no noted side-effects (other than seeing crazy lights sometimes!). Which brings us to...

Phosphenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphene) are little flashes of light that occur when your retina gets stimulated. They can occur from magnetic, electronic, or even physical stimulation. In our setup they seem to occur most intensely when the electricity passing around your head changes abruptly. People doing TDCS notice these right when they start or stop the electricity. By turning on and off the current quickly we can get all kinds of crazy flashing patterns and visuals.

Origins

This entire setup was all originally created by researcher Matthew Swarts. He originally came up with this design to experiment with electro-tactile stimulation at the Georgia Tech-NUS Sensory Augmentation Workshop in Singapore. I just put his design on my head instead of my muscles, and started seeing crazy sparkles. This was pretty cool, so i have been researching it more over the past year.

Nick Moryl was the one who first had the brilliance to call this crazy electronic device that makes you see flashing lights "Snow Crash."