Album Notes

Your invitation to a restful night’s sleep begins with a tender lullaby and the sounds of softly falling rain that encourage your mind and body to relax. As you listen to a soothing blend of binauralized instruments and chord progressions based on the golden ratio -- a mathematic ratio that is found all throughout our natural universe and has fundamental properties that draw us deeply into our relaxation state – you begin to transition from waking to the day-dreamy, hypnogogic stage of sleep. Your mind begins to let go, as a powerful blend of psychoacoustic sounds calms your mind so that you can get the deep sleep that you need. The tranquil sound of gently falling rain tapers off to silence so that as the CD draws to a close your sleep continues, uninterrupted.

Sound Sleep is a full hour of continuous psychoacoustic sound and music. There are four tracks in the CD but no actual breaks in the music.

Track 3 is designed to be “loopable”. This is the track that takes you down to sleep and keeps you there so you may want to let it play all night. You can set your CD Player to repeat track 3 so that once it gets to the end of the track, it will wrap seamlessly to the beginning with no break or interruption in sound. This is a great option for MP3 players since they can wrap to the beginning of the track much more quickly than the mechanically oriented CD players.

Power Nap: You can also use Track 3 to take a short, 30 minute nap to rejuvenate yourself during your busy day. I have used it myself for a 30 minute power break between treatment sessions and have been amazed at how restored I feel afterwards!

Visit www.theheartofsound.com for more information on healing psychoacoustic music.

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A Message from the Artist....

Sleep is one of our most fundamental needs - ranking right up there with food and water. I have studied the effects of sleep deprivation and it is not a pretty picture. Due to both personal and societal strains and pressures, we are not getting the rest we need to best navigate the turbulence of our lives.

Sound Sleep came into being as I traversed a particularly difficult period of my life. I found myself experiencing many sleepless nights and I longed for a way to get the rest I desperately needed to support me during those trying times.

I had already been exploring the use of sound for dreamwork and meditation - to explore that realm which is neither sleeping nor waking, but instead somewhere in between. Working with the sound mixes I was using for dream meditations, I began to modify them to encourage sleep. I discovered that there were certain combinations and blends of sounds that would take my mind "offline" and allow my body to relax into the delta sleep patterns necessary for physical, emotional and psychological nourishment and regeneration.

Using this knowledge, I composed new sound arrangements specifically designed for use when you are struggling to fall, or stay, asleep.

Track 1 Lullaby - time for sleep. The first track is a short and sweet lullaby. It is an invitation to switch gears and allow your heart and mind to slow down and release the tensions that may be causing them to race and engage the adrenal stress response. With repeated use, this lullaby acts as an associative "trigger" as though your body says "Ah… I know what we are going to do now… prepare for sleep."

Track 2 Drifting Off - soothing the heart. The second track is a chordal arrangement utilizing binauralized instruments to begin the transition from waking into the day-dreamy, hypnogogic stage of sleep. It is both soothing and comforting. The chordal arrangements are based on a specific mathematical ratio (which goes by many guises under the name of the golden mean, fibonacci number sequences and such) that I have been exploring for years. These tonal intervals call us to the heart of our existence and, interesting enough, can be used to promote sleep! The instruments I created use the binaural beat phenomenon with a low-theta, high-delta beat pattern that creates a hemisperically smoothing or mentally balancing sensation. If your mind is feeling "jangled" and chaotically busy, track 2 helps smooth it out. It is during this track that I encourage you to murmur to yourself an affirmation such as "It is time to let go. All will be well. Trust. Believe."

Track 3 Sound Sleep - beyond white noise. The third track is a blend of pure psychoacoustic sounds. It is not lyrical or musical in the traditional sense. This track was born out of the lab of trial and error, tweaking and testing. Once your heart is ready to be eased and your mind is less busy, it is time to take your mind "offline" so that deeply healing and systemic body processes can come "online". This is the domain of our parasympathetic response, but the conscious mind and stress/adrenal response must be quiet in order to engage these deeper levels of healing and regeneration.

Track 4 Repose - quietly drifting away. Track 4 introduces a blend of track 3's psychoacoustics along with the sound of gentle rain. Over the course of several minutes, the track tapers off to silence so that your sleep is not abruptly disturbed as the CD draws to a close.

It is my deepest hope that Sound Sleep will help you get the rest you need so you can best navigate life’s many challenges.

Namaste,

Dave Fisher

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About Dave

What do you get when you integrate a musically inclined computer geek with a licensed massage therapist who has a passionate interest in healing, sound and vibration and who immerses himself in mindfulness exploration?

In his former life, Dave was a successful systems analyst in a corporate environment that fed this wallet but not his soul. Nearing burnout, he walked away from that role to embrace a journey of self-discovery and intentional awareness. Dave’s curiosity and hunger for knowledge led him to study diverse spiritual disciplines that awakened in him an intense desire to ease the suffering of others.

Dave spent years learning about various healing modalities and found that the emerging sound and vibration field truly fascinated him as well as deeply effecting him spiritually. He has attended several institutions, from The Monroe Institute to Zen Mountain Monastery and is currently a zen practitioner at The Zen Center of Syracuse Hoen-ji. Under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, he completed a Bio-Tuning® and Sonic Induction Therapy™ Intensive course at the Center for Neuroacoustic Research in CA. It was then that he began to see how his computer programming background could combine with healing sound modalities.

He started plumbing any and all resources on psychoacoustic sound to lay the groundwork for his growing vision -- weekend group workshops using individually customized psychoacoustic sound recordings to aid emotional, physical and spiritual healing. It was also during this time that he participated in a weekend massage workshop and found that his innate healing touch found an immensely nourishing outlet through the work. He enrolled in The Finger Lakes School of Massage in upstate NY and 1000 hours later, took his state and national exams to become a Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT).

Thousands of hours later, as one sound composition after another was written, discarded, overhauled, fine-tuned and then tested during hundreds of massage therapy sessions, both Deep Waters and Sound Sleep were birthed.

Dave continues to develop other compositions and explore the heart of sound and it's ability to transform human awareness.