Today, I actually got interested in brain waves. Finding no sites that COMPLETELY explained them, and only finding ones that only partly explained them, I decided to put together the pieces and post them all in one page to make it nice and easy for people to understand them. I even tried Wikipedia, but that was just plain confusing. So here it is people, my page on brain waves! (You might even find that you get interested in some of the stuff here, as I certainly did!)


OK, there are five types of Brain Waves in the sleeping process. They are Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta and finally Gamma. (Gamma is an extremely rare one, I'll explain further down the page) They are brain waves that occur depending on how alert, drowsy, asleep, etc. you are. I will attempt to explain each of them as best as I can in this page.

Beta is the brain wave you are in while in a good state of alertness. So long as you aren't drowsy, you are most likely to be in this brain wave now while you are reading this. You may be thinking that you must absorb information at best during the Beta brain wave, but that is absolutely wrong. You actually learn much more effectively while in the Alpha or the Theta brain wave status. Most people, (OK, pretty much all people) spend most of their waking lives in the Beta state.

Alpha brain waves occur when drowsy, and almost asleep, or a minute after you wake up. As explained in Beta, you are more likely to absorb information due to your mind being in a relaxed, but alert state of mind. You can induce this brain wave by drinking tea, as it contains a chemical (can't remember quite what it's called) that is almost exclusively found in tea leaves.

Theta brain waves occur when the body is in the barely conscious state, in REM sleep, (Rapid Eye Movement) during a lucid dream (where you are in the dream-state and suddenly realize you are dreaming) or under hypnosis.
In this state, people are actually the most alert to learning. Some people say, and many agree with, that we have a thing called a 'Subconscious', and that it can be accessed far more easily when in the Theta state. Now here's where it gets really interesting. If you manage the feat of still being conscious at the start or end (not sure, I think it's near the end) of the Theta brain wave, you will start to hallucinate. If you're trying to blank your mind and focus on one thing, it will wander onto something else. An imagined orange, for instance, may start to become a lemon without you really wanting it to. This is when you're awake, but really, you should be asleep. You're meant to be dreaming, but since your not asleep, you hallucinate instead. (a hallucination is when you dream without sleeping) During the Theta state, you may also begin to lose feeling, like slowly not feeling yourself touching the bed. This is because the body is preparing to go to sleep, and the feeling sensors must be shut off. You can even start to feel like your heart is thumping like it has never thumped before, providing you're still awake. I actually did try once to stay awake into Theta, (just to see if I could) and what I experienced was that, and some other things which may be unrelated. It was, prehaps even scary, because my heart was pounding, I could not feel the bed, I had lots of little twitches on my back (no idea what they're about) and began to feel quite hot and my skull felt slightly compressed. (again, no idea about that) In the end I started to get fearful that something might happen and sat up and shook myself off, making everything go normal again. In deep Theta it may begin to feel as though you're floating on water. I'm sure there are many other effects but right now I don't no of them, and I'm not exactly sure what they're all about. It's probably just illusionary effects made by the brain. Now it's time to move on.

The Delta brain wave is the state you're brain is in when you are in a very deep sleep or unconscious altogether. Mostly, the Delta brain wave cannot be accessed without training yourself to stay awake that long, but sometimes, you may spontaneosely enter the Delta state. However, this is rare and you could say the odds are somewhat against you if you were hoping to move into this state spontaneosely.

Finally, the Gamma brain wave is the rarest, and only recently discovered. When in the Gamma state, reality seems to slow down to slow motion. (what takes one second may seem to take five to ten seconds) It is most often experienced before you black out in a near-fatal accident, or even if you didn't black out at all. The Gamma brain wave is a state of hyper-alertness.

UPDATE: I've recently found out about Epsilon. I think it is below even Delta, But I'm not sure. I will research this in the future


Here are the frequencies for each wave. They are measured in Hertz, but I'm not the one to explain what that is to you. perhaps in the future.

Gamma: 30 to ? Hertz
Beta: Above 12 to 30 Hertz
Alpha: 12 to 8 Hertz
Theta: 8 to 4 Hertz
Delta: 4 to 0 Hertz
Epsilon: No idea


If you can help me fill in any gaps, that would be fantastic! Just click on interactive stuff under the navigation bar then click contact to send me an email! Anyway, I hope this little page taught you something.