Shooting From The Hip - 20 - Effects Of Sound, Infrasound, Mandalas

Infrasound is defined by American National Standards Institute as - sound at frequencies less than 20 Hz
Infrasound, sometimes referred to as 'low status sound', describes sound waves with a frequency below the lower limit of human audibility (generally 20 Hz).

Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, so for humans to perceive infrasound, the sound pressure must be sufficiently high. The ear is the primary organ for sensing low sound, but at higher intensities it is possible to feel infrasound vibrations in various parts of the body.

The study of such sound waves is referred to as infrasonics, covering sounds beneath 20 Hz down to 0.1 Hz

frequency range used for monitoring earthquakes & volcanoes, charting rock & petroleum formations below the earth & also in ballistocardiography (technique for producing a graphical representation of repetitive motions of the human body arising from the sudden ejection of blood into the great vessels with each heart beat) & seismocardiography (technique of measuring the vibrations produced by the beating heart, where those vibrations are recorded from the chest using an accelerometer) to study the mechanics of the heart.

Infrasound is characterized by an ability to get around obstacles with little dissipation.

Infrasonic 17 Hz tone experiment

On 31 May 2003, a group of UK researchers held a mass experiment, where they exposed some 700 people to music laced with soft 17 Hz sine waves played at a level described as "near the edge of hearing", produced by an extra-long-stroke subwoofer mounted two-thirds of the way from the end of a 7-meter-long plastic sewer pipe.

The experimental concert (entitled Infrasonic) took place in the Purcell Room over the course of 2 performances, each consisting of 4 musical pieces. Two of the pieces in each concert had 17 Hz tones played underneath.

In the 2nd concert, the pieces that were to carry a 17 Hz undertone were swapped so that test results would not focus on any specific musical piece. The participants were not told which pieces included the low-level 17 Hz near-infrasonic tone.

The presence of the tone resulted in a significant number (22%) of respondents reporting feeling uneasy or sorrowful, getting chills down the spine or nervous feelings of revulsion or fear.
In presenting the evidence to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Professor Richard Wiseman said "These results suggest that low frequency sound can cause people to have unusual experiences even though they cannot consciously detect infrasound. Some scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites & so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost -- our findings support these ideas."

The world has changed & now there are many artificial sources of infrasound, which gives much greater need to understand the phenomenon & how it affects us.

Some people believe it could give them negative effects of various kinds, although this could be the nocebo effect & others have claimed it is responsible for the reports of hauntings around the world. While these theories are fascinating, our understanding of infrasound is very young, so there is much still to learn.
{nocebo effect: It comes from Latin nocere, meaning "to harm." Latin nocebo is a close relative that means "I will be harmful" & that contrasts with placebo, meaning "I shall please." People in medicine began using "placebo" for inert preparations prescribed solely for a patient's mental relief, & not for relieving a disorder - It describes a situation where a negative outcome occurs due to a belief that the intervention will cause harm. It is a sometimes forgotten phenomenon in the world of medicine safety}

Infrasound Has Been Linked By Researchers To People’s Claims Of Hauntings: Infrasound has recently been referred to as the fear frequency

The first scientist to discover this theory was a British engineer named Vic Tandy. He was working in a lab when he felt goosebumps and saw a strange gray blob out of the corner of his eye. While most people would freak out & think they were haunted, Tandy was a man of science, and was less than convinced. After some testing, he discovered that the lab’s extractor fan was running extremely close to 18.9hz, the frequency some now associate with fear. He claimed that after turning off the fan, he suddenly no longer felt so weirded out, like a strange weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Some scientists believe suggestibility still plays a strong role in how infrasound effects people, and that even then, it doesn’t affect everyone in the same way