In September of 2007 I first encountered a wondrously astounding
fractal image revealing the visuals of an EEG technology called BrainPaint.
I was so inspired I placed this image on my manifestation wall.
Well, to my amazement on Winter Solstice last week I received the
glorious gift to meet Bill Scott, founder of BrainPaint.
Bill is an exceptionally marvelous, loving and
passionate human being.

In February I will be studying, learning and experiencing this technology
with Bill personally. Upon this time I will post another article revealing
what I imagine to be extraordinarily inspiring revelations!

BrainPaint….

In 1975 a mathematician,
Benoît B. Mandelbrot, coined the term “fractal”
and is best known as the “father of fractal geometry”.

Benoit used a computer to plot images of fractals called Julia sets
from the formula z² – μ, which was based on the previous
work by Gaston Julia and Pierre Fatou.

He emphasized the use of fractals as realistic and useful models of
many phenomena in the real world. Natural fractals include the shapes
of mountains, coastlines and river basins; the structure of plants,
blood vessels and lungs; the clustering of galaxies. Man-made fractals
include stock market prices but also music, painting and architecture.
Far from being unnatural, Mandelbrot held the view that fractals were,
in many ways, more intuitive and natural than the artificially
smooth objects of traditional geometry.

“Clouds are not Spheres,
Mountains are not Cones,
Coastlines are not Circles,
and Bark is not Smooth,
nor does Lightning travel
in a straight line.”

– B.Mandelbrot, introduction to The Fractal Geometry of Nature

This last quote best illustrates Bill Scott’s motivation to find a medium
that could be used to deliver feedback on the complexity of a person’s EEG.
Up until BrainPaint, most neurofeedback systems used linear games such
as those reminiscent of the 1980s. These games only provide feedback
on the linear components of the EEG – frequency (pitch) and amplitude (volume).
This is akin to using a cone to illustrate a mountain. Bill wanted to provide
his clients with feedback on all the textures and
information from their brainwaves.

There was another observation that had been gnawing at Bill.
When he analyzed data from his colleagues and his own research on amplitude
and frequency data, he found insignificant changes in these variables, even
after there were noteworthy and predictable improvements in brain function
as measured by fMRIs, response time to light or sound, and improvements
in continuous performance tests. On the occasions when the slower frequencies
of delta, theta and alpha were abnormally high or low they did appear to
regress to the mean, however, it bore no direct relationship to training direction.
Bill postulates that when the brain is given feedback about its states using
amplitude and frequency the brain in turn extracts information about the
complex shapes of these waveforms in order to develop improved control.
It was as if when the brain is fed information using only consonants it
figures out the meaning by interpolating the missing vowels.
What if we gave feedback to the brain using consonants
and vowels along with punctuation?

Since games are linear in nature, Bill could not use these traditional
methods for providing information on the complex nature of the brain.
Therefore, he chose fractals – mathematical graphs or visual representations
of chaos theory. After all, the brain is a complex system. Bill needed to
couple fractal images with our neurophysiology in order to provide
non-linear feedback on the non-linear aspects of our brainwaves.

Bill first used Fractint to generate his early mathematical formulas,
which allowed him to explore the fractal dimensions of the EEG.
This program proved to be too slow for the animation
needed during an EEG biofeedback session.

Scott Draves then created the Fractal Flame algorithm, which was innovative
in that it mapped out the non-linear functions of fractals, in addition to,
the log-density display and structural coloring. This algorithm exposed
and preserved much more information than previous
incarnations of fractal generators.

Then Mark Townsend created Apophysis, which made Draves’ Fractal Flame
more user-friendly allowing users to create static images that are
manually manipulated to created new static images.

Bill watched all these advancements in fractal technology; however, he
was still far away from a vision he had of his dream EEG biofeedback system.
He had one obstacle left and began developing his own software that would
allow brainwaves to dynamically manipulate elements. If we go back to
our earlier analogy, Scott Draves took a snapshot of the ocean and
then Bill added the wind, gravity, currents and forces that move the tide.
The nature of complex systems is that they are infinitely sensitive to
influence, and this is what Bill needed to capture. It is this life force
that makes up the power of our brain, and Bill married these
neurological influences to a mathematical universe.

BrainPaint has stayed true to traditional forms of neurofeedback incorporating
a game derived from the linear variables of amplitude and frequency.
Layered upon this already proven delivery system, BrainPaint has
added feedback on non-linear data extracted from the morphology
of the EEG. This feedback is represented in the beautiful fractal images.
UCLA Professor Lobsang Rapgay is currently conducting a study on
the efficacy of the BrainPaint system as compared to
tradition neurofeedback for ADHD symptoms.

“I wonder whether fractal images
are not touching the very structure of our brains.
Is there a clue in the infinitely regressing character
of such images that illuminates our perception of art?
Could it be that a fractal image is of such extraordinary
richness, it is bound to resonate with our neuronal
circuits and stimulate the pleasure
I infer we all feel.”

– Professor Peter W. Atkins, Lincoln College, Oxford University,
“Art as Science,” The Daily Telegraph

Dalkoiya B. Batchelor
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