Subjective Aspects of Alpha Enhancement

Abstract

SummaryEarly reports on enhancing occipital alpha through feedback noted that subjects reported the experience as being pleasant and relaxing. This paper reports the subjective experiences of 140 subjects who participated in four studies which examined the alpha enhancement phenomenon. Under both eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions, approximately 50 per cent of the subjects reported that alpha enhancement was ‘pleasant’ and 50 per cent ‘unpleasant/neutral’. With eyes-open training conditions, about half the subjects stated that the experience was ‘relaxing’ and the other half ‘not relaxing’. During eyes-closed training, 63 per cent of the subjects noted that enhancing alpha was ‘relaxing’, while 37 per cent reported that the experience was ‘not relaxing’. However, in the last case the circular relationship between increased alpha and deep relaxation may obtain.