Can someone explain how binaural beats work, and where I can download one?
And for those who know about Lucid Quest, do you know when you will be able to download them from there?
EDIT: 
sorry mods, i think this should be in “shortcuts to lucidity”
Binaural beats arise from having two or more slightly different pure tones in each ear. The brain works its magic and combines the tones to create a beat, if you’re a musician you’ll recognize beats from tuning your strings if not read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_%28acoustics%29.
If I understand correctly your brain creates binaural beats everyday without you being aware of it, it’s how you locate objects in space by sound. Sound waves being slightly out of phase when they reach one ear first or frequency shifted if the source is moving.
There are some who contend that a prolonged exposure to binaural beats, from headphones, can effect brainwaves. The idea being that the brain will resonate with the beat. There’s a pretty good sound generator that you can download for free from https://sbagen.sourceforge.net/
I hope this helps.
Do the beats actually sound like “beats”? I mean, like “boom… boom… boom…”.
Thanks Illusion
Nope, they sound like a tone getting louder, quieter, louder, quieter etc. But if you only hear each tone in different ears, you feel beating in your mind. You can also make them yourself with sound editing programs like Audacity (freeware/GPL) I tried once it sounds quite strange.
Cid - Acustic beats aren’t “beats” like we say in everyday speech. The’re an interference pattern, like ripples in a pond when you drop two stones in different places. Peaks and troughs that interfere with each other. You perceive them like Inch said, like a pulsing in the volume and pitch. The closer the tones the more subtle the pulsing. When the two tones match they “sing”: constructivly interfere perfectly. The cool thing about binaual beats are that they exist only in your brain! Make sure you use headphones, you have to sit really still in just the right spot with speakers.
Do the beats work?
I downloaded your link above Illusion, and I hear the same sound come out of both of my earphones. Also I don’t seem to be hearing the pulsing - does that mean I’m special? 
LOL! 
Snape try this command “sbagen -i 90+7.5/2.00” you should hear the beats. Makesure you use headphones and that the tone is in the range that the headphones can reproduce. If you’re unsure try listening with just one ear at a time. You’ll be sure to notice something, that something is the beat.
Redfin - I’m not sure that the beats accually do anything more than create a relaxing sound. There’s a project called open eeg https://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/index.html which has infomation on how to build an eeg to measure brainwaves. I don’t have enough free resources, time or money, to put into it but you might want to take a look. Ebay has medical eeg machines up for bid, but they’re in the $500 to $4000 range.
Thanks Illusion, I’ll try that when I get home tonight.
That’s just plain 
scary. I don’t think I’d be hooking this homemade device up to my own head, especially not if I made it myself! (That’d be just asking for trouble 
)
This is not a project for the uninitialted. If you read the docs and have a pretty good understanding of electronics you’ll see that the electrodes that you put on your head are passive, they also recomend that you use commercial electrodes. That just means there’s no input current. Passive electrodes requre really good amplifiers inorder to be of any use as the inducted signal is just above background.
I downloaded Brainwave Generator. I listened to a file that is supposed to induce sleep, and I think it worked. I usually take a long time to fall asleep, but i went to bed listening to this on my mp3 player and before i knew it i was awoken by the next song on the playlist. But maybe it was just a coincidence
If I listen to delta/theta waves while being awake, like during the day, when I sit in front of my computer, does it help to shorten the period required to enter REM sleep? I’m looking to make my WILDing easier.
Good question, max…