In the stark landscape of California's Mojave Desert, it can be easy to acclimate to the scenery. For miles and miles, there's not much more than a lot of brown, a lot of rocky taupe, 180 degrees of predictably blue sky, and a splotchy canopy of prickly green Joshua tree puffs.
However, it's hard to miss the monolithic, optic white, UFO-look-a-like that rises triumphantly over the mangled silhouettes of desert flora as you pass by.
That would be the infamous Integraton. That would also be where I went with my boyfriend to hallucinate with sound.
Or, at that's what we've heard happens there. Many a So-Cal acquaintances of ours have gushed over the sound baths that happen inside its massive dome. But, while we're both far too skeptical to let a new age-y thing like that rile us up, we're in town, staying not two miles down the road. Boredom and the desire to prove our friends wrong lead us to it.
Pulling into the parking lot, we're greeted by the ever-so-California sight of a man with long, white Willie Nelson braids inspecting a table bearing piles of rocks and crystals. Nearby, a group of girls whose pastel hair and 90s revolution plaid skirts immediately disclose their Los Angeles heritage. They make their way to a "Hammock Village," enveloping themselves in the dangling pods which rock peacefully under the shade of a large almond tree. A middle-aged woman wearing the kind of flowing tunic that screams "Have a blessed day" drinks tap water from a well in the ground; it's rumored that the three subterranean rivers that intersect under this exact location produce a sort of holy meditation water that's as good for spirit cleansing as it is to combat the inevitable dehydration of this particular wilderness. Off in the not-so-distant distance, the dome of Integraton itself looms, its alien shape a suggestion that the mainstream doesn't quite flow here.
It's silent in the desert in general, but it's extra-silent here, as guests waiting for their sound bath speak in hushed tones and knowing head nods out of respect for a group of meditating deep breathers who sit tall on the gravely earth with their hands on their knees, patiently anticipating their turn at enlightenment.
At the Integraton, enlightenment isn't the expectation, but it's certainly a common result.
So is hallucination.
Integraton co-owner Joanne Karl laughs when I ask her about this.
"It's one of the most common experiences!" she says. "People see things — and feel things — in there all the time. It's usually colors and images that are meaningful to them. Some people see geometry, some people see faces … some people don't see anything at all. Instead they feel things, like emotions or new physical sensations. Or smell things. Or hear things. It's totally unique to to the person, but it's all part of the ride."
Because she tells me she's a retired cardiac nurse with a burning desire for scientific validity, I'm inclined to believe her.
"It's just the easiest science," she explains. "Sound, especially at the volume and frequency we have here, causes people to perceive things they're not consciously aware of."
The building itself has the niche honor of being the “only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the US.” It was built by author, inventor and UFO enthusiast George Van Tassel over the span of nearly 20 years — as rumor goes, he claimed to have received instructions for its creation from aliens. Originally, these aliens told him it was designed to act as a time machine; an anti-gravity chamber capable of transcending worlds and rejuvenating all who entered. Also, there could be no metal in the structure. So the wooden beams that hold up the ceiling do so by friction alone —nothing but Douglas Fir and concrete in there. These materials create a certain resonance, that, in combination with the "powerful geomagnetic forces" and "unique geometry" of the building, concentrate and amplify the earth’s magnetic field for intensive healing purposes.
However, Van Tassel died suddenly in 1978, before he was able to take it for a time-traveling test spin. According to the Integraton's website, all of Van Tassel’s building models mysteriously disappeared shortly after his death, and to this day, his FBI file is still classified.
Joanne and her sisters Nancy and Patty are the ones who purchased it afterwards, deciding to open it up to the public in the form of a "sound bath," a 60-minute sonic healing session that consists of 25 minutes of crystal quartz bowls played live, as well as recorded music, to "energize the chakras of the body, where sound is nutrition for the nervous system."
Guests can book private sound baths, or try a less private “pop-up sound bath,” which can hold up to 25 people and cost between $25 and $35, depending on the day.
Sound bath enthusiasts claim the experience can cause participants to experience strange, unexplained reactions like transcendental meditation, out-of-body sensations, visions and hallucinations, all which are supposedly intensified by the Integraton's placement over a "powerful geometric vortex."
As I step inside the first floor of the dome, I can instantly feel why.
Before I'm even instructed to take off my shoes and informed that snoring is strictly prohibited, I'm already overcome with a strange sense of zen. This strikes me, as prior to my arrival, I'd been suffering from a hysterically trivial, yet intense hypoglycemic meltdown. It's a long way of saying I was pissy, but there's something in there that thoroughly un-pisses me. My initial doubt turns to genuine interest.
We're asked to climb up a steep ladder to the second floor of the parabolic sound chamber. Upstairs, small beds adorned with carefully folded Mexican blankets lie in a circle underneath a tall, beamed wooden ceiling. In the center, there's an oculus. We're told that it's the most acoustically perfect part of this acoustically perfect building.
A sound bath guide whose name I didn't catch takes up position before a collection of quartz bowls, which are arranged in various sizes around him. Each one has a musical key, he explains. In turn, each key activates a different chakra. He announces he will be making them “sing” via the same technique used to make a wine glass hum — stroking its rim. He also elaborates on the dome's structure, explaining that it lies atop a geomagnetic anomaly. Also that the vibration of the quartz bowls mirrors the vibrational frequency of human energy, that which expands 55 feet outward from each of us.
“That isn’t woo-woo stuff," he says. “It’s just science.” I make a mental note to look that one up.
He begins to play the quartz bowls. The deep vibrational sound is loud; so loud that it eats up my surroundings, replacing the air and the light and the people around me with a molasses-like resonance. It sounds like monks ohm-ing, but in different keys. I feel the room tremble, but it's a good trembling, one that signifies a departure like the when the earth shakes at the monumental blast-off of a spaceship.
Immediately I'm at ease; not tired, but definitely not awake. A few seconds in, I'm deeply relaxed in a way I've never been able to reach without falling asleep, the soft pull of sinking tranquility making it impossible to grapple with the pressing thoughts or anxieties of the present. It's like what you try to do with mediation — clear and calm your mind — only you don't have to do anything. The sound just does it for you.
As the last flickers of consciousness alight my mind, I give into the sensation of enveloping calm the quartz tones seem to bring and sink in, much like if I was floating on water, then disappeared slowly beneath the surface, the last bits of dry skin diminishing with the pull of my body downwards into a state of utter peace.
Then I start see things. I'm not conscious enough to be surprised, or to realize that whatever skepticism I had would disappear rapidly once I awoke.
I see what looks like a wormhole. Its walls are poorly formed but I can tell that I'm traveling in a tunnel towards something outside of it. It looks like the fabled "light at the end of the tunnel," but instead of a blinding wash of light, the light only highlights the rim of the circular end of the tunnel.
I see a desert landscape. There's striking blue sky, and sage-green bushes, and the textured taupe of rocky sand. A red car door lies disembodied off to the right. The frame of my sight is rectangular. Parts of the landscape are obscured by swashes of black. Using my mind, I erase the black with a transparent circle that looks exactly like the Photoshop eraser tool. I laugh like an idiot, possibly aloud, that of all the possible things I could see, I'd see them through the lens of Photoshop. How current.
I see nothing, and experience what nothing looks like. It looks, and feels like nothing.
A rapid, buzzing tingle over-takes my right hand. I match it up to my left and a surprising amount of warmth radiates from between them. I place my hands over my chest and I'm overtaken with the immense sense of gratitude.
And then, just like that — it's over. The rustling of blankets and pressure of footsteps snaps me out of wherever I was back into consciousness.
Still tingling, I turn over to my boyfriend. His wide eyes and agape expression tells me he saw something too.
"I … I …" he struggles for words. "… Damn."
He's stunned. He's a more skeptical and logical person than I am, with the non-existent interest in metaphysical things to match. Yet, he saw even crazier things than I. He saw sacred geometry and pulsating lights and people and boobies and animals and pretty much everything that's a noun. He had structured, composed visions, ones he said were stronger and more real-feeling than the ones he'd had taking acid.
Even weirder, we both reported feeling aroused, although it was a very peculiar type of arousal. It happened during the period they played a quartz bowl which gives off G tones; supposedly the frequency of that note corresponds to the root chakra, the energetic home of the genitals. However, we didn't feel horny for something or someone … rather, it was more of an existential, spiritual arousal not connected to any one thing. It was pure in a way I've never experienced, taking place as warmth and vibration unadulterated by the x-rated context of conscious thought.
Needing to find out if this happened to anyone else, I blurt out "What did you see?" to the stranger on my right.
"Nothing," he says. "It was wonderful. I haven't had that much peace in a long time."
His wife is shocked.
"I saw my mother," she says, beaming. She looks like she just took a dose of high-grade MDMA then won the lottery.
Results may vary, it seems.
"It's all about your individual brain," Joanne explains to me afterwards. "The sound increases communication between the right and left hemispheres. The right brain is the part of us we're so often forced to repress as we go about our day-to-day life ('Put on a sweater,' 'What time's lunch?' 'How much do I owe on my car insurance?'), but it controls things like color, sound, images and feelings. In the sound bath, that part of it is allowed to come out because you're so deeply relaxed and not dealing with conscious survival, which is the domain of the left brain. Because everyone is wired differently, whatever you see or feel is an experience is internal to your brain."
Her assertion is actually something that's backed up in the scientific community. Varying frequencies of sound, researchers have found, can reliably influence your brain waves, and therefore your mood. These are called binaural beats.
As the LA Weekly reports for an investigation on the psychological effect of binaural beats, "Different frequencies enter the head through the right and left ears, meet in the middle of the brain (approximately), and create a new, third frequency vibration — the binaural beat. These synchronized brainwaves are associated with a variety of meditative and hypnogogic states."
Apparently, hallucinations, visions, extra-sensory perception and strange body sensations can all result from this newfound synchronicity between hemispheres. In research, however, there are more common results. A 2007 study found that binaural beats reduced anxiety, increased the perceived quality of life and decreased the brain's dopamine levels, explaining why they're a reliable treatment for certain types of addiction.
Joanne concedes these too are frequent effects of the sound bath.
Imagine these effects amplified in a place like the Integraton though; one that's "sonically perfect," "built over a geomagnetic vortex" and originally designed for time travel.
It's no wonder some people hallucinate.
"It's not a competition, though" Joanne warns. "Nobody's reaction to the sound bath is superior. Hallucinations aren't always good. It's all about what you need, right now."
Apparently, what I needed was to get to the nearest Photoshop, stat.
When we leave, we still feel like we're vibrating. We feel hyper-aware, like our senses are heightened. As we get into the car, the feeling doesn't dissipate — we feel relaxed, rejuvenated, peaceful and weightless hours into the night, a feeling I imagine would be similar to taking a small amount of shrooms and a Xanax, then getting a massage.
I'm not sure that I'd say the experience is cause for me to delete my acid dealer's phone number from my contact list but … I can also say that my friends were right. It was a singular, wholly surprising experience that's caused both my boyfriend and I to think about it days after so, you know what? If Killa Mike is out of town, I'm headed to the Integatron.
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