9BC Mini Episode: Tapping Into Your Brain with Patrick Porter, Ph.D. : 1059

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey, formerly Bulletproof Radio. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today's a mini episode where I'm going to bring to you an expert in training your brain and making it work better. I don't really like the name brain fitness, but I think that's what the industry is doing. I like brain hacking, brain upgrading, brain enhancing, consciousness expanding, whatever you want to call it. I guess you could call it fitness, if that's all you want. It's none other than Dr. Patrick Porter, who's a friend, a supporter of the biohacking conference. And this is a mini episode because Dr. Porter is going to be speaking on this topic and many others at the biohacking conference June 22nd in Orlando, Florida through the 24th. This is going to be our biggest and best conference yet. So I want you to get a little taste of what happens when you go. So, Dr. Porter, my friend, welcome back to the show.

Oh, thanks for having me. And I really like Brain Hack too, but, you know, the little old ladies we work with don't like that one, so. So that's the key. Here's that.

But you work with a really broad variety of people now. And when I say you work with them, you make the Braintap, which is an amazing device. I had my first great grandfather of this thing that used flashing lights and sounds on CD players and stuff way back in the 90s. But it was of marginal use and it would change your brain state, but we didn't have all the science for it. And then you come along with Braintap, like, wow, this is an integrated device. You've got LED lights that are doing actually, like acupressure points, activating them with LEDs over the ears and the sounds and the lights. And people are reporting just crazy results in the biohacking community. And certainly I've seen how powerful Braintap is. And you've got 2,000 programs, including ones I've recorded for people on there. So what'd you get into brain fitness?

Well, at the time, we didn't know about brain fitness or even brain hacking, of course. My dad was a Silva instructor, one of the first in the country. So when you grow up with Silva, you learn to meditate to devices. And they had something called the Silva sound, which I'm sure you're familiar with. It's a weird sound that we would now call isochronic tone, and we would learn to go to level. So this is kind of an outgrowth. I was blessed to meet the people who ran a company called Light and Sound Research. And we created the MC Square, which is probably the one that you used, where we started with cassettes and then went to CDs and then went to downloadable tracks. And now it's easy for us. No more warehouses. We just do it with an app, which is much easier.

Well, there's still a warehouse because you sell the. The brain tap, the whole headset thing. But you can use the app just with the sounds and the phone. But I really think it works a lot better when you have the light sound goggles built into the Braintap device. Right?

Yeah. I mean, that's the real hack, because sound has been around for a long time, and we know people like the Monroe Institute and people like that have been doing binaural beats. So we were able to put that all together with binaural beats, isochronic tones and frequency response, but then mirror that with lights. It's kind of like optical binaurals, if you will, or optinoral or something. We need to come up with a term for it because we're doing the same thing with light. And, you know, the hack, of course, is how. How can we reset that circadian rhythm and get the brain to energize with all that mitochondria? How do we get those. That ATP into the brain as quickly as possible?

I like that perspective, and you do feel a really big brain boost. And what I'm finding, and one of the themes of the biohacking conference, is that there's going to be a whole bunch of AI that comes out where you have so much data from Braintap and we have EEG data like the stuff from 40 years of Zen, and we're going to be able to dial in more and more on what makes our brains do things that we don't know how to see. And it's up to us to take control of our own brains, because otherwise, honestly, Facebook's going to do it. And I don't think that's a future that I want.

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Going back to the early 2000s when I was in business school at Wharton, we had a statistics project and I had an EEG machine. I've been an early guy in that field and so I told my classmates, hey, let's do neuromarketing. Let's measure brainwaves when people look at these things and find out statistical stuff and it was like crossed eyeballs. What? What are you talking about? And you know, maybe 10 years later there's actually neuromarketing agencies that Will look at what is your brand due to someone's brain that they can't tell. And you can see that Coca Cola lights you up better than Pepsi. So I don't want them, or even worse, a government or, I don't know, a regulatory agency that tells you to do stuff that's against your own interests and then tricks you into doing it. I don't want those people to have any access to my consciousness. I want to be the guy in charge. How does Braintap put you more in charge of yourself? Like, walk me through that.

Yeah, I think we live in an energy economy, and that's one of the big things about biohacking. When you have high energy and you're kind of. If you want to call that consciousness, because it relates. When you have high energy, high consciousness, it's almost like you have Teflon. It just bounces off you. You basically can see the bullshit before it arrives because you know that doesn't make sense. And a lot of people are so tired, their brain is so tired because of stress. And one of the worst things we can do, the worst negative hack for the brain, is fear. So. And we all know there's a lot of, I think you call it fear porn that's out there because that's what they're pedaling. And that shuts down the brain. So what we do is we liberate that. I believe we live in a field of infinite possibilities, but we don't have the energy to process it. When you start eating well, moving, and using these kind of things to operate the brain at higher levels, you get access to this other dimension, really, that other people don't see. And you think, why don't you see this? And it's because they are. They're basically beaten down to the point they can't think.

Wow, that's about as close to the reason I named it Danger Coffee as you can think of. You can have a world full of people who are beaten down and they're kind of at peace because there's just. They're too tired and controlled and afraid, and then there's peace, but it's horrible peace. It's like the peace of the dead. And then you have the other kind of piece where everyone's at full power and not beaten down. And then we just choose to be kind because that's actually our core nature. Do you think I'm right about that? Is that our core nature? Or are humans just assholes?

No, no, I think. I think that people who are insecure like Emotionally. As a psychologist, I've seen it over the years. People who are physically abusive are emotionally stunted. People who are emotionally abusive are physically stunted. They kind of offset people who are balanced. I mean, I don't care if somebody does better than me. In fact, I'm going to cheer them on, you know, because we want to change the world, you know, And I do believe that people who look at world with a lack mentality, they have an issue within themselves. There's no lack here. We have. There's so many people to help and the problem is we have to get enough people to make that quantum leap. Because if not, like you said, we are being hacked right now in a negative way. People are. They don't know what to think. They turn on the news and they figure out what to think. That's not a good source. When everybody's telling you the same thing across all platforms and it's not good for you.

It's not.

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So if I wanted to be unprogrammable, which of the tracks on the Braintap app would I start with? I want to firewall against douchebags trying to control my brain.

Well, I think yours. Even with the nervous system, people don't realize their nervous system is shut down. That's why I picked that one to help that we created first. Because people don't realize that when you're in this state of dullness and stress, you don't ever turn on that thriving brain. If you have a thriving brain, you're either in survivor mode or you're in thriving mode. You can't be in both. So once you get in thriving mode. Yeah, you could throttle down and reboot, you know, like do a cold plunge or do a sauna or do a power nap, whatever you want to do. But if you're already exhausted and you try to do one of those things I tell people, think about your children when they go, oh, they're too tired to sleep. That's what's happening to two thirds of the world. They're not sleeping, so they're not incubating their superpowers. They don't have the energy in the brain. And basically they're just going like, like a ring through their nose. And they're saying this takes the least amount of effort. So I'm just going to do it because it takes energy to think, you know, And I think we're, we're at a pandemic of people who are non thinkers. We have a lot of followers and not a lot of leaders. So there's ones like eliminate negativity. You know, the Average person thinks 80 thoughts a day and 60,000 are negative. So we have to catch our thoughts before they catch us, you know?

You mean 80,000, it must be 80,000. 80 positive thoughts and 60,000 negative thoughts. That means you have to be in government.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. 80,000 thoughts a day and 60,000 are negative. And these are just thoughts. And we have words, we have a loop, tape loop. So the other thing is we have to look at our life. If there's a problem, there's a solution. If there's a solution, there could be Problems and people that think, think through these things. We call it through time thinking instead of in time thinking. All the people that have addictions, those are in time thinkers. They just want the immediate gratification, the immediate joy. And they don't realize that, hey, I'm going to do this today. Not for, not for the long term, really. It's going to benefit us in the long term, but we get the benefit today. You know, you get those neurotransmitters and all those wonderful neurochemicals the brain creates by being in charge. There's different neurochemicals the brain creates when you're just a follower. You know, there's a reason why doctors don't get as sick as the people they're treating. Because they believe they're above the illness. You know, they call it psychosomatic. You know, so things like that.

Very interesting. You're coming out of retirement, not the early retired, but you haven't done any live brain trainings in six years and you're doing your first one at, at the biohacking conference in Orlando. So guys, if you like BrainTap, you like Dr. Porter's work, you should come and hear him live. I'm actually really excited about this thing. Why did you decide to do a live thing now?

Well, a lot of people think. All I know about is this light, sound and vibration thing. But I ran the world's largest self help franchise for almost 27 years. We help people overcome a lot of things. And I have some really cool, what we'll call brain hacks, psychological hacks, really, because, like, how do you get rid of fear instantly? How do you get instantaneous responses? How do you make yourself unprogrammable? I'm actually going to teach them that. Because what you, you have to be ready when. Mike Tyson said everybody has a plan till they get hit. The problem is no one thinks they're going to get hit. They do all these things, they think they're immortal. Nobody is immortal if you don't plan for it. And you got to put all the contingencies in place. If I'm going to swim across the ocean, I better have enough supplies to get me there before I start that journey. And a lot of people don't know what to think. So they're waiting to. They, like I said before, they don't have a plan in place for the day. You know, we get what we rehearse in our life, not what we intend. So all of that goes into planning, but we have to make it almost unconscious. It can't be a conscious thing because if we're consciously doing it, you know, that's too much work. But that's why people say habits. But habits aren't formed over time. Habits are formed at the right situation. When the right thought gets put into the brain, a constellation of new activities happen in the neural network, and your whole brain rewires. So wouldn't it be interesting to find that and reprogram your fear into power? That's what I'm going to teach people. That's the main crust of what I'm going to teach them.

Okay. It's going to be powerful. And what I've always looked to do at the biohacking conference, since our first one almost. It was 10 years ago with 100 people at a bar in San Francisco. I wanted to create experiences where you could actually not just learn about something because frankly, you can do that on the show, on YouTube, to read my books, there's an endless amount of information to learn for free. Like more than a lifetime's worth of learning for free. So it's my job to curate worthy technologies and worthy people so that if you're going to spend three days, you get to have a community, you get to play and have fun, you get to touch the tech, and you get to learn from people who are already vetted. So, like, oh, that was high value learning versus low value learning versus someone took over your brain and you doom scrolled for a while, which is another option. So what I think is going to happen when people go to your session at the conference is they're just going to get a meaningful upgrade, which is the whole point. So, guys, I want you to do two things. If you're enjoying this little mini episode, check out Braintap, because this is a meaningful way to get more results per minute of meditation. In fact, if you read Smarter, not Harder, my newest book, there's a section on hacking meditation, hacking spirituality. How do you get there faster? Because you can spend your whole life meditating in a cave, eating gruel. It's just not a very high return on investment. If there's a better way. So maybe get a brain tab. The other thing I want you to do is go to biohackingconference.com and pick up your ticket while you still can. We've sold out of preferred tickets. I would like to offer more. There's just not space for that. We're looking at almost 200,000 square feet somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 people. And there are going to be multiple evening parties Full on dance parties, DJs, everything like that. This is a community of the most fun people you've ever been with. Everyone there is working on themselves and the world around them to improve everything at the same time. And it's working. So you see a lot of bright eyes, you see big smiles. There's a big dating event run by a dating coach named Christina Weber, who ran it last year. There's going to be just an incredible variety of ways for you to make friends and for you to sit in Dr. Porter's class and meditate as he's leading a live brain training in a new way. And turn to your left, and turn to your right and be like, these are cool people. These are people I want to hang with. And that's what it's there for. It's for community, which is one of the most important things you can do. So, Patrick, thanks for coming on for this little mini episode. Talking a little bit about what you're doing and what you're going to do. And guys, you want to learn from a master? Here he is.

Yeah, just an ending. If I. If I wasn't going there as a vendor, I would be going there as a person because I learned so much at this event. I can't encourage enough. If you're a brain tapper out there, you need to be there because the brain tap's not the end of it all. There's a lot more and you get to play with it. Just the experience in the tech hall is worth the price of admission.

Yeah.

So come on out and join us.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

The Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties and about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media, A Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully, read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or seek your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to here in this podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.