Tripping Light Fantastic, She Picks Up Good Vibrations

Under ideal circumstances, I would be lying in a dark room, alone, my arms resting gently at my side, my legs relaxed, my mind transporting me deeper, deeper, down a slow, very slow, escalator toward the core of my creativity.

Then I could dictate this column from the wellspring beyond consciousness. My brain would have weeded out all those up-tight beta brain frequencies and I would be drifting through the alpha level, headed toward theta. My ideas would be so clear, so enlightened, they would jump off the pages of this newspaper.

But now I am sitting at this computer, bolt upright. The phone keeps ringing, these fluorescent lights have turned my skin a sickly green and I’m thinking about all the Christmas shopping I still have to do. Beta, beta, beta.

I am stressed out .

But the other day, I saw the lights.

These lights were red and pulsing, flashing, wavy, psychedelic, consciousness-altering: really neat. They were wired to the inside of a pair of dark glasses, Blues Brothers cool, which were connected to a machine, a mind machine: the Inner Quest.

I put on the glasses and plugged in the earphones, through which sounds, weird, computer-ish sounds, spoke directly to my subconscious. Then I tuned out, and beyond.

All of this is why I called Wilbur (Rob) Robinson, inventor of the Inner Quest, in the first place.

I had read about a new place called the New York Mind Fitness Center, just two blocks off Wall Street, where hassled and harried business types are popping in for instant meditation sessions on the Inner Quest, a light- and sound-emitting machine. A 30-minute brain tuneup there will run you $20.

I thought since Orange County seems to be a haven for New Age-New Craze types (have you picked up your Berlin Wall stocking stuffers yet?) surely there had to be a mind spa nearby.

Well, there isn’t. As far as I can tell, the closest is a place called Altered States in West Hollywood, where co-owner Jeff Labno says people come to use a machine similar to the Inner Quest for $30 an hour. If you get tired of the machine, he says, you can try the flotation tank for the same price.

Anyway, Robinson, who is also president of Psych-Research Inc. in Little Rock, Ark., must have had what he calls a “breakthrough experience” while talking to me. (He says he has had several of these after using his machine.)

He gets the idea that I would be a sucker for the Inner Quest. The next day, the three-pound portable model--a black box with built-in tape player, glasses and headset--arrives in the mail.

I think Robinson, the psychologist-cum-businessman, was right, or maybe he just hypnotized me over the phone. He has one of those voices, slow and clear, deep, almost trance-inducing.

It was Robinson’s voice, in fact, that was on the first tape I popped into the Inner Quest, the one called “Enhancing Creativity.”

Robinson told me that I should imagine myself gliding downward on this escalator in some kind of New Age mall. It was supposed to be open, light-filled, with plenty of green foliage.

I think it was all of those things, although I don’t remember it too clearly because my theta must have taken over. I got so relaxed I nearly fell asleep.

For my second try a few days later, I used one of my own tapes as per a suggestion in the instruction booklet. The music was Paco de Lucia playing Spanish guitar and the Inner Quest program was the 36-minute “High Creativity” program.

This program, the booklet explains, is all “left/right expansive mode for greater hemispheric crosstalk. Good for problem solving and creative thinking. Range: 25Hz. to 5Hz.”

All this lingo supposedly comes from Robinson’s research with biofeedback and electroencephalography, or EEG, equipment. He says that when the mind is most receptive, certain dominant frequencies are present. So the Inner Quest reportedly speaks these same frequencies back to the brain, guiding it to a certain level.

Well, who can tell about that? All I know is I pushed a button and off I went on a drug-free mind trip. Funny what the brain can conjure up given with a little hemispheric crosstalk.

The red lights became white, blue, yellow and I can’t remember what else. Patterns emerged, disappeared and mutated. The “white noise” lapped against me, gently, soothing.

And then it was done. I felt good, Zen-like, sort of like Shirley MacLaine must have felt before people started making all those jokes about her.

When I got back to the office I gave Robinson another call. He tells me about all the people who are using the Inner Quest, which retails for $495 to $595 for the portable model and has about 12 direct competitors.

Robinson says that, what with Christmas and all, he’s been so busy selling the things that lately he’s only had time for about three brain tuneups a week.

Which reminds me, all that shopping I still have to do. Christmas . I can feel the stress mounting now. Good thing I’m taking a week off. I feel the need for a brain tuneup.

Happy Holidays.