MindplaceKasina - Light & Sound Meditation Aid System

I was skeptical of Kasina and these pseudo-science technologies. I bought the device out of pure desperation in hope that it may be able to ease my daily headaches or provide a getaway. I have had a steady headache every moment of my life, it only waxes and wains in severity but never comes to a complete stop. I hoped that this would be a shortcut to help with/use in conjunction with biofeedback and meditation. I would say that I was 90% certain that I would be returning the device within the first two weeks but figured that trying it couldn't hurt anything.After the first few sessions, I felt some tension lift out of the back of my head, close to my brain stem. The first weekend I could not help but marvel at this and couldn't help but be excited at the change. I assumed it was simply getting at my tension or at something deeper. It came with the price of an increase in pain from my pulsating headache. After 3 days, the different headache subsided. The feeling in the base of my brain stem is still the same. Very likely may have been placebo. Either way, I really don't care and was quite happy with the very minor relief.Exploring sessions is really fascinating. I've been using the device for 3 weeks now and while I don't think it's having a profound effect on my headaches, the experiences each session brings is staggering and varies each time. At first, seeing images was hard. I would strain and try to alter how tightly my eyelids were closed to "see" them clearer. It has become much easier as I've learned to let go and enjoy the session. Some sessions make my whole body vibrate, some just make my hands and feet warm and tingly(which is awesome as I have issues keeping my feet warm at night which is often linked to migraines). It just so happens that the end of the "sleep" session never fails at warming my feet up and usually helps me rest at night(consistent sleep schedule is really important to managing how bad my migraines get). Some sessions cause areas of my brain to tingle or flex for a lack of a better word. I've especially experienced it in my frontal lobe. It's a really cool sensation although a tad scary. I'll also note that sometimes I really need to turn down the brightness or take off the glasses immediately. It just depends on how sensitive to light I am at the time I'm doing a session(migraines). Overall though, this thing does provide new experiences given that you give it a fair shot.Also cool things of note: I've way more lucid dreams in the last 3 weeks. I've had a handful over my life, but never this many in such a small window. These started with a terrifying experience of waking up to sleep paralysis and insanely intense vibrations in my head. After having a whole night of this continually happening, I learned to calm myself during this state instead of freaking out which led to lucid dreams which I very much enjoy now.It comes with a ton of sessions, something that wasn't very clear to me upon purchase. There are sessions for meditating, relaxing, sleeping/dreaming, waking up/energizing, and a number of frequency sessions along the same lines that I believe come with another mindplace device or used to. There is also a good forum community where one can download user created sessions, get more ideas on how to fully take advantage of kasina, and or learn how to create their own sessions. Overall, I've only scratched the service.The color organ is also an awesome feature. You can listen to your own musicThe battery life is great. Zero complaints in this department.The 4GB hard drive is really small in my opinion, although they are very cheap to upgrade. I just don't like having to upgrade something in a $350 ipod-like device. 16 or 32 would be much more appropriate IMO.All cables that you would need/want are included which is awesome. Even a stereo to stereo cable is included to stream music from your mp3 player/cell phone through your kasina to use in conjunction with other tracks or color organ. They did a good job in this department.Overall, this is a great device. I'd say that if you have a neurological disorder that you give it a try! Worst case scenario is that you return it if it doesn't work.

First, let me say that I do not work for MindPlace nor am I writing this quick little review with any ulterior motive. I would just like others to know what I thought of it and I would like the company to know my reaction to it. I should also mention that I own a Proteus and a Procyon so my thoughts are based on my comparison to those previous releases. With that said, the Kasina is by far the best AVS ever made and I love it!The new session format dubbed Spectra-strobe is phenomenal! The first thing you notice is the awesome soundtrack with each session, no longer do I have to run my mp3 player into the aux port to add atmospheric music in the background (this is something I did with both the Proteus and the Procyon). The music that is added to the sessions really sounds professional. I must admit I was scared it was going to sound real cheesy; that is to say like bad Casio keyboard new age music. I was really impressed and my expectations were blown away. I have not listened to every single one yet but I have listened to several and they all sound out-standing. Like previous models the sessions have different categories from meditation to mind art. I am not sure the total number but it seemed around 50. Some of the sessions that I really enjoyed so far are Meditate, Forest and River, A Starlit Night, Patternity, Trainspot and Center. I swear the Mind Art flicker is highly Hallucinogenic, patterns just roll in and out of one another, you don't even need a hit of acid.The addition of the Sirius sessions is like getting a huge bonus thrown in. I had never used those sessions and found them to be very entrancing and I loved being able to change the color theme while using them. I think there are around 22 of those in the KBS folder.Another great gift are the free audio-strobes thrown in. I have not tried them yet but I am sure they are awesome. I have actually used tons of audio strobes on my Proteus and Procyon. Some are really good like the Tibetan one and some are well a little cheesy. I hope to see more of these available in the future. Attention musicians, it's time to start releasing your music in audio-strobe or spectra-strobe format especially in a time period when people only steal music off the internet it would be smart to offer something extra that could get people back into buying music.Last I would like to mention the color organ function. This was a feature I really wanted to see on the next device that you guys put out and I am very glad to see it here. I experimented with it for about 20 minutes. My first impression is that it works good to great for electronic and industrial music like Nine Inch Nails but was horrible for extreme heavy metal music. When I used it I ran my mp3 player into the Kasina Aux port and found that the volume of my mp3 player effected the performance. I wonder if that will be different when I load tracks onto the actual SD card. Further investigation of this feature is needed.Review update on the color organ: I loaded songs onto the SD card and they worked much better in color organ mode then running an external mp3 player into the device. As for musical styles, it seems to work best with electronic music; Nine Inch Nails song Closer creates a really cool light show.Overall impression. I love it! It is better then all previous models I have used and I could not say enough good things about it! At the moment I can not comment on the build quality as I have only owned it for a few days, I am hoping it will last a long time.

I first got the Mindplace Proteus like a year ago, I really enjoyed it and was able to reach meditative states much quicker and for the price it was pretty good. I saw this one before but after seeing the price backed away, however after experiencing the proteus for a while I decided to finally get this one more as a "yolo" move.The device is quite an improvement, first off the interface is great and easy to use, the fact that you can store audio tracks on it is great and has the color organ which is nice. One thing I liked to do on the proteus was put on a music track and listen to it over the proteus track, I thought you would be able to do the same thing from the SD card but I guess you still have to go through aux (or at least I haven't found a way).The tracks on the Kasina are a lot more musical, rather than constant binural beats i was used to on the proteus. The lights are simply amazing so vibrant and bright really lifts you up and feels like a true audio strobe.This is however quite expensive and although its much more fancy in terms of music and lights i am hesitant to say it will increase your meditation dramatically, but it is enjoyable I guess. If you have the money I would say its definitely a good investment for life as you will have this thing for a very long time, but if you cant spare 350 or are new to the field and just want to try it out, the Proteus is still an excellent device i think its like 160.http://www.amazon.com/MindPlace-Proteus-Light-Meditation-Machine/dp/B00061URFG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1447017162&sr=8-3&keywords=mindplace