How Sound Helps Us Destress | Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
A conversation on how sound healing works by restoring homeostasis—the balanced state where the body can heal, which modern chronic stress prevents by keeping our nervous system locked in survival mode.
When Dr. Jeffrey Thompson considers how to communicate with an alien civilization, he turns to sound—a language shaped by mathematics, music theory, and the physics of octaves, harmonics, and overtones. This perspective forms the basis of his clinical sound healing and neuroacoustic therapy work, demonstrating how precisely tuned frequencies can promote brainwave entrainment, reduce stress, support nervous system reset, and restore balance through practices that echo across every human culture.
Baptized in Sound
The profound effectiveness of sound healing begins in the womb. Between 16 and 24 weeks of gestation, all five senses come online, but the fetus floats in darkness with nose and mouth filled with fluid. Only sound and vibration operate at full capacity.
"Sound travels through water five times better than it does through air," Thompson explains. The skin—our largest sensory organ—contains billions of specialized sensors that process vibrations from 0.3 to 500 Hertz. These signals travel through spinal nerve tracts five times larger than any other sense, leading directly to the brain's center. For nine months, we experience only sound and vibration. "Even if you're deaf and can't hear with your ears, amazing things happen by exposing you to vibrational frequencies through your skin."
-
MAGICademy Podcast (00:00)
Every atom in your body was once inside of an exploding star. Every proton in every atom in your body are the oldest particles in the universe. Your body gets 99.9999 % space. The universal language is mathematics. And the math that governs the universe is the same math that governs music theory. Octaves, harmonics, overtones. We lose...
the fact that we are magical beings in an infinite universe on the greatest journey of all time.
Jiani (00:32)
Welcome to MAGICademy podcast. Today with us is Dr. Jeffrey Thompson. He is the director of Neuroacoustic Center for Research.
And he is also a musician, a song composer.
And today our conversation will
explore
the power of sound frequency can come together and help us to heal, restore,
beep, beep. In front of you lands a spaceship, out walks a very friendly alien. If you were to use one word or one sound or one movement,
to introduce yourself, what would that be?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (01:26)
Well, the universal language is mathematics. And the math that governs the universe is the same math that governs music theory.
octaves, harmonics, overtones. So I probably would just do some kind of an ohm chant. Some kind of a sound. My, you know, your voice has got, you know, harmonics and overtones. Your voice sounds like you because of the harmonics and overtones that spin out from.
the tissue mass of your vocal cords, right? And we can analyze that in a recording studio. I mean, I'm sitting in my recording studio right now. I don't have a living room. I've got a recording studio. So so I could take you singing an ohm sound and I could do a spectral analysis of your voice on my computer screen and see all the harmonics and overtones that makes your voice sound like you.
Jiani (01:57)
you
you
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (02:21)
As a matter of fact, it's called a voice print. That's how the government can tell who's on a cell phone from a satellite voice print analysis. It's a fingerprint of your vocal harmonics, but it's not just in your vocal cords. This is in all the tissues of your body. It's just we can blow wind across your vocal cords and analyze it there. But the same harmonic structures are in all your tissues. So if I just did an own chant to some alien,
Jiani (02:34)
vocal.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (02:49)
I'm broadcasting an essential something about me and impacting them with sound waves. And it would be an interesting thing to see what happens back.
Jiani (02:49)
⁓
And then the ohm sound
is one of the peaceful tone you can ever say. It's very whole rounded and peaceful and calm sound you can make.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (03:12)
It's yeah, it's
it's really a it's like opening your mouth all the way all the way down to so it's ah---
And that covers all the sounds. Well, it covers all the vowels ending in a consonant. Vowel is all the sounds that you make without touching your lips or tongue or teeth together. Your mouth is open and all you're doing is shaping your mouth and shaping the sound that's coming out. And since breath blowing across vocal cords is
what makes the sound and breath is closely associated with emotions, then the most emotional sounds you can make are vowels. And once you touch lips together or touch your tongue to your teeth or the roof of your mouth or any of the other things that you do, those are mental constructions. And that's why in numerology, vowels equal your emotions and consonants equals your mind.
So really you're going, ahhhh--- ⁓ is this emotional thing. The most emotional vowel is ahhhh--- But the whole thing of going, you're closing the mouth down and closing it down and closing it down until it hits the lips touching together and grounding you out.
Jiani (04:17)
⁓
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (04:27)
and so somebody said, well, how do you spell that? I don't know. ⁓ and maybe. But that's not right. It's not. it's all.
Jiani (04:36)
A -O ⁓
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (04:38)
A-H-O-O-M or something like that.
Jiani (04:40)
A
I think that
makes sense
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (04:46)
And when you do a voice analysis of somebody singing in the correct way, you get the maximum spread of harmonics and overtones from the vocal cords that you can see.
Jiani (04:56)
I think that's also one of the ways to fully relax. I noticed that when I pronounced, I did feel like there's like a vibration around my head area and sometimes it travels down a little bit. Sometimes if I, would assume if I do it long enough, my whole body will find you. I mean the fine tune.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (05:14)
But there's a whole bunch
of things going on there. mean, first of all, breath and emotions are one. And by doing a continual om chant over time, you are automatically doing a breath control. You're regulating your inhale, exhale. So you take a breath and you blow it out over a long period of time. So it's very similar to taking a breath in over, you know, four seconds and breathing it out at eight.
Right. So you're doing a breath control. You're doing an emotional opening of down to ⁓ where you ground emotions in your body. And in order to activate your your breathing and blowing your breath across your vocal cords properly, that's the vagus nerve. So it mainline straight into resonating your vagus nerve with vibration.
And the vagus nerve main lines into the autonomic nervous system in the center of your brain and the hypothalamus, which is the master control system for all body parts. It's the master control program that tells organs and glands and biochemistry and meridians and all the rest of it how to synchronize and organize and function properly to be a healthy person. It's fine tuning spirit.
Jiani (06:33)
So it's a fine tuning. It's like a fine tuning process through sound.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (06:38)
in body and health. It's very powerful stuff.
Jiani (06:42)
wellness,
holistic being. love that.
in our previous conversation, you were talking about the sound that we hear.
It's the first sound is the first thing that we experience in our mom's body before we come out. Can you tell us the story about the importance of sound?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (07:09)
Yeah, the, you
know, the sound has the use of sound in every culture on Earth. Back to prehistoric times has stood the test of time of being the number one premier technique used for healing and for expanding self-awareness and consciousness. And various cultures have
Jiani (07:18)
you
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (07:31)
their own sound traditions,
bowls and the tinshaws and two little bells on a string, Chinese meditation gongs, chant, shamanic drumming practices and rattles and things like that. mean, didgeridoo, all of these different kind of sound technologies sort of have a way of cutting through
and centering the mind, centering you. I believe that sound is the most powerful technology because it's the very first thing anyone ever experiences. So we're all sort of brothers and sisters baptized in sound.
In the womb, you know, at 16 to 24 weeks, all five senses come online in the brain for the first time. The brain development has happened up to a point where all five senses come online. At that point, your your body is about the size of your hand. And and you're floating in body temperature fluid.
Jiani (08:23)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (08:40)
Amniotic fluid, so you're weightless. Yes, the largest sensor in your body is your skin. Vibrations sense is separate from hearing, so. At 16 to 24 weeks, all five senses come online, but you're in the dark, so the eyes aren't working. Nose and mouth are filled with fluid, so those aren't working. The sound in the physical
Jiani (08:43)
Does our skin feel the watery environment?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (09:07)
of sound. Sound travels through water five times better than it does through air. So really you're in a float tank with vibration coming through the water right into your skin. Your vibration sense network is activated and hearing is activated and is amplified. So the very first thing and the only thing we experience for nine months is sound and vibration.
Now in the third trimester towards the end. Yes, yeah, yeah. So the water is inside your ear pressed up against your eardrums. So the sound is amplified through the water right into your eardrums so you can hear it. And it's pressed up against your skin and your skin has billions of little sensors. There's four discrete nerve bundles.
Jiani (09:33)
the vibration coming from the skin and then the sound coming from the ear.
⁓ yeah.
Yep.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (10:00)
buried in different depths of your skin. And they've all got fancy schmancy names like Meissner's corpuscles and Ruffini end organs and a bunch of, you know, there's four different ones. And each of those is sensitive to a discrete range of vibrational frequencies that it processes. And among all four, that range is 0.3 Hertz to 500 Hertz.
So that's what your skin, that's what your body considers to be vibration sense and the sense of touch. 0.3 hertz to 500 hertz. Now, that's communicated into the posterior part of the spinal cord. The nerve tracts in the spinal cord are five times larger than any other sense in the spinal cord. So it must be important.
Jiani (10:38)
you
you
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (10:56)
where the body wouldn't have developed so much real estate. At
Jiani (10:58)
So like here at the back like here
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (11:09)
back of your spinal cord, there's two huge tracks called cuneatus and gracilis that transmit vibration sense into neurons in your brainstem. And that's the point where it crosses over 80 % to the other side to the opposite hemisphere. But it continues all the way up through the upper brainstem in right into the center of the brain.
through very important structures like the cerebellum and a of other things. And it's a separate and distinct system that has amazing healing properties all on its own. Even if you're deaf and you can't hear with your ears, amazing things happen by exposing you to vibrational frequencies into your skin. So that was the reason I developed a sound chair and a sound table with speakers in it so we could
pump these low frequencies right into your body within that range that these vibrations sense organs in your skin are there to receive. And then we combine that with headphones so that we get the full range of hearing 20 to 20,000 hertz and we link those two together so they synchronize. And there's huge healing benefits from that.
Jiani (12:17)
Mm.
and you call it bio -tuning?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (12:28)
Biotuning is, that's part of biotuning, yes, is to synchronize the brain and the nervous system in various ways through the autonomic nervous system. biotuning is basically.
a high tech way of using sound to balance the master control centers in the center of the brain that govern all my body systems and tell them what to do. And that system is the autonomic nervous system, the automatic system that controls everything under the hood without me knowing what's going on up here in my rational thinking mind. They're separative on purpose.
Nothing in the body is by accident. Everything is on purpose, in order by design. And when you study sort of a medical level of anatomy and physiology and neuroscience, is continually impressed how mind blowingly perfected the system has worked out how to do this and how to get the most work with the least amount of energy expended. So as complex as
Jiani (13:13)
by design.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (13:36)
body might be, you've got skeletal and muscle and organ and gland and biochemistry and meridians and chakras and emotions and all the rest, as unimaginably complex as that system is. And the system that controls it all and monitors all those systems and sends signals back out to them to keep them balanced and harmonized.
which is the autonomic nervous system. As complex as it all is, the software program inside that bio computer that's controlling it all really runs from two very simple principles, two very simple rules that govern it all. Rule number one, survive at all costs. There's nothing more important than that. I mean, if you don't survive, then what's the point, right? So, survive at all costs.
Jiani (14:04)
you
you
Yes, true. Exist first.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (14:30)
Rule number one, survive at all costs. That's the reason why when you feel threatened, the sympathetic nervous system turns on and pulls all available energy that's possible from every system in your body and puts it in your muscles to fight for your
It's an all out effort where you're giving it your absolute best to your best attention to survive. So it means that the reservoir of energy in your body is emptied out. The energy is pulled from your gut, elimination system, immune system, higher brain centers.
Jiani (14:56)
Escape danger, survive.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (15:10)
and dumped into your muscles to fight for your life. A whole host of other things happen. Your adrenals fire and raise your blood pressure and you liberate extra glucose to be super strong and all that. It's a straw fire that burns out quickly. It's all going to be over in a few minutes. And then the sympathetic goes back to zero. And the reservoir filled back up again.
Jiani (15:27)
Hmm.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (15:35)
and all the energy goes back to where it's supposed to go. And that's called homeostasis. That's homeostasis. That's where sympathetic and parasympathetic are off. Neither one of them is drawing energy from the reservoir for some purpose. So there's only two big purposes. One is survive and the other one is digest and eliminate and relax. So let's say that, you know,
My body is designed for slow adaptive changes on planetary scales
multiple generations. This slow adaptive evolutionary process takes thousands and thousands of years, but that's how we're designed. But we're not designed for what's been happening on earth in the last 200 years.
since the Industrial Revolution, everything is accelerating, accelerating. And now we're in the information age. And now we're in the computer age. And soon we're into the like AI age. And it's all accelerating. The pace is getting bigger. And the forces in the 21st century that we're exposed to, we're going to need another 10,000 years of biological evolution to adapt to them.
Jiani (17:00)
And we constantly like talents, leaders, entrepreneurs, we constantly feel a sense of stress and some people burn out, some people manage to survive, but later on they got caught up with all the stress that they managed to kind of suffocate or hide behind. How, yeah, how...
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (17:20)
Yeah. The
stresses of the 21st century are unimaginably abnormal. The body was designed for, our bodies right now were designed for 10,000 years ago, before civilization as we know it. When we lived in a tribe and we woke up with the sun in a natural bio clock thing, grab your spear and go chase some little animal and
Jiani (17:27)
Yes.
Beautiful.
That's fun. I would rather to click.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (17:47)
When the animal sees you and you see the animal,
sympathetic turns on for both of you. You run around and in five minutes you're going to be exhausted. So if I catch the animal, then I can cook the animal and eat the animal and then the parasympathetic turns on. And that empties my reservoir into my gut. And when that's over, it comes back.
Sympathetic, parasympathetic are supposed to be living in a state of balance in the center at zero stress in the system. Zero stress in the system
feel
the workday in the 21st century? No. Now we've got alarm clocks. So our natural rhythm connection with the universe is gone. And we're racing around and getting a traffic jam and going to a stupid job that doesn't pay enough money. And then there's seven o'clock news and junk food. not eating food anymore. We're eating chemical concoctions with flavor nasers. So, yeah. Yeah.
Jiani (18:41)
question. When you say,
when you say homostasis, when you say zero stress in the body, does that mean we reach a state of homo state, homo stasis, homeostasis?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (18:54)
Homeostasis
means a pure state of balance, zero stress at the core of my system. The system that governs all my systems has to be at a zero stress point where my survival needs have been met and I feel safe so that all of the energy is drained back into this big reservoir.
And once it's in that state where things are balanced, zero stress and I feel OK and the reservoir is full, only under those circumstances can the internal physician program be back in place running the program. that program
Jiani (19:39)
It's like a musician.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (19:41)
and that program is collecting signals from all the different systems of my body.
sending signals back out to keep them all balanced and harmonized, sending signals out to rebuild tissues. I mean, it's the same that's going on. And if I feel threatened and the sympathetic turns on and empties out that reservoir,
then the internal physician program can no longer work. It's disengaged because there's no energy in the system to run that machine anymore. I'm running a different machine, a survival machine,
Jiani (20:20)
How does bio -tuning help us to catch up with the revolution that the current age calls for and reduce the chronical stress that everybody is feeling or help us to avoid burnout at all costs?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (20:21)
No.
Yeah, it's a good question. The global medical community and the global scientific community agree stress is the cause of disease, period, unless you're hit by a or something, which is different. there is a...
Jiani (20:51)
It's imbalanced.
I hope not. I hope everybody who is
listening to it stay safe.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (21:01)
So there's an organic biological intelligence within each of us that knows how to grow your body out of two cells, differentiate the tissues, and then run it on automatic without me thinking about it up here. There is a deep sort of cosmic intelligence.
behind that. Somebody is reading the blueprint to design my body and differentiate the tissues. Somebody made the blueprint.
And if I dig deep enough down inside myself, that's who I find there. And that's why I would want to do some kind of practice, like various types of meditation that exists throughout the world, where people have been trying to find who that person is, the real me, the real I in my deepest part. Yes.
Jiani (21:55)
How does music play a part?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (21:56)
you
In modern medicine, to how you evaluate your your health in as high as possible level is this system called heart rate variability. Now, many people have heard of heart rate variability because of the fit that you wear or the aura ring. Many people have heard of heart math that uses an ear clip. Heart math is biofeedback system. It's a bit different, but.
Those systems rely on there's there's two basic big systems of heart rate variability. One is the professional medical system and one is the layman's system. The layman's system uses like a little finger clip or a wristband or something on your ear or an aurora ring. And what that's measuring is the expansion and contraction of the arteries and the arterioles.
as the heart is pumping. So as the heart muscle squeezes the blood out, it makes the arteries expand and contract and expand and contract as the heart beats. And that's what the Fitbit and the Oura Ring and the HeartMath are using. It's called a PPG sensor, pulse sensor. And what you're trying to measure is the space between each heartbeat.
Jiani (22:54)
So.
PPGs
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (23:13)
Heart rate variability is measuring the space between each heartbeat in microseconds. And the more irregular the space between each heartbeat, the more healthy you are. Now, for me, when I first heard that, I thought, wait a second, it should be the more perfect they are. But it turns out that the more exact the space is between each heartbeat, like a metanome, becomes the world's most accurate predictor of your death.
Jiani (23:31)
Yes, I thought consistency is key.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (23:43)
by heart attack. And that's why heart rate variability is the gold standard in modern medicine as the number one most accurate way of assessing your current state of health and predicting your death by any disease process.
Music theory all has to do with precise tuning frequencies between different notes on a piano, like that piano back there, right? All those different notes, all those different notes represent exact frequencies in relation to the next note.
Jiani (24:07)
Louise Hayes.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (24:15)
It's a mathematic relationship between frequencies that are harmonious, that obey the laws of harmonics and overtones. And so when you align different frequencies together in a certain ratio with each other, the waveforms fit together in a mathematical way that is very pleasing. And we call that a chord, all invented by Pythagoras off the island of Samos, right?
Jiani (24:39)
Harmony
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (24:43)
The whole idea of harmonics and overtones and octaves and how the universe conforms to the same rules, the atomic structure of all the elements in the periodic table are all structured according to the rules of harmonics and overtones. The atoms in the periodic table marching across different columns is an octave and their structures are all based on harmonic ratios. They predicted two atoms.
10 years before they were discovered. They knew exactly what they were going to look like. They just carried the math forward of the music theory. Right. So now when I find this frequency with the sound sweep, I know that every octave of that frequency is going to work and every harmonic of that frequency is going to work. It's like if this is a wine glass
and I ping the wine glass and I hear that note and I sing that note, the wine glass vibrates.
every octave of that note is also going to make the wineglass vibrate. So if the wineglass is tuned to 400 hertz, then 200 hertz will work, 100 will work, 50 will work, 25 will work, 12 and a half will work. All those octaves will work, theoretically, to infinity in both directions. So.
If I take this frequency that works for you that we found on the SoundSweep and I divide it in half and play that frequency instead, I'll still get homeostasis on my screen. And if I calculate every octave and I independently only use each one of those octaves separately, I'll get homeostasis on my screen. And those lower octaves down to 20 Hertz is what the sound chair is for to activate the Vibration Sense Network.
with five octaves and each octave targets a different body density. There's an octave for fluids, an octave for bone, an octave for discs, an octave for muscles and organs, an octave for skin. If we go below 20 hertz and we've got our calculator and we're still working our calculator, still dividing by octaves, below 20 hertz, those are brainwave frequencies.
Jiani (26:45)
Hmm.
you
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (27:07)
states of consciousness that are highly specific accurate to a couple of decimal points. That means now I have identified a key brain frequency in alpha and theta and delta and epsilon and gamma and all the rest that pick the lock of a neural program in your brain that's already hardwired there that causes zero stress in the autonomic nervous system and homeostasis and wakes up the healing program.
So now we understand a deeper level of what sleep is all about. Because as my brain waves are slowing down from beta awake into alpha dropping into the twilight zone between awake and asleep, my brain waves are slowing down and slowing down. They hit this key frequency and picks a lock of a program and makes it run, which causes homeostasis in the nervous system. The internal position program activates
and heals my mental faculties in Alpha.
And then when it goes down into theta in dreaming sleep, will keep the brainwaves to slow down, to slow down and hit this key frequency that unlocks a program that makes homeostasis happen and heals my emotions or heals my physical body in delta or my metaphysical body in epsilon or in my grand cosmic focus in gamma or
And that's a whole other discussion. We work with 21 different brain states and the EEG communities are still stuck with the original four, beta, alpha, theta, delta. Only 50 % of them recognize gamma at this point. That was discovered in the late 80s. None of them recognized the default mode network, which was discovered in 2001. The most cutting edge brain science that's happening since then.
Nobody recognizes epsilon, which I discovered in 1989, frequencies below delta. Nobody's recognizing the borderline states officially. Yet there's PubMed research articles that show, you know, research with prodigy kids who've got an IQ of 180 and above. Let's hook them up to EEG and a massive study and see what's going on with their brains. Is there something?
different in these kids' brains than normal people? And the answer is yes. High IQ people have a maximum brain activity at the borderline between beta and alpha.
and all of a sudden you begin to realize that what used to be overlooked as brainwaves are slowing down from beta and they cross over that borderline and now they're alpha, there's a bigger difference between 13 hertz beta and 12.9 hertz alpha. There's a bigger difference than just speed. There's a different waveform that shows up in alpha.
and in theta and in delta. It looks different. It's different. Some new program is turning on. But what was overlooked was that that borderline that you pass over without noticing, that borderline itself is a brain state. That if you zoomed into that with a magnifying glass, you would see it opens up into a bandwidth of brain activity all of its own. There's a state of consciousness there.
Jiani (30:07)
Hmm.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (30:30)
That means if you can identify the borderline for your brain, which we can do with biotuning, it's all based on homeostasis. Once we can identify the borderline for your brain, we can entrain you there and increase your IQ. The borderline between alpha and theta is somewhere between seven and eight hertz. Well, that's where the Schumann resonance is, at 7.83 hertz.
That's where the flow state is at 7.5 hertz.
Jiani (31:01)
Well, will there be potential?
negative impact. Will the sound knock them out of their original homostasis and cause them to potentially lose balance? Would there be a factor? there be ever a possibility of that?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (31:23)
you talking about with bio tuning?
Jiani (31:25)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (31:26)
Not with biotuning, because by definition, biotuning is based on looking for balance. Biotuning frequency causes balance. It's already a way and it brings it back to zero. So by definition, there couldn't be a downside there. However, everything in the world and every kind of therapy that you could ever imagine.
Jiani (31:33)
Is to finding your balance.
⁓
I see.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (31:49)
has dosage. Dosage is everything. It's a homeopathic idea, right? We require water to be alive, but you can drown. That's an overdose of water, right? Or there's an under dose of water and you die, right? So dosage is everything. And with sound, in the world of sound healing, dosage is how loud and how long.
Jiani (32:02)
So it's the balance, the right amount.
Mm.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (32:17)
Right? So even though this frequency brings this, you know, if I played that frequency too loud, that would cause a stress response that would overcome the balancing effect. Right. Or if I put you on that sound chair with a good volume, but I left you there for a week after two days, there would be a stress response because there's an overdose. Right. Yes.
Jiani (32:29)
Yes.
You
Hahaha
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (32:45)
However, that might be a potential downside that would quickly recover because all you have to do is shut that off or turn the volume down or do it for less time and the system will write itself because you've got the frequency that makes it
Jiani (32:45)
I see.
So when you were about 11 years old, what did you enjoy creating and playing so much that time just disappeared for you?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (33:17)
When I was 11, I was living in England. My dad was in the military, so we were stationed there. And my big thing was electronic music. I had a huge vinyl record collection of electronic music. No rock and roll for me. I was a weird kid. And I wanted to make my own electronic music, but the only way you could do that is by having, you know, a big piece of electronic equipment with wires that plug in and.
That was way beyond me as an 11 year old. So I took the family reel to reel tape recorder and started making recordings at fast speed and playing the back at slow speed. And then I wanted to multitrack sounds on top of each other, but you couldn't do that because, you know, when you try to record over, it would just erase what was there before. So I took a screwdriver and took the recorder apart and found
a little arm with a magnet on it that would go on top the magnetic tape as it went by when I clicked the record button. That little arm would come down and erase whatever was there before. So I stuck a pencil in there so it couldn't do that. So I was doing a multi-tracking when I was 11 and creating my own electronic music soundtracks. That turned into
Jiani (34:35)
Whoa.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (34:37)
$50,000 worth of recording studio that I'm surrounded by now where I can do it electronically in the keyboard and I can take a microphone and record any sound and spread it across the keys and do a dolphin symphony or a Tibetan bowl symphony or a cricket symphony or, you know, and that lended itself to something called primordial sounds, there's certain types of sounds that
have a deep effect on your unconscious mind through pattern recognition. If I take nature sounds in 3D so your brain is tricked and thinking is real and I slow them down so that only your unconscious mind can recognize it, you go into your safe place. Your body relaxes and goes into this state. So I build that into my... I build it into my soundtracks. That's recreating the womb.
Jiani (35:23)
primordial sound.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (35:29)
environment as a sound technician and a physician
Jiani (35:29)
Mmm.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (35:41)
where we put everything in its 3D correct position, heart respiration, large and small intestinal sounds, water sounds of the amniotic fluid and recreate what the womb soundtrack sounded like to you as a fetus and not to as an adult on the outside. Very powerful impact on the subconscious mind.
Jiani (35:50)
layer them together.
From the inside.
Are there, I mean this is kind of a side question, are there a soundtrack that activates childlike wonder for not kids because they already have it, for adults?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (36:11)
Yeah, I think that's the creative mind system. And that's in the category of creativity. That's a good
meditation system and the the creative mind system. Where your brain goes for creativity, where children spend most of their time is in theta, in creative mode, in daydream mode, where they imagine, use their imaginations and.
Jiani (36:23)
meditation.
We can actually.
Later.
Yes, imagination,
yes.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (36:39)
It's funny, my dog just barked because your dog barked. Dogs are barking through the internet.
Jiani (36:44)
I think they're saying hi remotely.
What role does Childlike Wonder play in your life?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (36:53)
Well, I've spent, I mean, I'm 76 years old and I'm telling you, it's been one of the hardest duties of my life to prevent myself from becoming a grown up.
Jiani (37:04)
I hear you.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (37:05)
You have to keep your child alive. It's for your spiritual benefit. It's tragic to lose your sense of wonder. The universe is a mind blowing place that I can take. I can go outside in my yard and take my shoes and socks off. So I'm standing in the grass. And realize that the universe is all around me.
that.
that there's a whole universe under my feet. If I get on my hands and feet with a magnifying glass and look at that grass, down beneath those blades of grass, down to the ground, down there is a whole world down there. There's trails, there's pathways that
Jiani (37:53)
Mm.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (37:58)
Creatures that look like they're from outer space are crawling around down there. There's beetles and ants. They look like aliens. And there's little pebbles, but for them they're big boulders. So from their standpoint, they're walking on these dusty trails in a dense forest of grass blades that stick a hundred feet into the sky.
Jiani (38:06)
I do.
And sometimes there are giants who would step
on their feet somewhere on their path.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (38:25)
Yeah, I mean, and
this is just what's outside your door in the grass of your front lawn. That's just that. Never mind the infinity of the other stuff in various places on Earth that you might go to, like you go to, you know, Zion National Park and blows your mind. I mean, you know, we get stuck.
The worst thing that happens to people is to think that you're ordinary, to buy into the hypnosis that has taught us that we are ordinary people and the world is just an ordinary place and it's just job descriptions and cars and highways and grocery stores and television. mean, we lose the fact that we are magical beings in an infinite universe.
on the greatest heroic journey of all time to find the true nature of myself.
to be on that journey. Every atom in your body was once inside of an exploding star. Every proton in every atom in your body are the oldest particles in the universe. It's like, know, your body is 99.9999 % space.
Right? And the part of it...
Jiani (39:48)
I feel like when I
when I listen to you talk I'm just like my face are glowing I'm like just like happy it's like I'm just like having a kind of a song a song bath through words and ideas and and I would like to keep your time in mind so I'm gonna ask you the final question what do you think is your magic
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (39:59)
Huh.
Yes.
I've been.
blessed to have.
through a series of
personal decisions and serendipity and quote accidents with a capital A and serendipitous synchronicities of the universe to have been landed in a position where I am taking maximum use of what makes me unique in the universe.
and using that for the betterment of people and making a living at it at the same time. It's the biggest blessing that you can have is when you follow that path, the world opens up for you by itself. We're all on a path to, you know, we're fated to walk the path and that path is fated to come to a fork.
And you're fated to make a free will decision at every fork that you come to. And the right fork is the yearning of my soul that tells me I should go that way. But I can't see how I'm going to make my life work that way. How am I going to make money? How am I going to pay the bills? The left path is the path of safety where my adults in my life are saying grow up and get a job. I can see a paycheck, a retirement, sort of linearly in my mind see how that's going to work.
Jiani (41:25)
have this question all the time.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (41:37)
But the very first time in my life I choose the left path of safety instead of the right path of my soul, that's where the illness starts. The sickness of the soul begins there. Because I'm on a circular little path that's going nowhere. I've abandoned the path of my spirit to find out the true nature of my soul. And I'm over here at some stupid job. But when I choose the right path,
I have to choose it on a certain level of faith.
And that faith is based on my basic understanding about how the universe works. Either the universe is a hostile place that I have to fight tooth and claw for my little spot and then defend that spot. And it's all up to me. Or the universe has got my back. It's here for me. It's when I choose the right path, which is a tightrope across a chasm with no visible means of support.
and no ability to see how that's going to make a living for me or how I'm going to be safe. I go that way anyway because I know in my heart that the universe will be there for me and it's not my job to figure that part out. My job is a dumbed down job. Right fork, left fork. Trust or don't trust. If I trust and make that decision, now I release it all and walk the tightrope and know the universe will not let me fall, that the universe will now
turn the lights green, open the doors all by themselves, synchronicities will show up. I'll meet just the right people I need to know. The wrong phone call is the right person. It just becomes bigger than you. You realize that your relationship to the universe is magnificently, amazingly arranged in a series of synchronicities where the whole world opens up
in front of you like a flower that keeps opening. That the things that happen to you are so much bigger than you. And then what you accomplish from that is your life's purpose, which is glorious and amazing and mind blowing. And everybody is applauding you and giving you awards because of your genius. And you know in your heart of hearts that it all just happened. You can't take responsibility for it, except for the fact that you chose
on act of faith to step to the right path and now you're in partnership with the universe at large. You have a heart connection with the soul of the universe who loves you and is here for you. On Friday night, Louise and I would go out to dinner on a Friday night in San Diego. Now, the chance of getting a parking place? Forget it. Ain't gonna happen.
Jiani (44:12)
I wish.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (44:21)
But we get in our car anyway and drive to our favorite little restaurant. I'm thinking in my mind, how am I going to handle this? I'll drop her off and go find a parking place or what? What are we going to do? And then I turn the corner. Here's the favorite restaurant with a parking space in front of the restaurant. And there was always a parking space in front of the restaurant. And sometimes it was two right next to each other. And I would go, Louise.
Jiani (44:39)
Yeah
Every time?
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (44:48)
How do you do that? And she would say, I don't know. Life loves me. And I'm going, wow, that's that is all that's necessary. It's as simple as that. All of the fancy, schmancy quantum physics ideas I got rolling around in my head and all the esoteric stuff that I've studied. All of it means nothing because it all boils down does.
Jiani (44:54)
You
That's her.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (45:13)
my relationship to the universe
Jiani (45:14)
Sorry.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (45:15)
based on love that I glory in that I open myself up to that. said, bring it on.
Jiani (45:20)
So beautiful. I did remember she talked about parking space in one of her tapes. I was listening to. Yes, I remember.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (45:25)
Really? It was like a magic.
All of her friends would blow away. mean, there was always a parking space for Louise, who was like, holy moly.
Jiani (45:31)
You
That's beautiful.
you and you're
all blessed.
Dr Jeffrey Thompson (45:39)
blessings to all
The Master Control System
To understand how sound healing works, we must understand what it's healing: the autonomic nervous system (ANS), the bio-computer running everything under the hood.
The ANS operates on two simple rules. Rule one: survive at all costs. When threatened, the sympathetic nervous system pulls energy from every system—gut, immune system, elimination—and redirects it to muscles for fight or flight. Rule two: digest, eliminate, and relax. When the threat passes, energy flows back, and the parasympathetic system engages. This is homeostasis—zero stress at the system's core.
"Only under those circumstances can the internal physician program be back in place," Thompson explains. This internal physician rebuilds tissues and eliminates toxins. When homeostasis is lost, healing cannot occur.
The Modern Crisis
Our bodies were designed for intermittent stress—brief sympathetic activations followed by complete return to zero. Ten thousand years ago, you'd chase an animal for five minutes, then rest and eat. The system would reset.
Modern life is radically different. We wake to alarm clocks, sit in traffic, work unfulfilling jobs, consume chemically engineered food, and absorb 24-hour news cycles. "We're going to need another 10,000 years of biological evolution to adapt," Thompson observes.
The result? Chronic sympathetic activation. The fight-or-flight response never turns off. The internal physician program stays disengaged. "I'm not quite digesting my food ever. I'm not eliminating toxins ever." Symptoms accumulate, but tests come back negative—because they measure pathology, not pre-pathology. Eventually, disease develops.
The medical community agrees stress causes disease, but "they don't have a pill that can rebalance it."
Precision Sound Therapy
Thompson's innovation centers on Heart Rate Variability (HRV)—measuring the space between heartbeats in microseconds. Counterintuitively, irregular spacing means you're healthy. "The more exact the space is between each heartbeat, like a metronome, becomes the world's most accurate predictor of your death." Thousands of research articles confirm this, yet doctors rarely use it because insurance won't pay.
Thompson developed a real-time HRV system displaying sympathetic and parasympathetic activity live. When clients recline in his sound chair—with speakers built into the furniture—their sympathetic response should collapse to zero within three minutes. If it doesn't, "we have clinical evidence of a runaway fight-or-flight response."
Here's the breakthrough: Thompson runs a sound sweep from 50 to 200 Hertz through the chair while watching the HRV screen. As the sound approaches the target frequency, stress visibly collapses. The computer captures the exact moment—perhaps 128.38 Hertz—when homeostasis returns.
"This is highly specific, super accurate scientific use of sound to cause a clinical response."
The Mathematics of Healing
Once identified, that frequency unlocks multiple healing pathways through octave mathematics. Like a wine glass resonating to its note and every octave of that note, the healing frequency works at 128 Hz, 64 Hz, 32 Hz—"theoretically, to infinity in both directions."
Different octaves target different body densities: fluids, bone, discs, muscles, skin. Below 20 Hertz, frequencies correspond to brainwave states—alpha, theta, delta—each "picking the lock of a neural program that causes zero stress and wakes up the healing program."
This reveals something profound about sleep: as brainwaves slow from waking into sleep, "they hit this key frequency and pick a lock of a program that causes homeostasis."
From Clinic to Daily Practice
The FDA approves vibroacoustic therapy for pain, stress reduction, and circulatory disorders. Thompson has trained practitioners worldwide and created generic soundtracks based on 40 years of patient observation.
At the most accessible level, simple OM chanting activates the vagus nerve, which "mainlines straight into" the autonomic nervous system through breath control and vibrational resonance.
The Path Forward
"It's never too late to heal," Thompson insists. "The healing mechanism is disengaged for some reason. What's the fix? To bring it back. To break the vicious cycle."
Sound healing—from ancient chants to precision biotuning—offers that pathway: a reset button for the body's master control system, restoring the zero-stress point where our innate healing intelligence can work.
Thompson offers one caution: in a marketplace where most binaural beat producers are "entrepreneurs jumping on a bandwagon," quality matters. "Who made the soundtrack and what do they know?" The difference between clinical expertise and commercial opportunism determines whether sound becomes genuine healing technology or merely ambient noise.
In a world accelerating beyond our biological capacity, perhaps the solution lies in humanity's most ancient technology: the healing power of sound.
⭐ Dr. Jeffrey Thompson & MAGIC
Dr. Jeffrey Thompson is the founder and director of the Center for Neuroacoustic Research in Carlsbad, California. Since beginning his clinical research in holistic medicine in the 1980s, he has developed sound healing and brainwave entrainment programs using precisely tuned frequencies to promote health and well-being. His "magic" lies in blending sound science, mathematics, and intuition to reset the body’s stress response by pinpointing exact frequencies that restore the nervous system to a zero-stress state. Through immersive sound technologies and clinical protocols, Thompson activates the body’s natural healing program, helping individuals reconnect with balance and harmony. His work, deeply rooted in neuroacoustic research and stress reduction, continues to influence therapeutic sound practices worldwide.
Creative Process
Discuss Potential Outlines: human + ai
Create Initial Drafts & Iterate: human + ai
Ensure Final Alignment: Dr. Jiani Wu
Initial Publication: Nov 16, 2025
Disclaimer:
AI technologies are harnessed to create initial content derived from genuine conversations. Human re-creation & review are used to ensure accuracy, relevance & quality.
