What is an Immersive Sounds Session?
by Aymeric Vollant
- 5 min read -
“While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a soundscape is worth a thousand pictures.“ - Bernie Krause, composer
The Immersive Sounds Session is designed to develop mindfulness through sound experiences. Helping people bring their awareness back to the present moment.
Through a combination of sounds and music, this class brings the participants on a journey that triggers visualisation and creative thinking. Using binaural recordings and headphones, guests are projected to different places and environments, embodying a variety of states based on each scenario.
In the interactive session, participants help curate the experience by choosing the sounds and places, which are then mixed together - making each class unique!
Put your headphones on, close your eyes and let yourself be transported.
A Message From Aymeric Vollant, leading the Immersive Sounds Session at IKIGAI
Sound is a powerful tool. By utilising it creatively, it is possible to cultivate a sense of peace within people. While also triggering instinctive emotional reactions (for example: sound can make us feel love, or can make us cry).
In that sense, the Immersive Sounds Session helps one look deeper into their "inner-selves", and discover what values are most important to them.
When creating this class, I spent months reading articles, researching about sounds, mindfulness, thoughts and emotions.
Let’s try a short experiment together:
Set a timer on your phone for 30 seconds. Before you press start, close your eyes, bring your awareness to your ears and pay close attention to your sense of sound.
For the next 30 seconds simply pay attention to nothing else other than all the various sounds that you can hear without passing judgement on them. Whether it is smaller subtle sounds or louder clearer sounds, try to pay attention to the details of those sounds.
Go ahead and begin now. So what did you hear?
Could you hear the ventilation in your apartment or office? Were there talking voices around you or outside? Someone coughing? A dog barking?
We generally don’t pay attention to all these little sounds - or “noise” as most of us usually refer to it as.
Most of us are running on autopilot. We filter out external stimuli to take only what we need - often in the seek of efficiency (because we act all as multi-tasking machines, right?).
When was the last time you fully paid attention to your other senses such as the taste of the food you were eating?
There is nothing drastically wrong with running on auto-pilot. We can live life just fine. However, it appears that many of the physical or mental issues people suffer from in our modern lives are due to a lack of awareness towards ourselves and with the world around us.
How Do Us Humans Operate?
We think ALL THE TIME. The human brain produces on average more than 10,000 thoughts per day (this number can go up to 80,000 according to different sources).
And thoughts generate emotions. A positive thought generates a positive emotion. And a negative thought generates a negative emotion. Eventually we find ourselves going through a daily roller coaster of emotions.
Most of our thoughts that create negative emotions are compromised of worries about the past or future. A negative emotion pattern can lead to stress, anxiety, depression, and ultimately physical diseases.
This Is Where Mindfulness Comes In!
The whole point of being more mindful is to bring our awareness and experience back to the present moment.
To shift one’s attention away from the chattering area of the mind and allowing the human system to have a break.
To live in the here and now rather than having our thoughts scattered all over the place. To observe ALL our thoughts and feelings without judgment.
Developing mindfulness has several benefits. It can help you accept each moment for what it is and break out of autopilot mode. One is able to react more calmly to external stimuli that causes stress. It also helps you teach your brain how to change a negative thought into a positive one, increasing peace and well-being.
Other benefits of practicing Mindfulness include improving concentration, increasing energy levels, and boosting creativity.
The Simplicity Of It All.
It only requires a few minutes a day in order to feel a positive change. It simply requires you to focus on one of your senses for a given amount of time.
Spend 15 minutes only truly looking at what is around you while walking. Close your eyes and only focus on the sounds you can hear while on the MTR. Turn off your phone and focus only on the taste of the food you are eating.
It is a simple concept, but far from being easy (at first) due to our socio-economic conditioning. You will initially find thoughts appearing here, there and everywhere. However, this is part of the game. When a thought comes, just observe and acknowledge it for what it is, and use your willpower your attention back solely to what you were focusing on. With a consistent practice of mindfulness, you will see improvements very quickly!
To Conclude
I initially started sharing this experience with people in August 2019. My discussion with participants after each session has been very eye-opening. Realising that the same sound journey triggers totally different feelings and reactions for different people.
I look forward to sharing it with more people. Feel free to PM me on Instagram if you would like to give it a try. (@aymericv)
Check our schedule and book your spot for the next Immersive Sounds Session
