The ear as a gateway to awareness
Today I would like to introduce you to something that really excited me: the work of Michael Pahl.
With HoloSync 3D, Michael has developed music that goes far beyond anything I had heard before. In a three-dimensional sound collage, you immerse yourself in moving sound worlds – with a spatial precision that feels astonishingly real.
Imagine hearing the gentle murmur of a river beside you, birds chirping above you, and suddenly even a cheeky sheep bleating right by your ear. At the same time, sounds move around your head and draw you right in.
Little by little, you open yourself to this experience, carried by music that recedes further into the background as the experience feels increasingly real.
To hear HoloSync 3D well, you need decent headphones and a high-resolution digital-to-analogue converter (DAC).
My experience
I feel something changing within me and clearly notice how everything around me seems to move. Suddenly I find myself somewhere else – in a beautiful meadow with raindrops falling gently onto it. Full of excitement, I look at every single drop, so clear and realistic does it feel.
A group of cheerful people calls out to me and invites me to dance in a circle with them, hand in hand. I gladly accept, but soon I feel drawn onwards. The sound world changes again, and suddenly I am on a strange, alien jungle planet. Fascinating, unfamiliar animals scurry around me.
If you would like, I would be happy to tell you more about this journey.
When thinking steps aside
Michael describes the effect as synchronisation of the brain’s hemispheres – logic on the left, feeling on the right. This explanation appears in many sound and meditation offerings, and I used it here myself for a long time.
I have since moved away from it: the idea of “left-brained” and “right-brained” people does not stand up to research. Lateralisation is a property of individual networks, not a personality trait – more on this in my article on brainwaves and meditation.
What I actually experience while listening, though, is precisely what this explanation is trying to describe: beyond a certain point, analysing stops. I no longer ask how the sound is made or what it is meant to do – I am simply in it. Thinking and feeling are no longer at odds, but move together.
In practice, this means: feel free to let yourself move beyond pure logic while listening. What do you feel when you find yourself in the middle of the sound space?
Soul journeys, astral travel, lucid dreams
Michael works with these terms, and they are discussed a great deal in the seminars. I use them here as I understand them: as names for experiences, not as a map of reality.
Lucid dreaming is the most tangible case – you recognise within the dream that you are dreaming, everything becomes clear, and you can help shape the dream world. Astral travel and soul journeys are descriptions from spiritual traditions for experiences in which you seem to leave time and place behind. I do not know what actually happens, and I do not claim to.
What I can say is this: it felt completely real to me and was one of the most striking experiences of recent years.
To try it out
Michael sells music available to everyone in his webshop. These pieces relax body and mind, but in my experience do not yet lead into the deeper states.
He also offers seminars lasting several days, in which the method is explored more intensively – that is where I had my own experience. You can find dates and details directly on his website at holosync.de.
Interviews and more
- Interviews on CROP FM
- Talk video on holosync.de
- Videos on YouTube: one · two · three · four
HoloSync 3D excited me. Do get in touch if you would like to attend a seminar with Michael together with me.
– Yours, Paul