 So my secret mission is to teach everybody that you don't have to be subject to the thoughts that are in your head about you That's a nasty things about you all the time. That's a good one. Like yeah, we are these amazing phenomenal beings But apparently 85% of the world's is low self-esteem like most of us just feel a little bit unhappy about ourselves and our condition in our world most of the time and That is not because the reality of us That's the story that we tell ourselves. Yeah, and so you have the opportunity To change the relationship between the thoughts that are in your mind like for most people your thoughts Just thank you and that's not actually the way it needs to be you can shift that relationship with your own thoughts and choose The contents of your mind choose the story of yourself and choose what you want to do in your life Boom what's up everyone welcome to simulation. I'm your host Alan sake and we are at the transformative technology conference We've been talking to so many epic people that care about humanity care about wellness care about well-being About meditation so much so much. I'm super excited to be sitting down to Ariel Garten now Thank you for joining us on the show my pleasure the founder of your place. Yes. Yes, and this is really important technology I'm really excited to talk about it and for you to teach us about it. It's gonna be a lot of fun So all right before we talk about Muse is this like 10 years in the making. It's a long time It's a long long time in the making to you know to build and the mues is a as a company of in Turin Interax on interacts on uses the device that interacts on makes and then it is interacts on make other stuff we License the technology to Smith optics. We made a pair of glasses with them And you may see other things from us over time, but right now. Yeah, it's made focus. Yeah, okay So yeah, so that was a good small bit We'll get there prior to getting there. Who are you? How did you get to become who you are today? So tell us about that? Big question. Yeah, so my name is Ariel my background has always been in neuroscience design and A little bit of technology and then over time a lot of technology I was always fascinated by how the world worked and more importantly how we perceived the world and how we could transform ourselves through those perceptions So I started in science even in high school at a job in a research lab doing embryonic stem cell research in like grade 12 And then at the same time I always did art. I was fascinated by making stuff I had a clothing line a little line of clothing I sold to stores around Toronto and then New York and Then I went to school for neuroscience at the same time tried the clothing thing had a larger line and then kept going on the science thing worked in research labs looking things like neurogenesis and Ultimately tried to understand how it was that we perceived the world around us and we perceive ourselves So began to work with professor Steve Mann. He's the accredited inventor of the world with computer Totally crazy amazing dude who is a professor at University of Toronto and he had an early brain computer interface system So a single EEG lead that you put on your head that you could then do stuff with and in the very early 2000s we started to collaborate by creating concerts with our mind So we'd have 48 people at a time all with a single EEG lead on their head Who would modulate their brain state typically just relaxing and by doing so we would trigger changes in the music So 48 people at a time could be creating this collective concert based on the modulation of brain state And we did a whole bunch of these and like kept going deeper and deeper into it And I stood back and said like wow We are literally controlling the world with our brains Mm-hmm, and the world needs to know about this like how is this just going on in the lab? like how doesn't everybody know that you can control the world with your brain and So I got together with my co-founders Chris Aimee and then Trevor Coleman And we started to think about how we could really affect the world with this groundbreaking tech The first thing we thought is okay How do we show people that your mind is so powerful it could move something physical? So we created something called the levitating chair. It's like one of those 1960s ball chairs With a winch on the ceiling and you'd connect an EEG to the back of your head and by relaxing It would increase your alpha waves and the increase in alpha waves would trigger a signal that would cause the winch to rise And so you'd go like To the sky because that's kind of what we do when we calm our minds and we fall into the alpha and data states that we Kind of we do kind of get closer to the clouds in a sense Mm-hmm. So that's a that's a good one I had the yeah, so you have you know like all of those images of Indian gurus who could levitate You don't know whether it's real or not and we're like we could do this with technology We could literally make a levitating chair as you would relax and get into a meditative state The chair would rise and it was amazing From like a winch about at the hardware store, and it was totally terrifying You're like like you could break it any moment And then from there we said okay, this is cool like what's the biggest thing we can do And so now this is about 2008 2009 and the Olympics were coming to Canada to Vancouver in 2010 We were in Toronto and so we created a proposal that ultimately turned into us allowing people to control the lights on the CN Tower the Canadian Parliament buildings like basically the White House of Canada and Niagara Falls, you know one of the seven unders the world and and we're gonna let people do that from Vancouver 2,000 miles away with their brain That's great. Yeah, these are great ways to get people to understand that they can make change like that It's a breeze and we were you know a tiny startup of three people in a basement trying to figure out this tech They said you got that contract. We got the contract a big deal and within six months and a very small amount of funding from the Canadian Government to actually create at this massive installation that really let you do this Like you could slip on an EEG and sit at Vancouver and watch a huge big stream that was showing you live What was going on in Toronto and you could focus increase your beta waves and Spin the lights on the tower and then you could maintain that focus and it would spin faster You could relax and then increase your alpha waves and that would be the trigger to have a glow into a little pulsing star and People all around you into like all around Toronto would look up and see your brain like you know this extension of your mind Projected all the way across the country 1800 feet up in the sky in the CN Tower You know like that was the tallest building the world. Yeah, that's you and so from there. We said like This is amazing like we have the power to do so much with our minds Yeah, and so we tried to explore every possible way that we could project ourselves Into an object and try to interact with it and So we had like a wheel of fortune game focus and like the wheel would spin somebody programmed a Star Trek game, you know, there's this episode of Star Trek where Everybody was taken over by this device They put on their head that gave them a head of dopamine when they shot a little disc into a tube Do you know what I'm talking doesn't miss me. Anyways, we recreated that We made a thought-control toaster Water cooler nice beer tap like literally everything we could think of we had an entire room Where as you would relax the whole room would respond to you so you would quite Close your eyes and then the blinds would come down the lights would get dimmer the music would change She would fall asleep the blinds would then close All these so all of these things were Incredible, you know incredible examples of what our mind could do But none of it was really practical None of it was really going to be a product that somebody was going to use in their life And what we really wanted to do with the technology was change people's lives do something that was going to make your life palpably better every day and Then we recognize that through this process of teaching ourselves to focus and relax to control the technology We were teaching ourselves to focus and relax and we were learning to control this inner technology And the best use of this tech was not to control the outside world, but to teach us to control our own inner world Yes, yes, and this was you know the magic aha the moment that led to this device So we recognize that the best thing we could do is control our own minds and teach people to do that and the best methodology that existed for that out there that have been tried and trust tested for 2,000 years was meditation and we all that know that meditation is Amazing, you know it's Significant gains in your body your mind your relationship like every part of the world that's important to you meditation can enhance but like Nobody does that Very very very small percentage of the world and a much smaller percentage of the world actually does it regularly And it's because typically when you try to sit down to meditate you sit there And you're like, I'm meditating. You're like, I don't know what the fuck. I'm supposed to be doing This is kind of weird. Is anybody looking at me? I Think I should probably get up now. This is really some meditating isn't it? I'm not good at meditating Yeah, that meditation thing was weird seems to work for other people but me and me else for me You get the idea So we wanted to create something that was really going to change that paradigm that was really going to show you what goes on in Your mind during meditation and what you're supposed to be doing and make it easy So we created a tool that gives you real-time feedback on your meditation So, you know what goes on in your mind what you're supposed to do and guides you and then it's very data driven So during the course of the experience you have a real real-time feedback that lets you know What's going on in your mind and then after the fact you actually see your data Yeah, so to us. This was the best thing we could do to shift humanity Yes, the best and highest application of any technology You could think of I like how you went from doing examples that were a little bit more about Experiential learning and to playing around with things and showing people that they could control something 2000 miles away with their brains to putting together what you want to be one of the most practical uses of being able to tune in word understand what's going on inward and yeah, you gave a really good example like we Talking people about meditation that it can be a challenge in itself People make fun of you meet all the time About it and it's just it's it's very funny. Yeah, you did that. That was it. That was really funny Another one another one I do is when you like when you sit and then all those thoughts come to your head about what you Have to do and then you're just like I'm just gonna go do those things instead Yeah, instead of actually just breathe. Why would I just breathe all the time? No, I need to do that thing. I need to respond to that person. I need to get that email I need to go walk the dog. Yeah, and it's and then it causes anxiety because as soon as you sit there You're like, okay, I'm gonna let my mind go blank and in that blank canvas things naturally arise That's what our mind does. It's a generative, you know organ And so the thought that arises is eventually I need to walk the dog or something I need to do and then You have a sense of anxiety that continues to rise until you go do that thing Yeah, so you've got that like dog walking loop constantly going in your head and your anxiety is just rising and you're met You're not meditating from that moment forward. Yeah So we wanted to create something that could sit with you and teach you what to do with that and Teach you to say nope. It's okay. I'm gonna come back to my breath. I'm gonna sit here That might feel like a sensation pulling me away, but rather than writing the anxiety of it I'm going to experience sensation. I'm gonna let that go and I'm gonna bring my mind back And it's not easy to do but we gave you a methodology to practice doing it over and over again and actually build the practice because one needs to know when their mind is wandering and get notified about it and Over and over again, I'm just so it's just because I've done have you done the pros and the mediation. Yeah Just I just it's just very strange that we are now you know using In some extent it's weird to use technology to help us meditate when we ourselves are able to tell that our mind is wandering You just get better and better at focusing, but it's also very important because it on boards a lot of people Into the practice So I was also thinking while you were talking about your experience in like in fashion as well It was really important with with the development of this. I assume is that you're You definitely want something that people are actually gonna wear that and this is tough because you got it You have to you have to wear this Well meditating while meditating and if you want to you can wear this More often than just meditation So we have developers and hackers who do you do that? So there's an open SDK you can get so this is actually a clinical grade EEG Yeah, so there's two channels here on the forehead Fp1 and Fp2 the references in the middle Fp0 And these are two channels back here as well on the ears. Yep So on your temporal of T9010, so you're getting like real Research grade data, you know, we've done the experiments you hook up a four lectures Yeah, four channels four channels and you're getting real research grade data sent to your smartphone And so we have lots of people who use it to do experiments home experiments What's my brain doing when we also lots of research labs that use it to do real neuroscience experiments So there's about 175 papers that have been published using muses a device. Wow. That's yeah, congrats. Thank you Yeah, so then so then now okay now. Let's let's get into this a little bit So this is the muse one when was the muse one made? So it was released in the end of 2014. Okay. Okay, so it took like five years to put together the first Yes, one. Yeah, it's it's tough. It's really tough to do so. Yeah So there's a lot of challenges along the way So one you have to this hard word did not exist before this form factor didn't exist and exist Yeah, so we had to create an EEG that was gonna fit reliably on everybody's head and good get good signal quality dry sensor so when we do experiments and connect and You know see how the sensor the signal is on this versus like a bio semi which is a gold standard EEG system They're using wet prep with gel and goop and this is just totally dry sensor. I saw yeah You push it for more to you push and pull for adjusting. Yeah Yeah, the dry sensing versus the yep So we had to create all the dry sensing technology Then we had to find an algorithm that's going to go. It's gonna reliably detect meditation focus attention versus mind wandering Then create an app and experience that has a metaphor that helps you understand it So the metaphor we use is your mind is like the weather So when you're thinking and distracted you actually hear it a stormy and as you come to quiet focus detention It quite the storms. Yeah And when your mind picks up and you begin to wander again the storm picks up Yeah You actually hear the sound of your own mind That's your notification to bring your mind back to your breath to come back to your focus and where am I looking to get a Notification so it's audio feedback Data to your phone and then your phone translates the sound of your mind into the guiding sounds of weather Oh, so you play a storm? Yeah, or you play a bird's chirping or something? Yes, you so it is the sound of your mind as a storm as a storm when your mind is stormy You hear the storm and as your mind is calm the storm quiet and oh this what do you hear when the storm is quiet? Just like the gentle lapping of waves. Oh just the waves. Oh waves There's a really good the visual of this they They were at brain mind in September Just wearing an EEG and then you would see a Projector that showed the waves or then clouds a storm. Oh, yeah, we've done that for years. You have been doing that for your Okay, so that's interesting that it's been we've had many years of iterations of this So at earlier on we actually had a visual but meditation is a eyes closed experience So we no longer have a visual for it But we used to have literally usually you literally have clouds and you could even we would do it in a 3d room You would sit in a room you're projected with clouds all around you And you could then as you quiet the clouds move away and then as your mind becomes active the clouds return Yeah, so we've played with Dozens and dozens and dozens of implementations and is this manufactured in China? It is In Shenzhen knowing shaman in a really lovely factory shaman shaman. Yeah In a factory that's like highly supportive of all of those workers. I've been there many times Actually, not many times my team has been there many times. I've been there a few times cool But what like the rest of my team has been months living months. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Just to make sure this comes out, right? Yeah, yeah it always blows my mind to To yeah hardware is very very very interesting Because of stuff like that. Yeah manufacturing overseas and yeah, most most people don't don't get that so much Now there's also obviously a software component to this but let's talk Let's talk a little bit more about hardware stuff. What was the battery life in this one? So it's four and a half hours continuous years. Yeah, that's great. And then the fit fit really well. It was really comfortable, you know, it's very comfortable and so What else about the hardware should we know prior before we move to software? So these are four channels. You said what does it mean to have a Zero a channel a reference. So what does it mean in each you're always measuring relative to the reference So you want to typically the reference is the ears and older EEG systems Yeah, so you want somewhere where you're getting your biological data because your skin your your body has a bioelectric potential Yeah, so you're looking at the value of the brain activity minus the value of the general bioelectric Oh Okay, so everything is subtracted by yeah, got it. So it's in reference to reference to yeah Yeah, got it got it because that normal spot could be could be generating a certain amount of bioelectric activity Okay, and then so that's on every EEG is there's a Ref and then a ref if you're hip to the link if you're hip to the lingo. Yeah, it's the EEG a log. Yeah So how many of these did you guys says when did Muse 2 come out? So Muse 2 came out 10 days ago Fresh off the shelf Damn That's awesome. Thank you. Congrats. Thank you. That's four years later. It takes four years later four years later now Now before we talk about that, you know that hardware upgrade What is going on with the software on the software side of things so you're taking in Electricals your team bioelectric signatures from the four channels to behind the ear to on the Prefrontal cortex right here, and then you're taking that data and you're making sense of it You're doing that those electric seniors making sense of it. So Now I guess walk us through what it looks like to try and make sense of of that data So what we're looking for is focus detention versus mind wandering. Is that is that pretty much the clearly what you're looking It's very clearly what we're looking for nothing else. Yeah. No, so you can't use this for open monitoring Okay, so that's what it's called open monitoring. So there's focus detention. Yeah, like a shamata or vipassana practice Yeah, then the next step typically is open monitoring So once you train your attention on a single point Then you have this trained attention which you can begin to move around to the room for example So that would be an open monitoring practice Compassion meditation is a separate practice, which is a separate neural signature Where you're you know focusing on your heart for example and trying to engender compassion. Yeah, yeah So that's a different that's those are all different practices interesting So so you have to follow a certain practice when you do this So what this is built on is a focused attention on the breath so you focus Yeah, I could actually be any single point which is vipassana. Yeah And it could be any single point. Oh any point on your not just nostrils You're you can go any yeah any single point attention But we say on the breath because that's the most common comment You focus your attention on your breath your mind wanders And then as a meditator your job is to notice that your mind is wandered and return it to the breath Correct and that act of noticing and returning that's actually like doing the work work out exactly. That's the work Yeah, that's the work out of meditation. Yeah, so in a standard meditation Your man begins to wander and if there's no one there to remind you that it's wandered remind you that you're meditating might be You know 30 seconds a minute two minutes ten minutes. Yeah before you're like, oh, right I've been thinking about that problem of work back to meditating. Yeah, yeah with muse It cues you instantly that you've wandered within half a second And so if in a regular ten minute meditation session with without technology you might get in You know five or ten returns with muse you can get in 50 returns like literally 50 reps at the gym Yeah, so it really hones that quality of attention really teaches you very instantly to notice your distractions and bring it back Bring it back. That's the people very quickly learn the skill because First of all, you now know what you're supposed to do Into you're really tightly cued into what it is that you're doing and cued to come back That's really interesting this practice of you know, 2,500 years is They're very adamant about keeping it clean and and It's very interesting to think about because I always think about how technology like muse Can you know get 50 reps and instead of three reps you can learn how to meditate much faster? Psychedelics are also very interesting to explore while meditating all these and it's just it's just interesting I wonder if there will be an augmentation to the like the postural practice at any point, you know or Because that doesn't that does interestingly make a lot of sense that I could very quickly in the first couple of days Focus because I hear I'm hearing a storm every time that it wanders Yeah, and so we're not seeking to change an ancient practice like all of that wisdom is incredibly valid incredibly important Like they figured it out. Yeah, we're just giving you some training wheels to understand what that process is Yeah, and to understand and hone that process and so as a meditator your consciousness explorer You know it is your job to have metacognition to be able to see your thoughts Yeah, and so we're just giving you some cues here to help you actually have that metacognition Yeah, so people who are expert like beginners love it because they're like I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do and that makes sense and then experts love it because You can actually get a new level of perspective on your thoughts and on your awareness And the idea is you know you learn in the practice and then the whole gateway of meditation is open to you because so many people You know, I know for myself before I really like started a real meditation practice I would read books about meditation and be like that's cool. I'd go to sits I'd sit in a temple and be like I'm not totally sure what I'm supposed to be doing here But I feel cool being here And it was only once I actually started through using news really building a meditation practice Getting it then everything that I had read before like 2,000 years of wisdom made sense I was like, oh, that's what they're talking about. Okay. Now I experience it now I can go into this now I can start doing open monitoring and actually do it correctly You know now all of this stuff is engaging to me because I get it It's in me whereas before it was just external words So, you know the goal of this is to be a gateway or to be in you know to be a mirror to be a lens It's not to be an overall solution. It's yeah, it's to like open the doors. Yeah It's good way to put it. Yeah, I like I liked yeah, I like I like talking to you about it I feel like you're you know, you're really you're really open to to all of the different Walks of them of meditation. Yeah. Yeah, and that's cool So So let's okay. So let's start. Let's talk about software a little bit more than There's there's so many ways to get up the mountain, you know, yeah, yeah, so many ways to get up So many ways to get none of them are there's a million ways. Yeah So so now okay, so now what so this is focus you're talking about focus attention. So yeah, so it's about You're you're looking at Versus open monitoring. So this is focused on your versus mind wandering Versus mind wandering but open monitoring is when you take to signal that you're receiving from a channel and that you're able to analyze a bunch of different things with it So we don't do that with the muse correct. That's a skill that you then learn that your technology lets you do Yeah, so normal EEG headset when I'm putting on a normal, whatever 48 or whatever channels there are You know when I just put on a normal 40 channel EEG headset. Yeah Exactly so one does every two days every Tuesday when you put on one of those is that is Is the What I'm what I'm what I'm trying to say is is an electrode on that is one of the channels on that 48 heads channel heads is that That channel is the same as this channel, right from the same spot on the head from yeah Yeah, right here on your forehead if you put one of those 48 channels right next to it You would get and are you getting the same readout to you are? Yeah, okay same signal and then but your software only looks for attention Focus or mind wandering? Mm-hmm. Okay, but you're getting more information than just totally. It's okay It's a clinical grade EEG. So it's got to see it's getting a spectrum of information Yeah, and there's an open API that developers can use to do whatever it is. Oh cool But then the muse application the muse meditation application is specifically looking for focused engine versus mind wandering Yes, we have another app called Muse Direct. Okay, that lets you stream live Your raw EEG signal. Oh or do real-time FFTs on your EEG signal. What's FFT fast for your transform? So that's how you take the raw signal and you break it into the standard bands alpha beta theta. Oh, oh sweet Yeah, okay, so FFT fast Fourier transform take raw EEG data and put showed into from yeah, beta to gamma Yeah, yeah, gamma to delta gamma to delta. Yeah, okay, the G to the D G to the D Okay Okay, and then So So, okay cool. So then your software is looking for folks And now what is it? No, what is what does it look like when you're focused versus mind wandering? How do you what is it is mind wandering like this? So it's a like fast frequency So it's at this point. It's a machine learning classifier So we started by looking at the brains of expert meditators and having them note when they were in focus attention When they were in mind wandering and that's how we began training Then we added novices intermediates novices doing the same task And now we have millions and millions and millions of sessions of meditation awesome And so taking that taking into account, you know What somebody looks like prior to meditation and then during their meditation? we've built a classifier that's able to look at focused tension versus mind wandering and It's not like the previous approach was well meditation is alpha with a little bit of theta coherence We've thrown that out the window This is like let's look at everything going on in the brain Over millions and millions of sessions of folks tension versus mind wandering and then come up with the come up with the Algorithmic hypothesis from there. Cool. So then okay, so it was a People were going to a state of deep meditation or focus and then saying I'm in I'm in that state And then or my mind's been wandering for a minute. Yeah Okay Okay, awesome, and then are they wearing the the audio is either coming from the phone from the from the app From the app on the phone and then they can have headphones in or not And we can hear either waves or like lightning or so we we actually have five different soundscapes with more coming Oh, okay So you can be in a rainforest and so when your mind is wandering the rain picks up and when it's quiet The rain gets quiet you can be on the beach and when your mind is wandering you hear the crashing of the waves And then when your mind is quiet, you know, it gets quiet just to the laughing of water Oh cool can be in a city park some people like the city park meditation and so you hear your mind busy like the You know the busy buzzing city well quiet like you know the little birds sitting next to you. Oh, that's great Yeah, those are good. Yeah, so people choose the soundscape that most you know They most identify their mental state with and the metaphors are really powerful I mean it feels like this is your mind that you're you're hearing. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's cool being able to hear your mind Yeah, that's cool. You put it and also you get to pick the soundscape. That's great. Okay Nice, I like the design of the soundscapes, too Okay, that's that's pretty that's pretty awesome. And then are we able to also show the app as well on on the show? And then in the meanwhile this packaging is freaking awesome. I'm really like the packaging Meditation made easy used to the brain-sensing headband Is this French? It is we're translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese is coming. Wow So we have users all over the world like we have millions and users There's been millions and millions of sessions of meditation with news. That's great. Yeah, it's global. Yeah, it's great. That's great Mind real-time brainwave EEG feedback heart tune into the heart rate Breath learn how to use your breath To calm your mind fight stress and body discover your posture. You know, wow So so what's new about Muse 2? Yes, so Muse 2 just launched as I said 10 days ago It's crazy. And this has been the most extraordinary journey that I've been on with my team in the last four years You know, we got the news news one out. It went out. We're like, oh my god You know, you're so nervous when your first product goes out You don't know you assume it's just gonna break and it's just gonna like be garbage and you pray It's not and it's shocking when it isn't yeah. Yeah, it's like Somebody used it three weeks later and like sent me a note. They're like my life has changed It's like what this thing even turned on. It held a charge. This is crazy Yeah, wow Gosh that feeling you feel so good. I'm so happy you had that. Thank you a lot of work that leads to those moments Yeah, there's a lot of like as the emails were coming in there was just tears like wow Like not only can this thing turn on but people are actually using it and finding value like that is the dream You don't imagine the dream is actually gonna come true. Yeah Four years is a long time. So you must have sold like a couple thousand of them Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of them and then at two ninety nine was the price point It so it came out at two ninety nine and then over time we've been working really hard to bring down the price I mean the goal is to make it as accessible as possible. Yeah, so now I'm use one is down to about one ninety nine One ninety nine and this is out for two ninety and this is out for two forty nine Yeah, so with all the improvements in like supply chain that we've made during the last four years News to with more sensors and even cheaper than the first one. Wow, let's let's check it out. Let's do it. So this is the baby The box is much smaller than the original Packaging is great. Thank you. Yeah, there are Multiple languages. Yeah So this is news to it's smaller. Wow, that's so small. Yeah smaller and lighter than the original muse Wow And it has a lot lighter. Yeah Dang, this is very pretty. Thank you Wait, they didn't make you write all of those all of that stuff on the inside. You might even have a prototype one Let's see. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you normally on the inside here. We have all the serial numbers in CE Yeah, they have all the stuff written on the inside. Yeah Yeah, this one is actually even one of the prototypes This is the muse one and then there's the channels and then there's two here on the ear And then this is like, you know, this is quite thick in comparison to it's still pretty tiny for a you know Oh, yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, this is yeah, it compared to this one. It's just crazy that I'm saying that I know Yeah, 20 years going to be murdered This is you know a lot thinner so now okay, so now let's let's let's unpack the So unpack this is this where the charger? Yeah, so actually that's super cool So that's the charger and we brought back a feature from very early muses that we did Micro USB micro USB charge there and you can even put two additional ports in Oh, yeah, we make we make these cool EG. Oh, that plug into a micro USB So you can add additional EG sensors anywhere on the head If you're like, you know I think you can put a plug in more. Oh, that's oh, that's interesting extension port. Oh extension port So Chris aiming a CTO my co-founder. Yeah, that's his genius like USB extension port. That's brilliant. Yeah brilliant brilliant Now now wait, I didn't ask you this how how do these pieces of rubber? Mm-hmm Where's the how do they sense electrical activity? Yeah This is high is this IP What can you say so these are actually Conductive rubber conductive rubber. Yeah, so when we're building this there was like no obvious solution And we started working around with novel materials and ultimately created these conductive rubber comfortable conformal sensors Yeah, so that was like one of the big leaps forward. Oh, that's so interesting So did you guys do tests on the conductive rubber in comparison to yeah So then we had to do a lot of work in the material science of it to actually get Great signal quality. Yeah to get really high-class signal quality because conductive rubber in and of itself as a Not the best most consistent material. Yeah, so in this we used in the forehead Those are silver silver chloride sensors silver sulfur chloride silver silver chloride to silvers silver silver I think it's over silver. Yeah, so it's over and silver chloride Oh silver silver and silver chloride. Yeah, and then in the new muse. We actually were able to move to a new material Gold that's literally gold. It's a bit which is a better actually gold better conductivity slightly different conductivity properties and We weren't able to do gold early on because the flex so this is a flex strip in here a flex strip Yeah, so the electronics are actually within the strip. Yeah. Yeah, and when we made muse in 2014 the technology was not yet there to be able to do this level of exposed gold sensor Interesting and now there's just been technology advances in Flexes that was a lot of dust to do that and this is the and that's the heart rate. All right, so sir So that's a PPG sensor That's the same kind PPG PPG. Yeah, which uses light for blood flow. Yes So this is a PPG sensor here and what it does is it shines a red light through your skin And so it's able to detect the blood flow and so as your heart pulses you have more blood On on every pulse So we're able to see the pulses and then the interstitial pulse and interstitial with the red light And so we're able to know each and every beat of your heart So then from that you get heart beat you get heart rate variability and then we also were able to do pulse oxygenation sp of two readings the level of oxygen in your blood and why Why a PPG instead of the ECG? Yeah, so in order to do an electric cardiogram You actually need two points so an ECG is a metal electrical sensor And to do that you would need to get two points to get a true ECG. Oh So we actually can get funnily enough you can do a true True ECG if you put them use on backwards on your neck Because then you're gonna get one sensor Touching the back of your neck and you're gonna get no no no like this way. Sorry guys I I don't know what I'm oh like this and then you're gonna get the other sensors touching your collarbone and you're actually gonna be able to get Functionally an ECG like that. Oh, that's cool. Oh, that's cool. We discovered that accidentally accidentally. Yeah Okay, so in there we have a PPG. Yeah, and so did the did the channels get better on the The gold the gold is stronger conductive. It has good conductive They're both in terms of the signal quality from the forehead Approximately the same approximately and then I'm still so impressed by the rubber Conductivity that's that's so interesting. Yeah, there's a lot of material science That's not simply conduct like carbon rubber. There's a lot of things. There's oh, yeah That you had to make it more conductive Because the the interesting thing about the rubber is that the rubber is what actually makes it comfortable Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's why if you figured out how to put the there's a stronger electrical signal by the By the back of the ear than there is by the by like right here if there was an EG right here There was a sorry a Channel right here on the inside of the and so the thing is that in order to get good Good signal you need to have really tight contact to the head bare skin. Yeah on bare skin Yeah, no no hair. Yeah. Yeah, this hair is don't want those microns to get in the way So what the PPG let's sensor lets us do is create new experiences for the heart So as the in the original muse About the same about the same four and a half cool Theoretically it should be better. We'll see we haven't been able to test it yet to guarantee it Yeah, so I will say safely about the same. Yeah This is what happens when your hardware comes at 10 days ago. Yeah, exactly in a boat from overseas It's nuts We've had somebody in China for you know the last many many weeks. Yeah And so the heart sensor allows us to do some beautiful things Whereas the original brain experience is real-time feedback on your brain We can I give you real-time feedback on your heart on your breathing and on your body You can tell posture. Yeah, yeah, yeah posture and movement and so in the heart sensor The first experience that we built actually gives you real-time feedback So you hear the sound of your heart like the beating of a drum. It's a beautiful experience So most other heart things let you either just see a little blip that's your heart and you're like, okay That's my heart cool like that feels medical and monitoring or it's a number on your wrist. My heart rate is 67 right now But this is actually a visceral experience of your own heart And so you're hearing your heart like the beating of a drum and actually being able to tap into your heart's rhythm And you can do that just sitting to totally and just feeling your heart yourself Interestingly, not everybody can do that Sure, it's just not like what we can't like if people train to do it. They could do it, right? so there's data there's research that Shows that some people are able to and sitting actually hear the sound of their own heart Yeah, and some people are not and those who are not probably could train to get there, but just Indulgenously as an activity. There are some people who cannot sense their own hearts Maybe if as you know if trained trained yet I'm guessing everybody because once the focus gets so damn good Yeah, then then you can listen to all sorts of listen all Tiny tiny things. Yeah, and so this amplifies the beating of your heart. You're like a drum Yeah, the sound and then you can turn that on or off if you want. Yeah, and you can begin to understand what Effects your heart, you know, and so once I started to train with it. I became aware when I was anxious In ways that I wasn't before because I could actually now feel my heartbeat quickening and be like, oh, okay This thing's actually causing me stress. I wouldn't have realized now. I have this cue for stress Okay, now practices that I can do to calm myself down on the moment and I can start to feel my heart subside It's beautiful. Mm-hmm. So we also give you breathing exercises breathing is the foundation of any contemplative practice Or many contemplative practices. It's also a foundational way to trigger and shift your own physiology So when you start to slow down your breathing and manage your breathing It's a cue for your body to go into parasympathetic parasympathetic nervous system Instead of sympathetic and so your body starts to relax your heart rate slows Actually, as you breathe in your heart rate naturally increases and as you breathe out your heart rate naturally decreases So that's why a lot of breathing exercises So that's why a lot of breathing exercises meant to calm you down Teach you to have a long exhale and prolong the amount of time that you spend with your heart slowing down And relaxing your physiology So with Muse 2 we now have breath sensing technology. That's able to actually track your breaths So you can track each one of your breaths and also guide you with breathing exercises. So there's box breathing So there's box breathing like you would do if you had anxiety in for for a hole for four out for four Hold for horror. There's stability breathing short inhale long exhale, and there's pranayama breathing You have fast breathing to energize you So you learn a set of breathing practices that you're guided through practicing So that when you're then out into the wild and you need to shift your physiology You're noticing that you're getting anxious or you're noticing that you're too lax and need to zip yourself up You know how these practices that you can tap into and your heart a physiological cue that you can use To guide you as to where you want to be at that moment Super cool. Yeah. Yeah, the the addition of a PBG sensor to give you this data is Brilliant. It's a huge addition to the product. Thank you and then So then so then the like you were just describing all of the different breathing you said for For when you become more calm that your heart rate Stabilizes your heart rate naturally starts to slow as you become slow Yeah, and then you can hear your drum beating louder and harder harder when it's when your mind's wandering faster Yeah faster, so we have these exercises initially you do the exercises separately, so you'll train separately with heart Yeah, with breath with body. So the body exercise is beautiful The metaphor we use is that you're sitting inside of a set of wind chimes And so as you shift about you're knocking into the wind chimes So you can actually hear every time you fidget and it encourages you to find a place of stillness and calm And for a lot of people for whom meditation is difficult or they're just starting to practice Simply learning to sit and finding stillness in their body is the first step first step Yeah, and so we also posture sensors Because there's a number of different accelerometer and gyroscope sensors in the news Are you serious? Yeah, so around her in gyro. Yeah Did one have it in both of them? Yeah, why is there a cell around her in gyro? So you can do cool things like like like helping you find a comfortable posture for sitting interesting Yeah, and then is that is that So movement is determined by which one the accelerator accelerometer and the gyro both determine movement or posture posture Also, you know appropriate head and body relationship And so then from there we can guide you into stillness and we find stillness in your in your body You can find stillness in your mind much more readily So you train individually on these exercises and then ultimately what we're going to build is this harmonious experience where you can Simultaneously experience your heart your brain your body your mind. We're not there yet But like that's that's the roadmap so you get this total body physiology So you're working on kind of like part by part Yeah, so right now it's part by part and that's like everybody comes in through there And as you know the muse community grows and practices with these pieces We're gonna start to combine them so we're always expanding the software offering So when you get a muse, you know We update the software like every two weeks and so you're always getting New interesting features that continue to grow and shift with you in your practice And then is there another new sensor or feature before we show the Let's show the let's do it. Yeah, okay. Let's show software So this is the muse app and these are the features that with muse one you get mind meditation So you're able to choose the length of your session you can do a session as long as you want It can be hours if you wish or you can start at just two minutes And that's a really key feature for people. It doesn't need to be scary. You just better take two minutes. Yeah, it's fine Then you can choose your soundscape you can be in the beach and the rainforest and cities city soundscape and more and Then we have a range of meditation guidance So this is the muse essentials. It's ten easy lessons that just teach you What is meditation? What are you doing with this device? How do you use it to your best purpose? So simple lessons like training a puppy. You're wondering mind is like a puppy be gentle and playful with it Deepak Chopra even created some guided meditations for us And so we have a bunch of content with more content coming and then when you that's a good partner Yeah, that's a great partner. Thank you. So then was that like a little Written it's like you can go look at those different. So those are all audio guidance. They're audio guides audio guides while you Meditate so it's like headspace plus biofeedback. Oh, cool. Oh, yeah, so it guides you great. Yeah So that's the mind meditation the heart meditation here You can hear hear the sound of your heart like the beating of a drum and there's there's only one in the side here, but there's a Bunch of different lessons that it guides you through and there's more coming in Body you hear yourself inside of the wind chime so that's right able to find your center And so that's the accelerator and gyro at work. Yep. And so there's Different audio there's different guidance that's in there. Yeah, and then breath and guides your breathing So for example, it's on the breathe in for out four four six long exhale So there's a range of different for second inhale six second exhale And so it's actually a sound that guides you to breathe in and out So you hear both your own breath and the tone that's guiding your breath So you end up sinking with the rhythm. It's really really beautiful. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, and then there's also timed meditation So if you forget your muse or you don't have your muse available and you want to continue your streak I bet streaks in a minute You can just choose a timed meditation and then just use it like a meditation timer awesome So it becomes this friend. This is on an iPad, but it would just be on your own phone This friend that's always with you that helps you meditate And then what are the buttons on the bottom and on the top left top right? So Here you have a range of different settings so you can change all of the audio You can change the guidance the feedback you can turn off the guidance if you don't want any You can turn off the feedback if you just want to do your own thing just track your meditation That'd be back. There's lots of different ways to play with it. And then the me screen Here's where you can actually see the history of all of your meditations. Yeah, so let's just go into there's your streak at the top There's your streak at the top and streaks are really powerful They can't the days that you've meditated and we literally have people who've been on like a 60-day streak in day 61 they can't meditate and they call us you're like can you just like smooth it over so I can keep my streak It's a really powerful way to keep your yeah meditating. Yeah, you know the kids used to send their Have send their logins to their friends so that they while they were gone in nature that someone else could keep their Keep their streak for them. Yeah So let's look at the examples. So this is One day to session so you see you go back into your daddy You can see all of your concessions your mind your heart your body cool. Let's go into yeah And then you'll can save your notes in there. Yeah. Yeah, so here So this is what it would look like after you meditated So during meditation you get your real-time feedback and then after meditation you're actually able to see what your brain Was doing during calm active neutral. So up here is when you're active and down here is when you're calm so this individual Yeah, this individual started in a kind of neutral place and then they had a thought oh And then they were like oh, I'm having a thought let me bring it back and then they have another thought they brought it back They got even calmer than when they started You're able to stand that calm had another thought sort of thought with it brought it down state and calm had a thought and then And what we celebrate is you get calm points and the calm points come just from the amount of time that you're in calm Recoveries are when you notice that your mind is wandered and you've returned So when your mind spikes up into active and you're like nope. I see that I'm Wondering let me bring it back and so we celebrate the recoveries because it doesn't really matter how many times you're brain spikes The key is that you've noticed notice that recoveries are yeah Yeah, recoveries are huge. Yeah, and then birds and that's always everybody's favorite feature What's when you're able to stay for five seconds or more in calm state? Yeah, you get a bird you hear a little And that becomes this incredibly rewarding experience the funny thing about that is like with And then it's also there But it's also there to undermine the reward-driven nature of this so we're like, okay Well, this is reward-driven, but meditation is inherently against rewards. Yeah Yeah, so we created birds as a way to subvert that in a sense So you sit there you get a bird the first time you get a bird and you don't know what it means Fine You just got a bird doesn't mean anything soon as you find out that it was a reward the next time you get a bird You're like, I got a bird and as soon as you get excited it flies away So birds are a way of teaching you to be as Uninvested in your rewards as your failures to not get excited to not get engaged in it It's a reward, but it doesn't matter. It's just a sound. It's just a sensation. It's just an experience so a bird a Bird you hear the bird after five seconds of being in calm and then it flies away Or it stays it's key the bird stays there if you stay in calm longer Yeah, so if you get excited by the bird the bird flies away interesting So you're training people to not get excited by a reward. Yeah, okay I get it. It's our way of subverting the goal-directed nature. It's like fine. There's a reward I don't care. Interesting. It doesn't matter. It's very interesting Yeah, it's interesting to learn about all this stuff after you know hearing all the do not react do not crave Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny This is really really well made. Yeah, this is well made You see all your meditations here, you know see your total minutes Muse points birds recoveries this week's goal all that good stuff right there And it's a motivational architecture that's meant to keep you coming back and meditating every day So we start with this, you know extrinsic gamified. Let's give you a whorge and badges And then ultimately the mere purpose of that is to get you to come back and meditate the next day And the next day after that. Yeah And ultimately all of that stuff melts away and doesn't matter and what you begin to then experience is the Intrinsic reward of meditation. Yeah, the sensation that you have in your life because you meditate and then the desire to come back And meditate ultimately because you feel better, but it takes you a fair amount of time to get there Yeah, to get to the point where you have a significant enough meditation practice to feel the shift in your day. Yeah Now so we had to you know create a bunch of structure to get you there. Yeah, yeah Unless you have a Zen master with a stick Me is where you get that info now So when you pay 249 for the muse to The app is free and you can't have the app if or the app is free If you don't have a muse or the app is also free if you don't have a muse Anybody can just go and Download the news and use the timer feature timer feature. Yeah, and we will have actually more and more guided Meditations inside we just word merged with a company called meditation studio. No, you did and yeah, and so they were the number Essentially number four up in the meditation app store. Great. So they have Asian studio. Yeah, beautiful It's a beautiful content. They have over 500 different meditations For everything you need in life So, you know, you need to fall asleep. There's a library of 10 meditations to help you sleep from a range of different teachers You're sitting on the bus and getting frustrated because you're late for your appointment There's a meditation for that too We're students and you're about to take an exam and you're feeling jittery like there's there's a collection of meditations for students Wow, specifically and so there's all of these meditations for any moment in your life. That's really targeted. Yeah, it's amazing It's been like it's become my best friend Yeah, whenever I feel, you know, whenever I want some morning joy, like there's yeah, there's a meditation for that Yeah, that's it's very interesting. There's a there's a meditation for that. That's funny Yeah, yeah, there's a meditation for that and so all of that content's flowing into Into news so you'll see that flourishing over time So where does this go? Does this get smaller and more Channels on the heads. That's more sense. It's gonna stay like this for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah What are we talking with like long future stuff because how many people are using this right now? Tons and tons and tons like hundreds of thousands hundreds of millions and millions of millions of sessions of sessions But like hundreds of thousand people are using it. Yeah, there's wow and Everybody from you know your average individual using it because they want to sleep better or they're having relationship difficulties Yeah, yeah to companies we do corporate programs and we come in with a complement of muses and get teams musing together I just I feel like I don't I don't like I don't want to be a Luddite You know it's like Luddites are really bad, but like there's just there's also something very interesting Like there's so many people being onboarded with this. It's fantastically getting more people meditating It's going into corporate environments all this kind of stuff We've psychotherapists that use it we have And we have like thousands and thousands of professional psychotherapists, psychiatrists, life coaches naturopaths who use muses in their practice Doctors clinics, Mayo Clinic has been running a study using news for breast cancer patients who've been awaiting surgery And they get a muse to deal with the stress of surgery and hopefully also improve their recovery times So in all of those situations I was a psychotherapist and so I try to teach my patients to meditate But it never really worked that well so in all of these situations where a professional wants to Teach or encourage their client to meditate like a doctor somebody comes in with a condition that you know You should recommend meditation for But the doctor never knows how to meditate so the patient certainly isn't gonna know how to meditate They're gonna go home They're not gonna see their doctor for another four months and they're not gonna meditate and now literally the doctor can hand the Patient and use and say hey like go do this and I'm gonna know when you do it Yeah, and by the way it with your permission I can't know if you don't give me permission But if you want to do this within the you know within a client patient relationship Yeah, then you can give me permission to coach you in this process Or if not just take it take it home I'll never know and but you can go and meditate and then they get at home and their wife starts using it And then their kids start using it I've heard so many beautiful stories of kids who now meditate because of muse a guy was just telling me today Yeah, these two kids you brought them home They like would never do anything their dad wanted them to do. Oh, yeah He's like here's this cool thing Try to get some birds and the kids started competing and before you know it They were meditating and it's been three years and they meditate regularly now Yeah, it does seem like there's way too many Benefits that outweigh there's probably the only I think the old literally the only bad thing is that it just We're no longer relying on just ourselves to get us to states of Meditation and like eradicating our own suffering and misery But now we're using technology to augment headspace and calm and muse and all the a lot of the other companies here Which is which is I think that's great But like I said is just onboarding so many more people like you were saying it's like it's biohacking is what it's doing So we don't want to wait for For our own abilities. It's like no like let me biohack myself to meditative states So it's it's a trajectory of the future. You don't want to be left behind So we are still relying on ourselves to get to states. So muse is not zapping you in any way It's not, you know, but even augmentation of even something as simple as hearing storms when the mind's wandering versus Having to detect that the mind is wandering yourself Which you which you ultimately then need to do in your daily life So you're gonna meditate for maybe 10 minutes and Then you're gonna take it off and then you're gonna go into your life And then you're gonna start doing things and you're gonna take that meditation practice You have to do yourself 99.99999% of the time you have to do it yourself You have to do it yourself. Yeah, this is just showing you what you were supposed to do Yeah, yeah, this is a good way to look at it. This is a really well explained. You can tell you've been talking about it for 10 years And if you don't want to meditate with muse and you want to figure it out on your own Fantastic, please please please just go meditate. I truly do not care how you do it Whether you use technology or you don't use technology if you're against technology, no problem So long as it doesn't mean that you're not Please it's very beneficial to you. It's very beneficial to everybody around you So just get into the practice. Why not however works for you is totally fine with me. Yes Why not why not like how many other competitors are there's like a motive, right? What are the other ones? So motive is not so much a competitor in the meditation space. They have a Headset with more channels to it It sort of takes a more real estate on your head. Yeah, and they're looking more like learning cognition I'm not inside their company. So I can't exactly yeah. Yeah, and then we're also an awesome company Neuroskye and they really focused on like the sort of single channel like really kind of low market low-end market. Yeah more gamey with much simpler algorithms and That's still about it. Okay, and then so I know it's not gonna get smaller for a while but the general idea is more sensors smaller units longer battery life and more acquisitions or collaborations with different Companies it seems like the general like roadmap onboarding more people around the world to help them use it and their kids use it So my secret mission is to teach everybody that you don't have to be subject to the thoughts that are in your head About you that say nasty things about you all the time. That's a good one. Like yeah, we are these amazing phenomenal beings But apparently 85% of the world's as low self-esteem like most of us just feel a little bit unhappy about ourselves and our condition in our world most of the time and That is not because the reality of us That's the story that we tell ourselves. Yeah, and so you have the opportunity To change the relationship between the thoughts that are in your mind Like for most people your thoughts just think you and that's not actually the way it needs to be you can shift that Relationship with your own thoughts and choose the contents of your mind Choose the story of yourself and choose what you want to do in your life so That's what beautifully said. Thank you. It's totally true. Yeah, it's what two thousand years of meditation technology has been telling us Yeah, yeah, yeah Exactly. Yeah, we don't need to suffer. Yeah, exactly. Yeah Yeah, I'm I'm really happy that you're building this and that you know, you're celebrating with the muse to it's fantastic It's great. It's great to have so many people that are caring about this and putting it together Um, congrats huge congratulations. We'll have to explore doing a promo code That would be fantastic. Awesome. We'll see how well it does try and get you guys signed up with you as soon as possible Thanks, everyone for tuning in Ariel. Thank you for coming. Thank you. My pleasure Please check the bio for muse information and for the and for the link With promo code rule explore with slash simulation. Maybe we'll see hopefully that's what it will end up doing I'll let you know we'll have to I'll let you know how it goes using this as well I'll have to get one and and and give you guys feedback on on how it goes Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on to the show. My pleasure. This is really really fun And thanks for onboarding so many people into the meditation experience Yeah, thanks everyone for tuning in. We greatly appreciate it. Give us some comments below with your thoughts we'd love to hear from you and Go and build the future manifest your destiny into the world. Thanks everyone for tuning in and we'll see you soon Peace