Biofeedback

The Journey to Wild Divine - The Passage

Thu, 2008-04-17 10:26 — David Herron
cover of The Journey to Wild Divine - The Passage
The Journey to Wild Divine - The Passage
Price: $199.95 USD (as of 2008-04-17 14:26:42)
CD-ROM
The Journey to Wild Divine: The Passage and Wisdom Quest are the first \"inner-active\" computer adventures that combines ancient breathing and meditation with modern biofeedback technology for total mind-body wellness. Progress through the realm using the power of your thoughts, feelings, breath and awareness. Much more than just a game, each edition is a tool for physical and mental health. Wearing three finger sensors that track your body\'s heart rate variability and skin conductance, you move through enchanting and mystical landscapes using the power of your thoughts, feelings, breath and awareness. Wise mentors guide you throughout the realm, empowering you with yoga, breathing and meditation skills needed to complete over 40 biofeedback \'energy\' events in each edition. Build stairways with your breath, open doors with meditation, juggle balls with your laughter, and so much more. The Journey makes biofeedback, a popular method of alternative healthcare, easily accessible and empowers you to take mind-body wellness, literally, into your own hands.

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Thu, 2008-04-17 10:27 — David Herron

Re: The Journey to Wild Divine - The Passage

The Journey to the Wild Divine is presented with a number of truly large claims, that it can help you achieve total "mind-body wellness" and help you get in touch with your spiritual nature. So it has been with a mix of skepticism and excitement that I have played this game.

At it's core the Wild Divine game is three things:

  • A bio-feedback measuring unit. This unit measures skin resistance (or in other words, the oppenness of the sweat glands) and heart rate variability.
  • Rich computer graphics imagry in the game providing the feedback portion of the biofeedback loop.
  • Game material drawn directly from the ancient Wisdom traditions (primarily Eastern).

A biofeedback system involves a computer taking biological measurements, and generating feedback based on some algorithm that has some purpose. For example in the Wild Divine there is a teaching of the "Peaceful Breath" in several places. For one of them you are shown a fireplace, with a bellows expanding and contracting at an even pace. You are directed to breath in and with the same pace as the bellows (for a count of 7), and based on the biological indicators the game reads it animates the lighting of a fire in the fireplace. The more stress free or peaceful the indicators look, the bigger the flames in the fireplace.

Breathing evenly (to a count of 7, for example) is an ancient meditation technique. What's new is the introduction of a gadget (the computer) which can directly measure a useful attribute resulting from meditation, and give direct and useful feedback to help you deepen the experience.