Ever since humanity’s appearance on this planet, sound has been an enormous tool for expanding consciousness.
Thousands to tens of thousands of years ago, mankind was using sound to stimulate spiritual experience.
Indentations have been found in stalactites hanging from the ceilings in caves that were worn in specific places as they were tapped and ‘played’. In these same caves, drawings were created in the exact places where the acoustics or sound was most pronounced.
The frequencies and sounds amplified in these places had a profound effect on the state of consciousness.
New Grange in Ireland has fascinating acoustic properties. So do Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid. All over the world, our ancestors played with the properties of sound to heal or stimulate a specific state of consciousness.
The challenge of defining consciousness has captured many of humanity’s most brilliant minds for eons. Wikipedia has a pretty well-rounded explanation:
“Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind. Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is. As Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives."”
Why has the exploration of deeper levels of consciousness been so important to humanity?
Because it allows us to touch our souls.
These deeper levels of consciousness connect us with meaning, purpose, love, compassion, bliss, truth, brilliance and all those qualities that shine out from a human being when she is touching her soul.
It tells us that there is more to life than we may be consciously aware of in our day-to-day life. We need meaning in our lives to feel that life is worth living.
Have you ever had a dream or vision that was so vivid that you could felt you could touch, smell, hear and see every detail? This is an example of an experience while in theta brainwave state.
Most of what we feel as a ‘spiritual’ experience happens in theta brainwave state.
And one of the most effective ways of stimulating this brainwave state is by using repetitive sounds and drones. A drone is a continuous sound, like the engine of your car when you are driving or like the drone pipes on a bagpipe.
In fact, many of humanity’s first instruments, created repetitive sounds and drones that stimulated a shift in consciousness – like the drum or rattle.
Repetitive sounds and drones have the effect of calming the alerting mechanism of the brain and allowing a change in the state of consciousness. The sound opens a door into the unconscious mind.
Tom Kenyon, sound healing pioneer and acoustic brain researcher, discussed sound and consciousness in an article called, “Sound as a Modulator of Consciousness”.
“Even as I continue to conduct and co-ordinate research into the effects of shamanic sound, I often use it clinically or in group training sessions for I have found it unsurpassed as a doorway to altered states and other dimensions of consciousness. I often witness profound emotional and physical healings occurring when people enter these non-ordinary dimensions of awareness. Touching the depth of one’s nature through sound seems to have a universally transformative effect. As a researcher I continue to be intrigued by the neurological effects of sound, and as a practitioner I am continually awed by the power of sound to touch, to inspire and to heal.”
http://www.soundhealersassociation.org/tom-kenyon-sound-as-a-modulator-of-consciousness
Sound Wellness Institute March Webinar
March 10, 2026 at 6pm MDT.
Sound is vibration. And vibration shapes the nervous system, the brain, and your state of awareness.
In this experience,
, we explore how sound influences brainwaves, emotional regulation, and perception—and why it’s such a powerful doorway into altered and expanded states of consciousness.
You’ll be guided through a sound journey designed to support relaxation, coherence, and presence…allowing your system to shift naturally, without force or effort.
No prior experience is needed. Just curiosity and a willingness to listen.
REGISTER HERE: https://wellnessuniverse.learnitlive.com/class/Sound-and-Consciousness/27952
In Health and Harmony,
