Four Gates

Journey to Wild Divine: Healing Rhythms Reviewed
Spiritual Training with Biofeedback Technology
by Tori Carpenter

When the original Journey to Wild Divine game first appeared, we were happily surprised to discover that it was much more than entertainment: it was actually a high-quality biofeedback tool in disguise. Still, we felt there was more that could be done with this superb technology. What we wished for was a Wild Divine product designed as an in-depth mind-body and meditation training system. Over the past twelve months, we worked with the Wild Divine creators to do just that—create a serious spiritual training tool for beginners and long-term practitioners alike.

The result: Healing Rhythms from the Wild Divine Project.

Many of us were eager to try this new product out, and here’s what we found …

Product Evaluation

Healing Rhythms is set up in fifteen progressive sessions, each with a specific focus—such as reducing physiological tension, cultivating gratitude, or boosting energy. Each session contains three modes: a learning program, several guided exercises with master teachers, and an appropriate game-like challenge from the original Wild Divine: The Passage. Healing Rhythms gives you two ways to use these sessions.

Self-Exploration lets you access any of the exercises anytime you want. This gives you complete freedom to focus where you will. If you’re like me, this is where you’ll naturally go first, to see what the program has to offer.

But when you want to settle down and get to work, Guided Training is the way to go. All the exercises are presented in a step-by-step order, starting with a series on Self-Discovery, moving on to Creating Happiness, and then finishing with exercises to Develop Life Skills.

This is where Healing Rhythms really shines. So, for instance, you start with Self-Discovery. Dr. Andrew Weil begins by teaching you why your first step is learning to quiet the mind. Then, Dr. Weil and Dr. Dean Ornish each take a turn guiding you in the essentials of breathing and relaxation, while the biofeedback gives you a precise look at how your body is responding to the exercise. Finally, you go to a virtual fantasy world (thebreathing tree ), where you use the inner techniques you’ve learned to call up a path into the sky.

After that, you move on to work with other areas to observe your thoughts, and then beyond into ever-deeper levels of spiritual training. Along the way, you receive wisdom and guided teaching from Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Joan Borysenko, Dr. Dean Ornish, Stephen Cope, Sharon Salzberg, and Nawang Khechog. The whole experience is like a virtual meditation retreat with a group of the best mind-body teachers that you experience at your own pace.

What Is HRV?

Your heart speeds up and slows down in a wave-like manner, akin to the motion of a roller coaster. Heart-rate variability orHRVis a measure of how deeply and how steadily those waves fluctuate. Recent medical research has identified correlations between a healthydeep and steadyHRV pattern and vagus-nerve activity (your body’s physiological relaxation response). This stress reduction, in turn, has been associated with better sleep quality, normalized blood pressure, and healthy digestive-, immune-, and hormonal-system function.

Initial studies also suggest that HRV reflects subtle changes in our emotional states. What does optimal HRV feel like? Many people describe it as a feeling ofappreciation, contentment, and flowlocated kinesthetically in the region of the heart. HRV research is still in its pioneering stages, so much remains to be learned. In the meantime, you now have the technology to explore this area of mind-body health for yourself.

Biofeedback Technology—The Heart of the Healing Rhythms system

Healing Rhythms is built around a sophisticated biofeedback monitor. This measures both heart-rate variability (see the “What Is HRV?” sidebar) and skin-conductance level (SCL), a sensitive measure of stress and relaxation. Using the finger-sensor hardware to connect to your computer, Healing Rhythms gives you four ways to experience the biofeedback:

• Nature Scene: This image of a serene lake changes very subtly as you watch and follow the guided meditation. It gives you cues like a setting sun or a bird flying by as you achieve deeper states of relaxation.

• The Grapher: An improved version of the original add-on software, this mode provides a precise display of your HRV and SCL, with a powerful color-spectrum graphic that reflectsheart coherencemoment by moment. It also displays a pulsing butterfly icon that’s very effective for pacing your breathing.

• The Kaleidoscope: A pleasant shiftingMandalathat changes shape to reflect your mind-body state.

• Fantasy-World Sessions: The best of the original Wild Divinevirtual worldgames to build specific mind-body skills.

Each mode offers its own advantages. Some of our testers still love the virtual-world games the best, while others, like me, found the direct graph feedback most powerful for its precision, clarity, and depth of information.

We also found a surprising way to use Healing Rhythms: as a pure biofeedback device in conjunction with your own meditations and breathwork. For example, we discovered that specific music induced relaxation quite effectively. In one personalexperiment, I learned that I could achieve relaxation easily enough (as the SCL told me), but that to really get my HRV into the ideal deep-blue zone, I needed to focus on heart-chakra-centered meditation.

The Sounds True Verdict

Hardware & Use: A (easy to install, durable, and intuitive)

Flexibility: A (many modes and options, and an adjustable difficulty level)

Presentation: B+ (not a lot of flash, but terrific biofeedback monitoring options)

Mind-Body Training Value: A (experienced teachers, guided instruction, sensitive biofeedback, and a clear manual)

Overall: Thumbs Up! The folks at the Wild Divine Project have taken the heart of their system—their biofeedback technology—and turned it into a very useful tool for mind-body training. For those who prefer a learning system over a story-based game, Healing Rhythms provides a superb tool for strengthening your skills in mind-body awareness and deep relaxation.

System requirements:

• 800 MB of disk space
• 256 MB RAM
• 800 x 600, 24-bit color display
• CD-ROM or DVD drive
• QuickTime 6.5 or higher (QuickTime 7.0 included)
• USB port

PCPentium III:
• 800 MHz (minimum) or 1.25 GHz processor (recommended)
• Windows 2000 or Windows XP
• 3ivx video codec (included)

MacintoshG4 or higher:
• 800 MHz (minimum) or 1.25 GHz processor (recommended)
• Mac OSX v10.2.8 or higher

Compatibility questions? Call the helpful Wild Divine folks at 866-594-WILD

PC and Mac software on CD, Guided Training Manual, User’s Manual, IOM Biofeedback Hardware

Healing Rhythms (The Wild Divine Project)