Is Brain Entrainment the Same as Meditation?

The 1970s: The Promise of Biofeedback and Brain Entrainment

In May 1973, the cover of Elementary Electronics magazine boldly displayed a beautiful woman reclined with a primitive device strapped to her forehead as she “tuned in” to her alpha brainwaves.

It was a time of exciting new promise built around two emerging technologies — Biofeedback and Brain Entrainment. These compatible modalities were going to change everything: from health, psychology, and learning to consciousness and spirituality.

Finally, new science would make the arduous meditative practices of the past as simple as relaxing in your chair at home.
It was also the age of popular psychedelics and the “back to nature, communal living” social dream.

That was over 50 years ago.

Sound Familiar?

Maybe not if you were born in the 1990s.

But here we are (again?) — surrounded by an endless stream of personal tech devices measuring everything from your daily steps to whether you farted in your sleep (yes, really).

And with all this data, we’ll supposedly (finally) unlock the secret to becoming superhuman.

Why spend years on progressive body-mind practices when you can “Rewire Your Brain in Just 5 Minutes”? (a real marketing claim, by the way).

Many of these modern approaches are based on Brain Entrainment principles.

You too can meditate like a seasoned Tibetan monk — and skip the years of practice.

Or can you?

Quick Overview: What Is Brain Entrainment?

Brain Entrainment is the popular term for the Frequency Following Response, first observed in the 1930s and largely ignored until the 1960s.

The principle is simple:
When your brain is exposed to a steady, regular pulsing signal, areas of your brain begin to pulse at the same rate as that input signal — provided it’s sustained long enough without distraction.

It’s like how it’s easy to unconsciously tap your foot to music with a steady beat.

Neurological studies confirm this effect. The brain does tend to “surrender” to a sustained, regular pulsing input to a certain degree.

Brain Entrainment vs. Meditation: Are They the Same?

Now let’s jump to a different but related field — monitoring the brain’s activity during actual meditation.

This is fundamentally different.
In meditation research, there’s no external input signal. Instead, scientists track the brain’s natural, electro-neurological output created by the conscious actions of the meditator.

The challenge?
It’s almost impossible to know how well the person is meditating during testing — especially considering they’re typically sitting in a clinical environment, asked to start and stop their practice within strict time slots.

Different Meditation Styles, Different Brain States

One important takeaway from these studies is that different meditation styles produce different brainwave profiles.

Common meditation categories include:

• Focused Attention

• Open Monitoring

• Open Awareness

• Loving Kindness

• Non-Dual Awareness

Some techniques don’t even fit neatly into these categories — for example, Tibetan Buddhist Generation Stage practices, where the meditator envisions themselves as a meditative deity.

And again, it’s impossible to assess the depth or quality of meditation achieved in these lab settings.

Here’s the Critical Question

Let’s imagine brain scans show that advanced meditators have high-amplitude gamma brainwaves in certain areas.

Would artificially inducing similar gamma waves through Brain Entrainment result in the same subjective experience of meditation?

Unlikely.

Brain Entrainment can superimpose brain frequency activity.
The brain isn’t creating it — it’s being done to the brain.
This effect tends to fade quickly once the pulsing input stops.

In contrast, during genuine meditation, the practitioner actively generates these brain states through intention and technique.

And we still don’t know if it’s the brainwaves themselves causing the shift in consciousness — or if those brainwaves are just a side effect of a deeper, more subtle change.

A Simple Analogy

Imagine practicing hatha yoga.

In one scenario, a second person moves your body into a complex posture you can’t achieve yourself and holds you there.
Technically, you’re in the asana — but it’s been externally imposed on you.

In another scenario, you move into the posture on your own and hold it, with full awareness and effort.

Are these two experiences equivalent?
I doubt it.

So, Is Brain Entrainment the Same as Meditation?

Not yet.

It might have a relationship we don’t fully understand yet.
Maybe Brain Entrainment is like the training wheels on a bicycle — useful to get started before you go it alone.

Or maybe it has little or no relationship to genuine meditation born of conscious inner practice.

In a world desperate for shortcuts, we should be cautious.

If it sounds too good to be true… well, you know the rest.