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What we’re about

Consciousness Hacking is a hands-on approach toward creating new tools for self-exploration, in order to change the way we think, feel, and interact with the world around us.

Staying abreast of the latest neuroscience research and working alongside researchers at several of the top universities, it’s an inside-out perspective on showing how technology can serve us by changing our relationship to the world, rather than the world itself. Meetings will focus on sharing existing projects or developing new ones, networking to raise capital and receiving community support for new ideas and concepts.

Have an idea for a cool EEG or meditation app? How about a new way to take a power nap to increase productivity or improve sleep? Maybe you're interested in creating software to improve personal development. This is the place to explore and present your ideas with a supportive group with a focus of helping bring them to reality.

We are working in the spirit of the Quantified Self and Maker Movements. Our focus is specifically on creating hardware and software tools for improving and enhancing personal performance.  We add to this the pragmatic spiritual influence of Buddhist Geeks or Dharma Overground but in the practical, down-to-earth terms that relate to the everyday reality of our lives.

The ultimate purpose of the group is to generate a series of new technologies for cognitive enhancement to improve the way we feel and live. You do not need a technology background, and you are absolutely welcome to join if you have no interest in ever developing your own tools, but there will definitely be a major focus on modern, wearable technologies as the hacking medium.

Science is increasingly recognizing what spiritual and religious traditions have been advocating for thousands of years: through focused self-awareness we can fundamentally change our conscious experience. The keys to accessing profound joy and contentment in this world lay not in our external circumstances, but in our relationship to ourselves.

Numerous peer reviewed studies on mindfulness and meditation are proving the profound benefits reaped by these long-time practice. Is there a modern enlightenment, in harmony with the media and technology that seems to constantly externalize our attention, and increase our sense of separation from ourselves and others? Can we create new forms of technology that can enhance our lives? Can we leverage existing technologies to help make us smarter, cultivate calm minds, lower stress, do our jobs better, improve our relations with friends and family, respond better to the world around us and rediscover our sense of connectedness and the simple joy of being alive here and now?

Consumer EEG headsets are beginning to enter the market enabling inexpensive access to brainwave activity. Self-tracking biometric and bio-mechanical technologies capable of measuring signals such as pulse, skin conductivity, muscle tension, breath analysis, heart rate variability and or physical movement are becoming readily available as viable commercial products.

Computation is no longer a limiting factor, and massive amounts of data can be scoured for patterns no human mind could identify. New methods of neural-stimulation, such as tDCS, TMS and pulsed ultrasound, are being explored and are available to the pioneering hacker. Neuroscience research is beginning to deeply explore the nature of not only meditation, but of mystical and enlightened states. And these examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

What better place for the Consciousness Hacking movement to grow and prosper than in the Bay Area? Join us and become part of the cutting-edge. Help us build toward the future.