\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tMike Gordon and Bob Weir perform together while being monitored at TRI Studios.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRen\u00e9 Huemer<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAnd when detecting the artist approaching flow, the device would emit a subtle cue \u2014 a slight change in the sound of their instrument or the lighting \u2014\u00a0to give the brain a subconscious boost and thereby accelerate and enhance one\u2019s immersion into flow. That\u2019s what the pedals were that the guys were pressing: signals that they felt in flow.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIt all sounds like it could be the product of some sort of tech-bro-backed, change-the-world startup venture, but it\u2019s just Gordon and his curiosity. He pays the research crew consulting fees out of his own pocket and has been on-and-off for years. The thing about XenboX is it might be impossible to actually create. Gordon knows this. He doesn\u2019t care. \u201cIt\u2019s not to make money for me,\u201d Gordon says. \u201cIt\u2019s to promote this idea that there\u2019s, you know, practicing and becoming agile on your instrument or your voice or whatever it is, is important. And that there\u2019s also another important thing, which is the way of letting go, surrendering that, and that\u2019s what allows this kind of flow state to come about.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to experience the eternal while we\u2019re still alive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Mike Gordon says of \u201cflow state,\u201d quoting Star Wars<\/em><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tGordon\u2019s mission here is like a cross between ancient, mythical quest and cutting-edge R&D about understanding the creative process and, specifically, the concept of flow.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn a lot of ways it started more than 40 years ago, before Phish, before he knew what flow was, back in Sudbury, Massachusetts during a high school engineering class. Using a wooden box and a few wires, he made a device from scratch that could measure changes in his brain activity. \u201cVery rudimentary,\u201d he says now. \u201cJust a simple biofeedback machine. I made it from scratch. The idea was that it was supposed to measure some kind of a brainwave flow and then maybe warble a tone when the brainwave state changed. But in reality, it shouldn\u2019t have worked at all. It just seemed intriguing as a concept.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tIn high school, Mike Gordon made this device that measures changes in brain activity.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMike Gordon<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tHe still has the thing to this day, sitting in his house: a small brown box labeled ALPHA MONITOR with two white dials (\u201cSENS\u201d and \u201cVOL\u201d) above a metallic switch and a couple of input-output ports. Gordon doesn\u2019t remember what sparked the idea, probably a Radio Shack catalog or inspiration from writer and inventor Forrest Mims. \u201cI had all his books,\u201d Gordon says. \u201cI even wrote him a fan letter at one point. So maybe it was in one of those books. I liked the idea of incorporating brain stuff with electronics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThen came one night in 1985 during one of his first shows with Phish, and he felt something <\/em>new that he wanted to feel forever. \u201cIt\u2019s when the music feels like it\u2019s playing itself,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s an experience via music that makes me feel extremely myself, extremely connected to the people around me \u2014 a very connecting, universal sort of feeling. And once you\u2019ve had a little taste of it, it\u2019s like \u2014 Oh. This is why we\u2019re here, and why we\u2019re alive, as people<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tObsession took hold and defined his life from that point on. <\/em>\u201cThat experience and experiences like that really informed my sense of vision,\u201d he says. \u201cPeak experience \u2014 religious, transcendent experiences, epiphanies, etcetera, have guided me \u2026 I dedicated many journals after that simply figuring out what happened that night, and how can I make it happen more.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHe threw himself into it as often as he could as both performer and participant. He studied mythical philosophy, neuroscientific inquiry, everything in between. \u201cAs Joseph Campbell said,\u201d Gordon says, quoting the famed mythologist whose work inspired Star Wars<\/em>, \u201c\u2018We want to experience the eternal while we\u2019re still alive.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tGordon first heard the term flow <\/em>in the 1990s as psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi popularized the term, inspiring Gordon to make his 2002 film Rising Low, <\/em>in which he interviewed musicians about their experiences with flow. One interviewee told Gordon that flow feels like moving down a river or through the ocean. For Gordon, it feels like flying. \u201cWe all have so many different experiences that have led to where we\u2019re at and how we\u2019re able to create music and experience it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s subjective \u2014\u00a0and yet at the same time, there\u2019s a commonality \u2026 when everyone knows that something happened, and no one of us could have made it happen \u2026 It took everyone committing.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\u00a0Neuroscientist Greg Applebaum sports the electrodes that measure brain activity. <\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJared Slomoff<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe XenboX concept began taking shape in the early aughts when Gordon walked into a Boulder, Colorado, new-age shop and discovered\u00a0a biofeedback device that clocked his brain\u2019s electrical activity and helped guide him into a more focused, flow-like state.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt really seemed like it was working,\u201d he says. This eventually led to the XenboX concept.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tExplaining the scientific intricacies of flow state would require a summary of decades\u2019 worth of neuroscience and biology lectures and books, and even in its most distilled form, such a summary comes across as somehow dry and pretentious and mind-numbing despite the fact that it describes an existentially mind-boggling phenomenon. The brain is likely the most complex object in the known universe; researching and explaining it becomes inescapably dense. So the simplest way to put it is: all areas of the brain always have a half-dozen or more different levels of electrical activity present at all times \u2014\u00a0a.k.a. brainwaves <\/em>\u2014\u00a0and how well your brain functions often depends on which brainwave is strongest. And one category of them can be considered flow waves.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn theory, XenboX\u00a0would recognize a brain beginning to generate stronger flow waves and signal the brain to keep doing that. Maybe it\u2019s via a vibey wobble in the guitar or a subtle lighting shift \u2014 something giving the brain a little extra juice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAfter years of talking about it, by the 2010s Gordon and Slomoff, the sound engineer, started doing something real about it. \u201cWe started taking it more seriously,\u201d Slomoff says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want this to be some woo-woo thing \u2014\u00a0the idea was for it to be a real object based on real science.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tScientists had been studying flow state and brainwave training for years, particularly in the worlds of sports, concussion treatment, and child behavioral development. A few phone calls later, Slomoff and Gordon set off on what Slomoff calls \u201ca big field trip one furious weekend.\u201d They visited a lab in Montreal where a company was working with everyone from athletes to children struggling with behavioral issues, teaching them how to improve their minds by training their brainwaves. Using brainwave-detection headsets, these athletes and children would sit at computer screens that ran simulated roller coaster rides, with a catch: the ride would only move forward as they learned to generate stronger focus waves.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t want this to be some woo-woo thing \u2014\u00a0the idea was for it to be a real object based on real science.\u201d<\/p>\n Jared Slomoff, Gordon\u2019s longtime sound engineer<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tSimilar work was being done around the country and around the world to help in treating an array of issues, from PTSD to ADHD to concussions and more. Sports scientists were starting to explore the use of brainwave training to enhance athletes\u2019 performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSo, Slomoff and Gordon reasoned, why couldn\u2019t this also do something for musicians?\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSlomoff reached out to Appelbaum, whom he\u2019d been friends with since college and who had gone on to become a world-class neuroscientist at Duke working on an array of elite performance projects with everyone from surgeons to the military to all-time great athletes. Now at UCSD, Appelbaum was \u201cstoked\u201d to dive in with them, but also skeptical. \u201cIt was like, how could you do it?\u201d <\/em>he says. \u201cIs there a signal that can really be recorded from this, or is there just too much noise? Is it kind of a hopeless endeavor?\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhile there\u2019s a clear parallel between flow in athletes and musicians, identifying flow in the latter is much harder. Sports have scores, statistics, data <\/em>that can quantify an athlete in flow. \u201cIn music,\u201d Appelbaum says, \u201cwhen we\u2019re talking about flow and that kind of peak performance, it isn\u2019t quite so obvious or objective what peak performance is.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOver the years the team evolved. In came John Cohn, a 25-year IBM veteran and electronics engineer trained by MIT who helped develop tech for the project. Adam Horowitz, an MIT grad who studies dreams. Kaia Sargent, a current UCLA neuroscience Ph.D student who\u2019s also a classically-trained cellist, pianist, and singer. Technologist Sean Montgomery, developer of the EmotiBit company, which produces a device that measures an array of physiological phenomena \u2014 heart rate, temperature, galvanic skin response, accelerometer, gyroscope.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSuzanne Dikker, a neuroscientist at NYU, became one of Appelbaum\u2019s key collaborators. A few years ago, she worked on something similar with Bad Bunny \u2014\u00a0hyperscanning, <\/em>in which she conducted some lab experiments that analyzed Bad Bunny\u2019s brainwaves as he collaborated with Puerto Rican rapper and singer Residente, discovering that when people share a musical experience they also mirror each other\u2019s brainwave activity. As Dikker puts it: \u201cWhen you\u2019re in it, everybody\u2019s in it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAll of this has been pretty informal, Gordon and Slomoff just connecting with these folks as needed, paying them consulting fees, piecing things together as they go. Much is done remotely \u2014\u00a0the required tech gets shipped to Gordon and Slomoff in Vermont, they set up for sessions, the scientists join by Zoom.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAs part of this, they needed a way for the performers themselves to confirm they were flowing. They started by having Gordon wink at them, but that seemed\u00a0too conscious a signal to allow Gordon to stay in flow. \u201cDoes thinking about it, wondering, analyzing \u2014 Am I in a flow state or not? <\/em>\u2014 does that very action of observing take away the flow state?\u201d Gordon says.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tApplebaum, who has been working with Gordon on the science behind the flow state, plays while wearing XenboX sensors.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJared Slomoff<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tHence the foot pedal. It seemed to work best. And word got around to other artists. One day in 2021 when Gordon was in L.A., Appelbaum drove up from San Diego to help him have a XenboX training session at Grammy-winning producer Shawn Everett\u2019s basement studio with Nosaj Thing, \u201cthe legendary beats maker\u201d \u2014\u00a0Gordon\u2019s words \u2014\u00a0who\u2019s worked with Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, and more. Volunteering as test subject, Nosaj strapped into a headset fitted with 27 electrodes and jammed with Gordon.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen you record electrical activity in the brain, you see rhythms,\u201d says Sargent, the only scientist involved who also has extensive musical training and performing experience. \u201cLike how you have different pitches that form a chord, and different chord progressions that somehow mean something,\u201d says Sargent. \u201cAnd it seems like something similar is happening in the brain \u2014 when different rhythms and frequencies interact, that makes meaning out of nothing. There\u2019s such a beautiful overlap.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt all creates something Gordon has come to feel as a waking dream state. \u201cMy goal in music,\u201d he says, \u201cis to bridge the gap between being awake and being in a dream.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s how Weir got involved. He and Gordon have known each other for years and performed together on occasion, but then, Gordon says, \u201cI read an article where he said that dreams have informed all of his creativity \u2014\u00a0from his music to writing a book to writing an opera. And, me too. Dreams have been central in my life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Gordon told Weir what he was working on, Weir\u2019s curiosity took hold, too, and soon Weir was joining some of the remote Zoom sessions. Then he arranged for the big April 2023 test in San Rafael. Gordon and Weir made their way through various Dead songs, doing some radical harmonizing while playing \u201cHe\u2019s Gone.\u201d Like I told you, what I said, steal your face right off your head. <\/em>It went on for some three hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAfterward Weir told Gordon, \u201cWe were in the dream together.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe Weir sessions were an energizing experience for everyone, and they\u2019ve kept plugging away at this in the two years since. It\u2019s had its ups and downs. \u201cNeuroscience now is about where chemistry was in the late 1800s,\u201d says Sargent. \u201cI think we picked a very difficult challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal in music is to bridge the gap between being awake and being in a dream.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Mike Gordon<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tSo far, the building of a usable XenboX is slow going and probably will be for awhile. There are matters of technological limitations, scheduling logistics, real-world life interfering with the dream. \u201cWe\u2019re pretty far away,\u201d Gordon says. \u201cThe problem is, it\u2019s requiring a lot of electrodes to get it to work. And we want to make it more streamlined \u2026 We\u2019re trying to do it in a simpler way.\u201d He sees two main obstacles: \u201cTrying to do the [brainwave] detection in a simpler way. And really, it\u2019s just trying to match up our schedules for the people involved.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOne day this spring, Slomoff and Gordon went to work in the studio again, with Appelbaum and Dikker conferencing in via Zoom. Gordon strapped on his sensors and got to playing. Slomoff watched the feedback come through the monitors using software called YouQuantified, an open-source platform that\u2019s free to anyone with the proper equipment. Dikker and her team at NYU developed it based in part on algorithms developed through the XenboX research. It has Gordon\u2019s brainwave and physiological data on display in real time for Slomoff to follow as Gordon plays.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tA chart shows the data produced from pressing pedals during performance flow state.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Greg Applebaum<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tWatching carefully, Slomoff observes Gordon\u2019s brainwaves start moving toward flow state signature levels. He turns a knob. This starts what he calls \u201cthe effect\u201d \u2014\u00a0a chorusing pattern that blends gently into Gordon\u2019s music, a subtle signal that he\u2019s starting to get closer to flow.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThis is the XenboX concept, performed manually by Slomoff as he observes Gordon\u2019s data. The idea is to build a device that uses algorithms and tech to do for the wearer what Slomoff is doing now.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe effect is at 25 percent. Something starts to take hold. Gordon says nothing, just keeps playing, but the data indicates something shifting now, getting closer to flow state signatures.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSlomoff turns the knob again. Fifty percent. A moment later, 60. He takes care not to push too hard too soon, only wanting to accentuate but not dominate with the effect, and it\u2019s working well. Moments later, he\u2019s at 70 percent. \u201cThere\u2019s a spike in it there,\u201d Slomoff says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s getting deeper.\u201d Now 80 percent. \u201cThere he goes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tGordon\u2019s all the way gone now, Slomoff having helped him onto that bridge between here and there, the music playing itself, Gordon back in the dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Mike-Gordon-HS-Alpha-Monitor.jpg?w=1024\")
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