Experience An Altered State *Without* Drugs, Beat Insomnia Fast & RAPIDLY Shift The Brain Into Relaxation States With Cutting-Edge Light and Sound Technology: Roxiva’s Raffaele Gianfrancesco

Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life Podcast.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:00:04]: I feel like our device is a portal. It's a portal to other dimensions. All the other dimensions are around us all the time. It's not just like you have to travel to another dimension. Another dimension is just a different vibration, a different radio station, if you would. And we have, with this tool, the ability to have a tuning knob and change what we're able to perceive, alter our perception. And if you really work with it, and you do deep work with the lamp, there's no ending to what can be seen. I have an extremely psychic friend who won't go under the light because she says there are always these super chatty fifth dimensional beings that want to ask her questions.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:53]: Welcome to the Boundless Life with me.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:55]: Your host, Ben Greenfield.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:57]: I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist and nutritionist. And I'm passionate about helping you discover.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:03]: Unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity and beyond.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:13]: Well, folks, I might be interviewing the most multi syllabic guest I have interviewed in quite some time. Raffaele. Gianfrancesco. Raffaele. That's Italian, no?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:01:24]: A hundred percent. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:26]: Okay, all right, cool. Well, I'm on the right track then. I'm one for one today. So here's how I met Raffaele. This is a funny story. I was at an event in Austin, Texas. It was, it was one of these health expo health conferences where I'm just like on my feet all day long, signing books and giving talks and doing panels and, you know, chatting with folks and trying out new technologies. And I'll usually hit like 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon on a conference day like that and just be feeling kind of thrash, you know, you also have the late night parties and your circadian rhythm is disrupted.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:07]: And inevitably I'm kind of looking around the expo, you know, is there something here that I could just like check out and, you know, leave the world behind, Kiss the world behind for a little bit and just go to La La Land. I always have a eye mask and a set of over ear headphones in my bag. And I have been known to just tuck into a corner and climb under a table and fall asleep. But somebody pointed out this booth to me that had a light, a light that you lay underneath with your eyes closed and the light shines at you. And somebody told me it was the most incredible experience they'd ever had. So I was like, all right, I'll go check this thing out. So Raffaele was the guy at the booth and the light's called the Roxiva. So I lay under it and Raffaele, I don't know if you remember this, but you played a session on the Roxiva called Rebirth.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:03:06]: Oh, yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:07]: You know, now I own a Roxiva and it's still one of my favorite sessions of all time. But the best way I can describe it is I was like whisked away. And this is going to sound really weird if you haven't experienced this before, but I'll try to describe it as best I can. You're whisked away into like this primal environment where you feel as though you're in your mother's womb. You can hear the fetal heartbeat, the whooshing of fluids. It's kind of dark, but peaceful and calming. And it was about a 45 minute session and I was completely almost like out of body the whole time. And then it crescendoed towards the end where it.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:47]: It basically simulated an entire birthing process. As you're coming down the canal and the lights are shining and this epic heroic music begins to play. And as it crescendoes, then finally ends, I sit up. My whole system felt completely rebooted. It was highly emotional too. Now that I've done it in the comfort of my own home a few times, I'm not embarrassed in public. I haven't not done it. And sat up crying while simultaneously feeling like I could just take the world by the horns and crush my day.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:23]: And so I knew I was onto something. At least Raffaele was onto something. We had a chat at the booth. I learned a little bit more about the light. I knew I had to get him on the podcast, but I also got one of these lights and it's in my basement now. Raffaele, I don't know if I've told you this, but my favorite time to do it is I get up about 4:30, 4:40, 5:00 am, I go downstairs. When my brain is still in this post sleep, theta brainwave like state, I sit on the Roxiva and I'll do anything from a 20 to a 60 minute session. And it's an incredible way to start the day.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:59]: Every friend, every biohacker, every podcast guest I've had over to my house and sat in this thing has been absolutely blown away. And some people who haven't messed around with technologies. I had one guy, a friend of mine, Ryan, he sat up, he's like, that's the weirdest, coolest experience I've ever had in my life. And so there's obviously a lot going on here with the light, with the over your headphones and with the sound. So I figured we'd just geek out on the Roxiva. Even this whole idea of shifting your brain state using light and sound today, if you're game.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:05:32]: Yeah, absolutely. And to put a finer point on it, yeah, we are definitely shifting our brain state. But what is really happening, most importantly, is that we are sending your soul and your being back to a place of awe and wonder, to really reboot the nervous system. And it's something that just doesn't happen for people anymore. You know, we just don't get those opportunities to really stand in awe and wonder as much. And that's why people are really seeking that out all the time through peak experiences. And we've got something here that can provide it.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:11]: Yeah. And some people check out with things like sensory deprivation, you know, float tank or a hyperbaric chamber or a dark cave experience. This is definitely not sensory deprivation. But yet at the same time, you completely forget the entire world and leave it behind as you're doing one of these sessions. And Raffaele, you know, I used to be into plant medicine, psychedelics, you know, mushroom journeys, things like that. The other interesting thing is this flips the switch as though you'd taken mushrooms or, you know, or vaped a little DMT or something like that. But none of the drugs, none of the chemicals, none of the weird entity like experiences, none of the post session, you know, fatigue or malaise or need to rebuild neurotransmitters. And, you know, even though I'm not saying that I want people to put something in their basement that lets them do drugs without drugs, because there's.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:09]: You may want to reassess your priorities if that's your goal for using this thing. It is very interesting that it seems to trigger some of the same pathways as something like a psychedelic or entheogen might.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:07:21]: That's exactly what happened with me. I had gone several years ago to a retreat where I did bufo. And for those that don't know, that's the toad, it's one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful entheogens and psychedelic drugs available. And it's basically the venom of the Sonoran Desert toad. And you vape it and it just immediately just rockets you out of reality into the unity. Everything just goes completely white. You have a thought like, oh God, I've really done it. I'm dead, literally while you're going into it.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:08:00]: And so this was one of the most profound experiences I had ever experienced. And I don't recommend it for everybody. It's heavy duty stuff. And don't, don't approach it lightly. But after having done that, I didn't do any psychedelics for a while and somebody approached me with one of these lights and so I was able to do a session on it. And I went right back to that place, to that place of unity, to that place of pure white light and oneness. And I said, wow, this is really something. To be able to return to that deep state without ingesting any substance at all.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:08:40]: It just blew my mind.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:42]: Yeah, yeah. It is pretty incredible. By the way. Yeah. Don't lick a Sonoran Desert toad. My sons, Raffaele, they have a 10 day vision quest as a part of their rite of passage into adulthood that they do directly before their 17th birthday. And their rite of passage is actually in the Sonoran Desert. So I'll be warning them about licking any toads in their plant foraging adventures down there.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:09:08]: I mean, imagine the first person to discover that really like, or they, you.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:14]: Know, it was probably an accident. They were probably like starving, looking for something to eat and accidentally ate a toad or something. And their friend witnessed the chaos that ensued. So how do you describe the Roxiva light to people?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:09:27]: So there's a few ways to describe it. The number one way that I describe it is that it is a tool that you can use to alter your state. And when I say alter your state, I mean expand it as well. We live in a very narrow bandwidth these days with our devices, with our televisions, with our work. And so everybody is just kind of trotting along through life a little bit soul sick really. We've lost our connection to Earth, many people, and we don't have that kind of feeling of satisfaction that we get from being connected to Earth and spirit. And so this tool, the light, allows you to be able to go on journeys that range from non sleep, deep relaxation, NSDR, which is basically all of the benefits of sleep without actually being asleep, all the way up to the highest gamma frequencies, where the Tibetan monks that do 40 years of Zen meditation training, only they can achieve those brainwave states. And we've been able to show using the EEG that we can get regular folks there within five minutes.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:10:46]: So it really is a very powerful tool for being able to expand the mind and create states of extremely high neuroplasticity and journeys of just beautiful experiences.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:02]: I didn't realize you'd done EEG measurements on people using this thing.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:11:07]: Yeah, we have. We've got a few neuroscience folks that have the lamp. Dr. Jeffrey Tarant of the Neuromeditation Institute down at the Monroe Institute, they've got EEG equipment and so we've been measuring and part of the development process of all these products was to basically take the signatures of these extraordinary realms of brain states and see if they could be duplicated. And that's, that's how it all really started.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:41]: Yeah, it's fascinating. And there's, there's so much that happens almost as soon as the light goes on. As far as the rapid switch of the brain. You know, because I've done yoga Nidra, non sleep deep rest, it takes you a little while to drop in. Usually for me, if I'm doing a 30 minute session, it's a good, you know, six to 10 minutes with the light within 30 seconds, I'm just automatically there. For people who have a little bit more of an engineering mindset, who want to understand the mechanics behind this thing, describe the light to me from a more mechanical standpoint, like how it's actually built and what the features of it are.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:12:17]: Okay, I'm going to do that in a second, but before I do that, I want to respond to something you just said. The reason that you go so deep so fast is that we have been able to show on EEG an automatic drop in alpha. And alpha is the binding frequency for the default mode network, the HPA axis, everything that gives us our sense of personality and who we are and those perseverating recurrent thoughts. So that's why you're able to drop so deep so quickly, because that alpha just gets dropped right down immediately. The brain goes, whoa, what's going on? And it gets really busy really fast and forgets to think about who you are. So that's that. All right, now what is the device, you know, physically? So I'm going to like pull mine over here. All right?

Ben Greenfield [00:13:02]: Oh, perfect. And by the way, real quick, for those of you wanting the video, if you're listening to the audio, just go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/RoxivaPodcast. It's spelled R O X I V A. BenGreenfieldLife.com/RoxivaPodcast. I'll link to all the show notes and also to this lamp. So go ahead, Raffaele.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:13:22]: All right, so you can see there's 16 individual LEDs and you see there's a little different tonality here. These are orangish and these are a little yellow greenish. So these are cool white and the orange ones are warm white. So we've got an equal number of both, which gives a fully balanced light spectrum. So we're able to address these in groups of four across the face of the lamp and do different frequencies that are in harmonics and coherence and sometimes that are clashing with each other depending upon the effect that we're going for. So these lights flashing through your closed eyelids cause you to go into a state of high neuroplasticity and trance and what we call hypnagogia. Hypnagogia is that place where you were describing at 4:30 in the morning, that liminal state between sleep and wakefulness. You go through hypnagogia on your way into going to sleep at night and then on the way out of coming to sleep at night.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:14:24]: And that's why even the Monroe Institute recommends that if you're going to do these exercises that they have, that you do them at those times when you're already primed for it. Okay. But we are very unique in our approach because there are other light based devices out there and some of them are decent, you know, and some of them are not as good. But our approach is really unique because we approach it from a content aspect. And you said it perfectly when you described what you experienced at the show with the Rebirth session. We build our sessions to be a journey, to be epic in proportion, not to be just like kind of a little pinhole of an experience. And we have sound architects and light architects that work together to really create these peak journeys. And it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of effort because it's all manual.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:15:23]: But when you get those things synced up perfectly, the light and the sound happening together, when there's a dark sequence in the light and the sound, sound drops off. And when you even have the opportunity to add vibration support, which we have, so we can work with any vibration, tactile feedback, vibroacoustic bed, the ShiftWave chair, that you have any of those, we really have something that is truly unique in the market, that has capabilities that are. That are unparalleled.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:53]: Yeah, you're right. There are a lot of light sound producing devices out there. I've talked about a headset called the Braintap before and it's great. You know, it's got a bunch of different recipes on there for modulating back pain or for meditation or breath work. But the best way I can describe the difference is that a unit like that is kind of like streaming a movie on your laptop at home with maybe a set of earbuds, whereas the Roxiva would describe like going to a surround sound movie theater experience with a vibrating massage chair that you're sitting in while you're watching the movie, fully enveloped with all the senses engaged. So both are useful. But I think the Roxiva is something I would describe as a little bit more of the big guns.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:42]: This idea of vibration is interesting, and this is something that isn't necessary, I think, but it's super interesting. You mentioned the ShiftWave chair. And it's a chair that allows you to put on a heart rate monitor on your fingertip measure HRV. The chair vibrates in correlation to your nervous system or if you hook it up to audio, to any audio track that you're listening to. And that's exactly what I did. I have the outbound AV cable from the Roxiva lamp plugged into my shiftwave chair input and so I can do a Roxiva session and at the same time have full body haptic sensations that are vibrating in correlation to the light sound frequencies from the lamp.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:17:28]: That's really important because what we're trying to achieve is we're trying to achieve whole body wellness and states of engagement that allow us to transcend our normal everyday living experience. And when we're talking about these, working these modalities together, we're incorporating not just visual and audio stimulation, but actual cymatics on the cells of the body where everybody knows that we are at least 3/4 water in terms of our composition. And that water is all over our body. It's in our brain, in our cerebrospinal fluid, it's in the cells, it's in our tissues, everywhere. And so it has been shown that if you introduce the right frequencies to these systems, that you can get them to resonate in beautiful ways and support healing.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:24]: Now, one thing I think it's a term I saw thrown around on your website that I was curious about is this concept of entrainment. I think I saw the words brainwave entrainment and audio visual entrainment as a couple of things you've written about. How do you describe that to people?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:18:42]: So entrainment happens all the time. Entrainment is a term that basically means things lining up together, syncing up together. So to give an example, entrainment occurs with binaural beats. Okay. Albeit on a, on a lower level. Binaural beats are a form of entrainment and it's really using the frequency following response of the brain to allow for an altered state to occur. So when we present these signals and the light pulses to the brain, the brain wants to understand what's happening, it wants to follow them, and so it basically just starts resonating with them. And, you know, entrainment happens in front of a fire when you get a bunch of people around a fire and they're all just standing around at the fire.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:19:39]: Entrainment happens at the beach when you can entrain with the waves crashing in on the shore and get very relaxed. On another kind of more practical human level, entrainment can happen with our bodily cycles. It's been proven that women, if you get a lot of women living together in a closed confinement area in the same home, that their monthly menstrual cycles will line up and they will entrain. So it's our nature as humans to try to become a part of our environment and resonate with it.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:15]: And so the lamp is basically allowing the brain to engage in some form of entrainment itself.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:20:23]: Yes, exactly.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:25]: Now, this rebirth session that I did, describe that one to me. I'm just fascinated in terms of the history of that. Who thought of that and what's the actual goal of that? Because, again, like, I don't. I don't want to go on for too long about the rebirth thing, but I've literally done that session, like, 12 times, and it's just incredible, man.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:20:45]: Yeah, it's still one of my favorite sessions as well. And so the idea is that. And you've said it perfectly, that these boundless, these journeys, initiation, all of that. We are these beings that spend such a long time in gestation, you know, becoming ready to enter the world. And during that gestation period, we are taking in the hormonal and the chemical effects that are coming from the mom's body. The female that is carrying the child is basically transferring all of this information through. And there is even. They've shown the effect of playing certain types of music for the unborn child.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:21:41]: So we're all kind of receiving all this stimulus in the womb. And what our session designer, Lance and our sound architect, Gavin, did was create as close to the experience of being in the womb as possible, Even going as far as using the isochronic tones, which are the low, low, low frequencies for vibration to create movement in the pulse might occur with being in the womb. And so most of the session is that state, which is basically a theta type hypnosis state, where you're just kind of. And it borders on delta, which are really slow waves as well, which are the deep sleep waves. And so it's causing you to just go really deep, really internally, and just become lulled into this beautiful place of feeling nurtured and held and swaddled. Really. I love doing it with a heavy blanket on as well. So that's another thing I add to it.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:22:46]: I put a heavy blanket on so now I'm completely enclosed. And it adds so much to the experience.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:54]: By the way I'm glad you brought that up. I have one of those infrared sauna blankets that I put on warm setting and it's kind of heavy itself and I pull that over me.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:23:02]: Yeah, yeah, totally. So. So, you know, we do, as I said, most of the experience is that. But it was, you know, they were thinking when they were designing the session, like, well, how do we end it? You know, well, how about. How about we just emerge out of the birth canal? Like, just represent that that's where you're.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:21]: Supposed to go at some point anyways.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:23:23]: Exactly. So. So the emergence, the reemergence, the rebirth. And so if you go into a session like this with an intention, and I always recommend, just like with psychedelics, intentionality, what are you doing this for? What do you want to emerge from the experience? Gaining. So, you know, if you really set that intention for how do you want to be reborn? How do you want to show up in the world? So you hold that through the whole time. You don't need to repeat it the whole time, you just set it and just go with the experience. But when you emerge from that birth canal, and it is gorgeous, I mean, as you said, they used. And this is our gift as a company, that we have the best designers that can create those emotional feeling tones, that rising kind of, oh, what's happening? Something's happening.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:24:16]: You know, something's changing. And then, oh, this is big. Something big is coming. And then now you're rumbling down the birth canal and then you just burst out into this gorgeous light and it's a little scary. And here you are again. So that really was the intent, the whole time is to recreate the experience of being born.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:38]: Do you find that you come out of that session with brand new ideas? Almost like a feeling that you've pushed the reboot button and literally had a kind of mental rebirth in a way. Because back to the plant medicine thing, I've worked with some practitioners who expertly combine music, certain substances, everything from sassafras to psyllium to LSD, et cetera, and you have this incredible four, five, six up to eight hour experience. And you're dictating and you finish and the portals are open and you're writing and writing and then you're just toast for like 5 days, right? Useless to the world and you're sweating and pooping all this stuff out of your system and replenishing B vitamins and methylated compounds and glutathione and trying to bring yourself back to the world. This session is 45 minutes long and I sit up from it and have the identical effect. Like, I am ready to tackle the world full of new ideas. I have a journal right by my Roxiva. I'm writing down new business ideas, breakthroughs, thoughts. It even gets to the point where I'm seeing sometimes, and not just with the rebirth process, but many of the other sessions I'll see like visions, have memories from childhood that I've forgotten.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:59]: It's pulling all sorts of stuff out of me. It's. It's very interesting.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:26:04]: Yeah, it's, it's. And again, a lot of what you described earlier on was the fact that a lot of these compounds are toxic to us. There's a toxicity, a toxicity level that is creating the effect in our bodies. And so we have to process through that toxin after the initial experience happens. Every time I do mushrooms, I end up with a little bit of a headache for a while, for a day or so, and I feel really sluggish. And so, yeah, it's allowing for the same energy to occur without needing to have that physical challenge to our system. And it's wonderful because I work with a lot of organizations that work with PTSD and military folks and people that are in law enforcement and they can't take these substances. They get drug screened and so they're afraid to take them, A, because they would get in trouble at work, or B, maybe they've been sober for five years and they're afraid.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:27:11]: Afraid that taking a psychedelic substance might flip some switch that may make them want to start using again.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:18]: Yeah. And you know, obviously the benefits go beyond just personal breakthroughs, generation of new ideas or deep relaxation, for example. Some of them are just fun. I think another word I saw thrown around on your website when I was researching the lamp is cyberdelic?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:27:38]: Cyberdelics. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:39]: Describe that to me.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:27:40]: Cyberdelic is a term that basically denotes psychedelic effects using technology.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:48]: Oh, kind of exactly what we're talking about.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:27:50]: Yeah, that's what it means. So instead of using the analog, the organic analog, we are using technology to get us there.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:59]: Tell me about the sessions. Because this whole idea of tweaking brain chemicals without necessarily taking drugs is something you'll hear a guy like Wim Hof talk about, you know, the breathwork practitioner, who I think even says, like, getting high on your own supply. This idea of pairing the light with breath work. You have specific sessions that involve guided breath. Yeah.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:28:22]: We do. And we're coming out with more all the time. We basically are. We're riding that line between science and woo, if that makes any sense.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:33]: Welcome to my life.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:28:34]: Yeah, and really, I mean, that's the key, because, you know, we know for a fact that the light, even though your eyes are closed, is entering through your closed eyelids, but your pineal gland is right in here as well. And it does have photoreceptors on it. And our cerebrospinal fluid that flows all through our nervous system has photoreceptors in it. So we know that there is a need for light in our system. That light is a communications tool. That light is information. The sun is providing the information to our solar system every minute that allows us all to exist. So light is, in my opinion, the most powerful modality for.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:29:24]: For communication.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:25]: Now, I noticed speaking of light, there's a night mode on the lamp. You can kind of decrease the brightness. I actually like to do that. If I'm doing an early morning or an evening session. I find it's just a little bit more relaxing. But I've had a couple of people ask me, and I think this is a reasonable question. If this thing is producing white light, even though your eyes are closed, obviously it's penetrating the eyelid a little bit. Do you get concerned about sleep disruption? Because, you know, people talk about the white light and blue light being able to suppress melatonin's activity on the cell receptor.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:57]: You know, I've never experienced that, but I'm just curious how you tackle that idea.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:30:01]: Well, the night mode is how we do that. As I mentioned, the lamp has 16 LEDs, 8 warm and 8 cool. When we turn on light night mode, we don't use any of the cool LEDs. We only use the warm LEDs. So the warm light does not trigger that blue light response. It's just like when you have that night mode on your phone or your computer where it goes a little orange. Yeah, same thing.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:30]: Yeah. Okay, makes sense. Now, I mentioned that I'll sometimes see visions and shapes and objects. And this is something else people have commented me. They're like, well, when I open my eyes, all I see is white. But when I close my eyes, there's like a million different colors, shapes, objects, and even visions. How is it that I'll see something like me hugging my mom and dad, while I'm doing the rebirth. But it seems as though the patterning of the objects of me with my parents is being produced by the light.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:30:59]: So there's a couple of things happening there. We are using the physical structures of the eyes and the occipital cortex to create the sacred geometries, the kaleidoscopic effects, the amazing colors that you can't find in any crayon box. But there is a further way you can go where you start to look into the light and then past the light. And so what ends up happening is, and this has happened to you because of what you've just described is you can go into full on hallucination or journeying where you don't even see the light anymore.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:44]: So yeah, that's exactly what happens. Yeah, yeah.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:31:47]: And that's really what's happening there is you've gone through the tunnel. So I mean, I'm going to go woo a little bit here but I feel like our device is a portal. It's a portal to other dimensions. And you know, all the other dimensions are around us all the time. It's not just like you have to travel to another dimension. Another dimension is just a different vibration, a different radio station, if you would, you know. And we have with this tool the ability to have a tuning knob and change what we're able to perceive, alter our perception. And if you really work with it, and you do deep work with the lamp, there's no ending to what can be seen.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:32:34]: I have an extremely psychic friend who won't go under the light because she says there are always these super chatty fifth dimensional beings that want to ask her questions.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:47]: It's a little spooky, you know, I question whether those are entities in the room or entities on board. For me it's always memories and past experience. I've never encountered like the Purple Fairy or a praying mantis or a lot of these things people report from plant medicines. I suspect again we're gonna go deep woo here. I suspect it's because I am a Christian. And so, you know, I, I basically have kind of forbidden a lot of those entities from being a part of me or from being possessed by them. So I've never really experienced something like that. You know, now that I'm, I'm connected fully to God and in a good place spiritually.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:31]: But yeah, I mean I, I would not deny that you could somehow cross a portal or a dimension, even using something as simple as light and sound, without using what has traditionally been used to cross those portals, namely entheogens.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:33:44]: Right? Yes.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:45]: Yeah. Now, creativity, I've been hyper creative after one session in particular, the one called Roxiva K. Can you describe that one to me?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:33:56]: Yes. So Roxiva K is modeled after the disassociative chemical ketamine. And so Ketamine is shown to basically take the emotional charge out of traumatic experiences. So all of these Ketamine clinics that are injecting people with ketamine are basically putting them into a state where they are able to re-experience without harm bad things that have happened to them and reframe them and reprocess them. And so if you're in that disassociative state and you're emotionless, then you have the possibility of anything being on the table, anything being available. No preconceptions, no fears. Right.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:34:52]: When you're in a state like that, you're going to come up with ideas that you might not have because that inner dialogue that's always trying to keep things under control is going to limit them.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:02]: Okay, got it. So that's why I would come out of a session like that and feel hyper creative. Okay. Now I'm part of the Facebook group, which you get access to if you have a Roxiva. You get access to be able to download new sessions and read about more sessions, delve into the science and be a part of this group. Some of the sessions on the lamp don't have audio associated with them.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:35:24]: Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:25]: And then I asked in the group because I was looking at the one called I believe was No More Insomnia. And I posted in the group, what audio do you like to play with that? Because you can select from audios that are pre programmed into the lamp. But then I could connect it to Spotify or Pandora or, you know, downloaded YouTube videos or whatever and play any sound I want. And someone recommended me a great playlist on Spotify. It was actually called No More Insomnia. I think they designed it to be associated with that track. What's with the insomnia thing? Did you guys find that it was helping people with sleep? Did you design it to be done at night when you wake up in the wee hours? Or how does that one work?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:36:01]: We've actually come up with an entire Better Sleep series on our website. You can actually look that up on the Roxiva website, not even the VIP private one for owners, but the actual Roxiva website. Just Google Roxiva Better Sleep series and you'll see a series, I think, of three or four lengthy articles that Lance Carter wrote. And what we've done is we've come up with a protocol where we've got a few programs that utilize the sleep frequencies and sleep aiding frequencies. One is called Silent Night, which you can do right before you go to bed. The other one is called No More Insomnia, which you do earlier in the day. And we're doing a couple of things with the no more insomnia program. First of all, we are, we're resetting the circadian rhythms because, because of the power of our lamp, because we have 16 high powered LED sources, we can create more lux than any other device on the market.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:04]: You said lux. L, L, U X. L U X.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:37:07]: Which basically is a measurement of light power, like the sun has the most lux and then a match has much less. So, so what I'm getting at when I use the word lux is, you know, one of the main things that everybody in sleep hygiene and sleep science says is the first thing you need to do as early in the day as you can is get outside and get sunlight in your eyes for at least 5, 10 minutes, at least, because that resets your circadian rhythms for the day so that we get tired at the appropriate time at night and we start drifting down into that sleep state. So if you live in a place that you don't have access to sunlight early in the day, or if you get up really early like you do, or if it's wintertime and here where we are now, for the next three weeks until the solstice, the sun is lower and lower and lower in the sky. You don't get that powerful sunlight. So if you use these sessions, you can get that light exposure, which is why we've even created a program called SAD Relief. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Harder.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:14]: Okay, so no more insomnia better early in the day, because that's simulating more than natural light exposure. And then if I wanted to use the better sleep series correctly, I would do the Silent Night before bed.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:38:25]: Correct.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:26]: How long is the Silent Night one?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:38:28]: You know, I'm not sure. I think it's about 30 minutes.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:30]: Yeah, I know the no more insomnia is 30. I think you're right because I've played it a couple of times. Yeah, I think it's. I think it's 30 minutes. Now, you mentioned hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Are there sessions that are specifically designed for that effect? Because, I mean, I feel somewhat hypnotized when I do all of them. But I'm curious if there's ones that are specific to hypnosis. And what the idea behind that is.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:38:52]: Yeah, we've got hypnagogic sessions that run in that hypnosis range of frequencies. We have trance T, R A N C E formation, which is a hypnosis session. And we've got some guided hypnosis sessions. And there are more guided hypnosis sessions coming as we go along as well as we're going to be creating more yoga Nidra type sessions for people that are having difficulty sleeping. So they can pop one of those on if they're having trouble sleeping. But the most exciting thing about the hypnosis aspect of the Roxiva is that because we have the onboard audio, I have been able to teach folks how to use a simple program like GarageBand or Audacity on the PC. GarageBand is on the Mac to create an audio track of you or somebody else's voice reading affirmations or suggestions, then pairing that with an audio background and importing it to the Roxiva to run with at the same time, the trance sessions or the hypnosis sessions. So you could really become your own hypnotist with this device.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:08]: If I wanted to tell myself certain things and play certain tracks, it's not going to mess up the Science of the Light for that not to be designed, for the audio to be occurring at the exact timing of whatever session I run. What I mean by that is, let's say I wanted to do, I don't know, Silent Night and I'm going to produce some affirmations like I sleep deep, I rest peacefully, and I wake refreshed and I record that. And then I transferred into the Roxiva with some music that I like and I find relaxing. I could just play the Silent Night light frequency and play those tracks I recorded in the background.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:40:46]: Yes, yes. And I recommend things like white noise, pink noise, brown noise, ocean waves, that sort of thing.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:53]: Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, so this is pretty cool. You and I were talking and I was inspired about this by the rebirth, about this idea of a hero's journey. Right? The ordinary world, the approach to the innermost cave, the crossing of the threshold, meeting with mentors and allies and enemies, and an ordeal that you go through and then a resurrection and return home with the elixir. And this whole cycle that movies like Star wars and most of the Disney cartoons and, and the Rocky series are all based on. Lord of the Rings Chronicles of Narnia. Almost every series follows this hero's journey as though it's all this idea of adventure followed by redemption and salvation is somehow built into our DNA. Perhaps again, back to me as a Christian, the story of Jesus Christ as the ultimate hero's journey, a reflection of something like that.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:54]: And I thought, what if you could do that using light and sound? Like, bring someone over the course of an hour using light and sound with the Roxiva, through an entire hero's journey inside their own mind. And so I approach you with that idea, and you and Lance and. What's his name? Gavin.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:42:15]: Gavin, yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:16]: You guys kind of went to town with it.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:42:19]: Well, I have to say, I have to thank you for that, because when I received your email and it was amazing, you did, in fact, lay out every step of the journey. Like, it was a long email with a lot of individual bullet points within each one.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:38]: Yeah, I get my ideas and I get up on my soapbox.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:42:41]: It was amazing. But that is the way you create something amazing when you have a true vision before it ever happens, of what it can be. And so when I saw it, I got really excited because I'm a big fan of all of these quests. And, you know, Dr. Joseph Campbell, and I'm reading the Dune series again, which really was one of. Actually one of the first models.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:07]: Perfect example. Yeah. The child. What's. What's the name of the main character? The boy.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:43:13]: Yeah. Paul Madib. Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:14]: Perfect example. Yep.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:43:16]: Yeah. And so, you know, when I read it, I said, yeah, and I'm getting tingles right now. Like, I don't know, can you see my few hairs standing up on end? Anyway, it just. It really resonated for me. And so I ran to Gavin and Lance and Jimmy, the managing director of the company, who's intricately involved in all facets of our company. He was excited by it. And they just really. Gavin put together the soundtrack first.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:43:46]: So generally, the way we create sessions is we come up with the sound first because we build the light on top of the sound. And so Gavin created this really moving, just kind of, you know, the. And you heard it?

Ben Greenfield [00:44:01]: Yeah, I heard it. I've done it three times already.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:44:03]: Yeah. And so just sitting and listening to that and hearing your voice going through the steps in the version. So there's two versions. There's a version that has you introducing what's happening in the beginning and then kind of marking the transition points, and then there's a version without it, so that once you get comfortable with what's happening during the journey, you can just experience it and not hear your voice. So that was A great idea to do it that way, but just hearing your voice in the recording, because we had you record all those prompts the first time with the music behind it, sent me somewhere without even the light aspect being involved. But then when Lance added the light sequences, it just became epic. And really, this is what we are trying to do. We are not in a race to make the cheapest blinky light device on the planet.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:45:03]: We are in a race to create epic content. We want to be the absolute best experience generating company out there, and that's our commitment. So you're never going to find, like, a $500 Roxiva device out there. It's just. It's not what we're after. We want to create impact and results on a grand scale, and you've helped us do that with this session, and we're going to use it as a model for a lot of new content going forward. And we hope to continue to work with you and make more and more.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:36]: Yeah, yeah. I went into my office. We had multiple recordings that went back and forth, and I was kind of testing some of the stuff that you sent me for this boundless hero's journey. The first time I did it, you know, it's my voice walking you through each step of the journey with some little chimes as you transition to the next step of the hero's journey. And that was incredible. My son did it the other night and just loved it. And then the main thing for me is I sometimes find voices on little chimes distracting. They, like, kind of pull me out of my deep state, especially maybe just because of my own voice, too.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:11]: It kind of distracts me. And so then I asked you if you could do it without the voices and the chimes, and that was just absolutely transformative. The way I recommend people do it is do the one like you said, Raffaele, with the voices and the chimes first. So you kind of understand and wrap your head around, okay, this is the. The step of the journey that I'm in now. And then once you get accustomed to the session, I recommend you do without the voice and the bells. I don't know if you've done it yet, Raffaele, without the voice and the bells, but it is. Yeah, probably besides Rebirth, it's one of my favorite sessions now.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:46:43]: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's really. It's. It's made us so excited to. Now, what can we do next? You know, what. Where can we go with this? And, like, we would like to create an entire epic journey. So I don't know if you've done Spaceship Dream yet on the, on the lamp.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:05]: No, I don't think, I mean we should tell, we should tell people. By the way, I have an excuse. There's like, what, how many sessions are there?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:47:11]: 150 plus.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:12]: Yeah, so no, I haven't done them all yet. What's the spaceship dreams?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:47:15]: Spaceship Dream is kind of like a sci fi quest where you are going through a spaceship in space and you're moving from compartment to compartment and getting different experiences and literally you hear the, of the door dropping and the light changes and. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's actually a cinematic, it's the most cinematic in terms of the sessions that exist. In terms of the, the way one, one part flows into the other. It's a story.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:51]: It sounds like it might be a little bit like one that just rocked my world. The calm before the storm where it's super peaceful. Then you go through an entire lightning storm. Like the. Speaking of the hair standing up, the hair on your arms is standing up and honestly you're not really relaxed. You're kind of like pumped up and a little bit on the edge and then it goes back into relaxation. So it kind of relaxes you, then builds you up, then lets you down as though you've literally just walked through a lightning storm.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:48:15]: And really, isn't that what life is? It's just one challenge and then one challenge after another followed by some peaceful periods and then another challenge. And we're always, you know, forced to stretch our soul to experience these fearful things and grow through those experiences.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:35]: Yeah, yeah. Have you ever taken any. Obviously psychedelics would almost be too much for something like this, but any particular supplements or nutrients, dietary approaches, ketones, anything like that that, you know, on the chemical side of things you've found to combine well with the light?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:48:55]: Yeah, I mean, I love taking cacao before doing a light session. Good ceremonial grade cacao is a heart opener and a mild MAO inhibitor. MAOI. Monoamine oxidase inhibitor.

Ben Greenfield [00:49:12]: That's interesting you say that by the way. I have like a little adaptogenic cacao blend upstairs with Rishi and Ashwagandha and stuff like that. I'm going to write that down. I'll try this. Okay. So cacao.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:49:21]: Yeah, the MAOIs are what breaks up the DMT and the other chemicals in your system when you take it because the body's always looking for homeostasis so it wants to return back to a normal state as quickly as possible. So when you take any of these substances the MAOs attack it. And when you take an MAO inhibitor, it prevents those MAOs from attacking it, which makes the experience deeper and last longer. There are, you know, I don't recommend anything chemical with the lamp simply because it's such a strong experience in and of itself. But if you're. If you're the brave type, you know, there are things that you could. That you could pair with it that would make it deeper.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:50:10]: There's a. What's it called? It's called Kanna.

Ben Greenfield [00:50:13]: Yeah. K A N N A. Yeah.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:50:15]: That I've done with it, which was really nice. And I am. I'm going to say this, and I don't recommend it for anybody because, you know, it's just something that I was able to do at a ketamine clinic where I was. I had my lamp with me and I was at a ketamine clinic and the owner said, you know, they offered me a journey and I did the journey and I said, I want to do the light with it. And it was pretty potent with the ketamine. But I don't recommend that for anybody to just go and do ketamine as a controlled substance. Our device is very powerful. So, yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:50:57]: And I think that's prudent. I actually tried it once with ketamine and it was too much. I didn't enjoy the experience at all. It was just distracting. I felt kind of lost the whole time. And this wasn't a mega k whole dose of ketamine. It was just a little lozenge. That is the amount typically described to be taken one to two times a day for something like.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:18]: Like depression or anxiety. But it was too much. I did use a hefty dose of ketones, which seemed to upregulate brain activity and provide really good fuel to neurons. And that actually worked pretty well. Like a good full shot of ketones, about double the amount I'd usually take. I think I took a brand called Ketone Aid, which is a beta hydroxybutyrate, and that actually really enhanced the experience, being in a deep state of ketosis.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:51:47]: Hmm. Yeah. Because fasting is an altered state.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:51]: Right. You're basically fast track tracking yourself to a similar altered state as fasting by mainlining ketones into your body. So that's interesting. And then any adaptogenic herb, Reishi, again, Ashwagandha, any of those seem to work pretty well, even though, you know, I'll do it also with absolutely nothing. And you don't really need any supplements or drugs. That's what's super Interesting about it. Now, I, I mentioned that, you know, you can combine it with certain things. Vibration, an infrared blanket, or like you said, a gravity blanket.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:27]: I have a PEMF coil. PEMF, Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Frequencies. Use magnetic frequencies to shift your body. I have one called a halo. H A E L O. I have that. It's a little coil, you know, about the size of, I don't know, putting a small cat in your lap. I put that in my lap in meditation mode, and it just kind of sits in my lap and I cradle it as I do the Roxiva session.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:50]: That one seems to enhance the effects. Anything else that you stack the Roxiva with yourself or have heard of other people doing.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:52:58]: So, the red light mat. Yes, absolutely. The aromatherapy can be very powerful. So things like lavender and camphor, which is. Camphor is the stuff they use in Vicks. It's got that mentholy smell. And so anything if you, if you want to anchor a state smell is a great way to do it because you can basically get yourself into state, introduce that smell. They make these little nasal inhaler thingies that you can put essential oils on and just insert them into your nose or wave them under your nose.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:53:36]: And so then every time you kind of smell that again, you can end up like NL{. You can.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:42]: That's a sleep tactic. I've talked with a couple of sleep practitioners about this and a study tactic. If you're in a deeply relaxed state and you're able to smell something, and then you smell that same aroma when you're sleeping or before sleep, it can enhance sleep. So I could play lavender or not play lavender, smell lavender, diffuse lavender while I am doing a session like Silent Night, then take that same lavender up to my bedroom and it would theoretically enhance sleep. You know, this works for studying too. You know, if you're studying for a test, sniffing peppermint and then you dab a little bit of peppermint on your upper lip while taking the test. The olfactory cues enhance your recall. It's all fascinating field of science.

Ben Greenfield [00:54:20]: There's this idea of olfactory pairing. So I haven't tried that before with something like essential oils next to the Roxiva, but I will. That's very interesting. Some people may, because, you know, it's not inexpensive, like you mentioned. How much is it?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:54:36]: It's 5,500.

Ben Greenfield [00:54:38]: I was going to say 6,000. Okay, 5,500. For a lot of people. That's of course, you know, significant amount of change. If someone wanted to try it. Do you have showrooms or places where people in certain areas could go to try it besides just some of the expos you randomly appear at?

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:54:54]: Yeah, we have now or almost a thousand lamps out there now. So generally we have somebody, almost anybody in terms of being able to get them an experience. So if you are interested in learning more about getting an experience, just do the contact form on the website and you'll be reaching out to me and I will make sure that I pair you up with a practitioner that resonates with you. We don't want to do the just randomly letting people contact everybody because that can get a little messy and people don't want just random phone calls.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:31]: I don't want a hundred people lined up outside my basement window waiting to try my Roxiva.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:55:35]: Exactly. So yeah, but, but we will respond quickly and team you up with somebody that will be eager to get you a great experience on the Roxiva.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:43]: Incredible. It's pretty rare that I stumble across something I get this excited about. When it comes to technologies that you just feel right away, it's like snap a finger, feel it right away. From the very first time I tried it, I, I fell in love not to blow smoke, Raffaele. And it's, it's incredible. So. BenGreenfieldLife.com/RoxivaPodcast. R O X I V A podcast I'll link to the Roxiva. I'll throw in some of the other tools I use with it if you want to see what the shiftwave chair or the red light or PEMF coils or anything like that look like.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:17]: And then Raffaele, I'm hoping to see you at another health expo again soon. Hopefully you're there so I can sneak away and do my rebirth session discussion.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:56:26]: Are you going to go to A4M in Vegas a couple weeks?

Ben Greenfield [00:56:29]: I'll be there.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:56:30]: I'll be there.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:31]: All right, well, I'll see you there, my friend. And fantastic discussion. Thank you so much for helping to bring this thing to the world.

Raffaele Gianfrancesco [00:56:38]: Excellent. So great talking to you and I'm grateful that you had me on today.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:42]: All right, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Raffaele Gianfrancesco from Roxiva Light, signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com have an incredible week.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:51]: To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks and content to become the most.

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