An opensource, multi-platform programmable audio generator intended as an aural aid to meditation, implementing the binaural beat principle as described in Gerald Oster's Oct. 1973 Scientific American article "Auditory Beats in the Brain." Binaural beats are an auditory phenomenon created when pure tones of slightly different frequency are independently and simultaneously delivered to each ear. It has been shown that binaural beats can be used to induce brainwave entrainment. Gnaural was developed to explore the entrainment possibilities, in order to target specific mental states ranging from highly alert to profoundly meditative. Gnaural's immediate predecessor, WinAural, has been used for at least one published study, "The Induced Rhythmic Oscillations of Neural Activity in the Human Brain", D. Cvetkovic, D. Djuwari, I. Cosic (Australia), from Proceeding (417) Biomedical Engineering - 2004.

Gnaural can output directly to your computer's soundsystem, or to export to over a dozen file formats which can then be put on audio CD or MP3 player for portable use. Stereo headphones are required to maintain the stereo separation of the tones needed for your auditory system to create the binaural beats.

See http://gnaural.sourceforge.net/