Dave Siever, C.E.T., graduated from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in 1978 in Telecommunications. In 1980, he accepted a position at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Dentistry, as a design technologist. He conducted research with Dr. Norman Thomas, an internationally recognized specialist in the area of temporo-mandibular dysfunction and myofacial pain. During his employment there, Dave developed equipment for the TMJ research laboratory and the Educational Psychology Department, including TENS stimulators, biofeedback devices, gnathodynamometers, signal processing equipment, and EMG spectral analysis equipment. In 1983, Dave began assistant teaching a dental physiology course at the University of Alberta. In 1987 and 1988, he taught graduate-year courses Advanced Myofacial Pain and TMJ Diagnostic and Treatment Techniques. Dave published a paper with Dr. Norman Thomas on the effects of audio-visual stimulation at the 4th European Congress of Hypnosis in 1987.
From late 1985 to 1987, Dave provided TMJ consulting services to 5 dentists in the Edmonton area. Over the years, Dave has helped treat approximately 1,500 patients with TMJ and MPD. During this time, Dave realized that many TMJ problems were psychologically-related, prompting him to pursue his interest in biofeedback. This led to the inception of the original D.A.V.I.D. 1 in the spring of 1985, which was used in the Faculty of Arts to help acting students overcome stage fright.
In the time since, Dave has continued developing several audio-visual entrainment (AVE), cranio-electro stimulation (CES), transcranial DC Stimulation (tDCS), and biofeedback devices, with each new development responding to technology changes and market demands. Dave still designs new products related to personal growth and well-being.
Dave served for many years as the chair of the Computer Engineering Advisory Council for the NAIT. He's also a member of ASET and ISNR.
Dave has travelled throughout North America and around the world lecturing to dentists, chiropractors, medical groups, biofeedback and neurofeedback professionals, teachers, and the general public at various conferences about using these technologies as an alternative approach to improved health, accelerated learning, and peace of mind.
Dave talks AVE
I got involved in AVE when I was designing a research lab to diagnose and treat TMJ dysfunction in the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Alberta with Dr. Norman Thomas. While I was there, an instructor from Performing Arts commissioned me to design an AVE system for him to help his students overcome stage-fright. Given that I was extremely busy building a biofeedback lab, performing TMJ studies, teaching the Basic Human Physiology course and wondering if AVE was just some "new age" fad. I was hesitant in taking time to design a system for him. But I did. He was pleased with the results he was getting with his students, but I didn’t buy in until 1988, when I ran a study with our most difficult TMJ patients.
To my complete astonishment, I had never seen anything else eliminate masseter muscle tension as measured with EMG and pain sensitivity to palpation, plus hand warming (a sign of sympathetic reduction) and the AVE. I then got very interested in the topic of AVE and scoured the U of A Health Sciences library to discover that photic and auditory driving had been around for a long time.
Since the concept of photic driving was discovered by Adrian & Matthews in 1943, several thousand studies have been published on the topic of AVE. In the 1950s, there was growing interest in the subjective effects of AVE. W. Gray Walters exposed several thousand subjects to photic stimulation at various frequencies and recorded their subjective experiences.
On another front, Dr. William Kroger, a physician with the US military, noticed that battleships and bomber planes were being driven into enemy territory because the radar operators were being entrained into a trance state from the old-fashioned “blip” style radars. This spurned Kroger to team up with Sidney Schneider of the Schneider Instrument Company, and they developed the first commercial photic stimulator in 1955, which they used primarily for hypnotic induction and pain reduction during gastro-intestinal surgery and dental work.
In the decades since, close to 100 clinical studies have been published on AVE. There are over two dozen studies on our DAVID products alone. There have been over 70 schools using our products for ADHD and behavioral disorders. It's being used to reduce PTSD in several VA centers around the USA. Some studies, such as those by Michael Telch, are published in peer-reviewed academic journals, such as Behavior, Research and Therapy. I have published several research articles on AVE, written four chapters in college-level psychology text books, and produced an online Stimulation Technologies/Entrainment course. I wrote a book named The Rediscovery of Audio-Visual Entrainment. I have also traveled to many locations in North America, the UK, Australia, and Europe to present training workshops.
Watch this fun video of Dancing in My Dendrites by Dave Siever