Having bought the foc.us v2 developer edition 3 months ago, I have to say I was a little bit scared to try it out. Hadn’t done extensive enough research on all what is known about its effects, positioning or safety to confidently experiment with it.
Today I decided to finally finish the measuring of the scalp, quite a bit difficult to be precise if done alone. Peeled and placed the moovs hydrogel pads anode on F3 (DLPFC) and cathode on FP2 (supraorbital) as suggested by plenty of research (i.e. tcdsplacements.com ) and started the gamer mode (tDCS, 1.5mA, 10mins, 20V.) in the foc.us v2.
I have to say I was feeling quite excited to have them on, like playing with a new toy I have to say. Concluded the session and since I’ve read that sessions go for 10~20 minutes, decided to go for another 10 minutes even though the device warned me not to.
The first session was quite comfortable and enjoyable. Just a bit of tingling of the electricity evenly distributed on the pads. Several times as I pressed on the electrodes with my hands to make sure that the pads were making full contact I saw small bursts of light or phosphenes. I realized that every time I did that the foc.us v2 cut the flow of electricity as a measure of safety. For the last 2 minutes of the second session I started to feel a bit uncomfortable but just soldiered on.
After I removed them, checked my skin to see of there was anything different; there was not, checked the pads to see if they were still sticky; they were and packed everything away neatly, I felt some sense of sadness. Not really sure why. Will have to set up a schedule sessions probably every two days and see if there’s any changes in my mood.
Mood is a approximation of how I’m feeling based on the Get’Appy app for Android on a scale of 1 to 22. 1 feeling depressed and 22 feeling joy.
Mood before session : 16:16 -> Contentment (16)
Mood after session : 17:57 -> Pessimism (14)
Obviously this doesn’t mean anything at all, since I can’t really tell my mood from moment to moment precisely, and only infer my mood based on cues.
Thus I have to say, just wanting to write about the experience is good enough cue that at least it was exciting.