Recently, in the name of research, I found myself on a waterbed for the first time since elementary school. I put on a set of headphones, and the bed began to pulse in sync with the hypnotic, repetitive sounds blasting into my ears. My entire body was vibrating like the floor of a nightclub.
As the tones began to vary, my mind went elsewhere, everywhere, nowhere. When I awoke 40 blissful minutes later, I certainly felt like my molecules had been rearranged. “A spa treatment for your DNA” is the tagline for Quantum Clinic, a year-old wellness center in Los Angeles’s Frogtown neighborhood. The minimalist space may look like a Scandinavian luxury spa, but there are no mani-pedis here: Instead, they offer sound- and vibration-based experiences they call “frequency therapy”—treatments that purport to start at the subatomic level.
Sound waves like the ones I experienced, and their electromagnetic counterparts, are …