HEMI-SYNC INTRODUCTION

Extracted from The Gateway Experience Manual published by The Monroe Institute

The Gateway Experience is a system of training in personal development. It is not a form of psychotherapy, philosophy, religion, or medical diagnosis/treatment. It is a means to acquire knowledge. The application and results thereof are solely the responsibility of the trainee.  The Gateway Experience training series is sold for private use only. Any public or commercial use thereof without written consent of The Monroe Institute is strictly prohibited.

Caution: These tapes must not be used while driving. Use only with your doctor’s permission if you are taking psychotropic medication or are engaged in therapy. Your doctor may call our Professional Division with any questions. Do not use tapes with any indication of epilepsy.   

The Affirmation Gateway

I am more than my physical body. Because I am more than physical matter, I can perceive that which is greater than the physical world. Therefore, I deeply desire to Expand, to Experience; to Know, to Understand; to Control, to Use such greater energies and energy systems as may be beneficial and constructive to me and to those who follow me. Also, I deeply desire the help and cooperation, the assistance, the understanding of those individuals whose wisdom, development, and experience are equal to or greater than my own. I ask their guidance and protection from any influence or any source that might provide me with less than my stated desires.

(Note: This Affirmation has evolved over time. On some Gateway Experience tapes it may be slightly different from the way it is presented here. Both versions will help you make the most of your experiences. Remember, it is the intent rather than the words themselves that is important.)

The sound pattern you will hear on the tapes is a scientific process that helps you develop and absorb these Gateway states of consciousness. It is not hypnosis, although some of the techniques seem similar. The Gateway forms of consciousness show significantly different EEG brain-wave patterns from those of hypnosis subjects. At present, there is controversy as to what such patterns truly mean and how to categorize them. What can you expect from the Gateway Experience? As much or as little as you put into it. The exercises provide you with a set of tools – how you use them and what you do with them is your responsibility. Some discover themselves for the first time, and thus live more completely, more constructively. Others reach levels of awareness so profound that only one such experience is enough for a lifetime. Still others become seekers-after-truth and add an on-going adventure to their daily activities. There is one basic promise – that you seriously consider the Gateway Affirmation at the least a possibility: that you are more than your physical body, that you can and do exist in energy systems that are not limited to time-space, that you can and do communicate with intelligence beyond your physical consciousness – call it what you will.

Brain Power

The Benefits of Hemispheric Synchronization

Perhaps even before recorded history, humans have sought to understand and enhance perception. By doing so, we are better able to understand and enhance our daily lives. The questions surrounding how we perceive, or how we go about making sense of our awareness, stimulate many avenues of inquiry.

One of these avenues, science, has long known that our brains are divided into two halves, or hemispheres. In muscle functions, the nerve signals from these brain hemispheres act in an X crossover. The left brain controls the right side of the body, and the right brain controls the left side.

But only in recent years has it been discovered that these two hemispheres may be quite different in the functions they perform. Research indicates that we use the left brain pri­marily to talk and read, do mathematics, to reason deduc­tively, to remember detail, and to measure time, among other facets. It is the vehicle for logical, rational thought. Our right brain is the vehicle for ideas, spatial sense, intuition, music, emotion, and probably much more than we now realize. It apparently has a language all its own.

Moreover, most of the time we think with our left brain. When we use our right brain, it is primarily to support the thought and action of the left. Otherwise, we often ignore it.

Since its inception, the left-brain/right-brain theory has been under controversy. To stay apart from this unresolved conflict, our representation here is merely symbolic. Regardless of the physical location, we apparently have at least two distinct ways of perceiving and thinking. For the moment, the terms „left brain” and “right brain” serve only as identifying labels, or as a metaphor.  We are primarily a right-handed civilization, dominated by our left brains. How did we get this way? No one is absolutely sure, but one of the better guesses is that the left­brain dominance came about because of a basic need to survive in a physical world. Through thousands of years, our forebears added to left-brain dominance because that was the way to get things done. Our entire system-books, schools, colleges and universities, industry, political struc­tures, churches – is fundamentally left-brained in learning, application. and operation. We have generally regarded right-brain thinking with amused tolerance, suspicion, disgust, irritation, distrust – and awe.

However, recent studies show we use our right brain throughout our daily lives in many subtle ways. For example, the left brain remembers the name, but the right brain remembers the face. (How many times have you spotted a familiar face but couldn’t remember his or her name?) Studies of world leaders throughout history indicate they were thinkers who used far more than the analytical, intellectual portions of their minds. All great decisions by these leaders have been made with the left brain PLUS. Plus the right brain? Evidence supports it, based upon what we now know. How, then, do we go about using more of our brain power? There is a method and technique that offers much promise and potential. It can be utilized with relative ease, does not require years of intensive training, and is not limited to a narrow band of application. It is called HEMI-SYNC, which is short for hemispheric synchronization.  Developed by The Monroe Institute, this process uses pulses of sound to create in both brain hemispheres electrical wave forms simultaneously equal in frequency and amplitude.

The Institute was granted a patent in 1975 based upon the use of such sound pulses to induce a frequency following response (FFR) in the human brain. The FFR demonstrates that when you hear a certain type of sound, your brain tends to respond to, or resonate with, that sound. Various electrical brain-wave patterns are indicators of specific states of consciousness (such as awake or asleep). Therefore, certain sound patterns can assist you in achieving desired states of consciousness.  Hemi-Sync takes the process an important additional step. Each ear sends its dominant nerve signal to the opposite brain hemisphere, following the X pattern mentioned earlier. By sending separate sound pulses to each ear (using stereo headphones to isolate one ear from the other), the halves of the brain act in unison to “hear” a third signal, which is the difference in frequencies between the two signals in each ear. For example, if you hear a sound measuring 100 hertz (cycles per second) in one ear and another signal of 125 hertz in the other ear, the signal your whole brain will „generate” will be 25 hertz. This third signal is the binaural beat.  It is never an actual sound, but an electrical signal created by both brain hemispheres acting and working together. If the 25-hertz signal (above) is one that produces a certain type of consciousness, then the whole brain – both hemispheres – is focused in a coherent state of awareness. Most important, the state of awareness can be changed at will by changing the sound pattern. It also can be learned and recreated from memory as desired.

The Hemi-Sync process already has been tested and applied in many ways:

for better sleep, stress-tension reduction, control of pain, accelerated learning, study and concen­tration, enhanced creativity, problem solving, even for playing a better game of golf. Furthermore, it has been one of the fundamental reasons for the success of the Gateway Programs. The sounds you hear during the Gateway Experience exercises are characteristic of this process.

The Gateway Experience

As are all Gateway Programs, the Gateway Experience is dedicated to the exploration and development of human consciousness through a system of exercises using Hemi-Sync. These exercises assist you to know and better understand your total self. They are designed so you may learn and experience profound areas of expanded awareness.  Each exercise requires active concentration, volition, and sometimes courage, as you move by carefully controlled steps from deep relaxation to those thresholds of consciousness apparently related to deep meditation.

These thresholds become Gateways into different forms of perception:

states of expanded awareness, of freedom. The tapes also provide a structured environment in which you create your own experiences, your own adventures.

Many who use the Gateway Experience, or participate in the Institute’s programs, are in search of the out-of-body experience (OBE). This is not surprising considering the wide dissemination of Mr. Monroe’s books and the extensive media coverage of our work in this area. One of the Institute’s early goals was to de­velop and provide a training system in this technique. However, as more sophisticated methods of exploration were developed, it became evident that participants were entering discrete (distinct and separate) nonordinary states of consciousness. These states facilitate a great deal more than the OBE.

Each individual approaches this internal work with different abilities, concepts, and dynamic processes. Each enters this area from a different place and goes to a different place. The Institute goal is to provide techniques for exploring your full potential and for „travelling”; rather than to provide a destination. In a broad sense, the research has led to a point where the OBE is far overshadowed by the development of human potential on all levels. In addiction, the Hemi-Sync audio stimulus is not overpowering and can easily be rejected if it is not in agreement with your conscious or unconscious desires. For these reasons, The Monroe Institute does not guarantee an OBE. However, Gateways are provided into various levels of awareness.

Gateway Entry

"Begin now.” Begin where you are, with an easy acceptance of who you are.  To explore is to observe by discerning differences rather than by making judgments.

Assume that the Hemi-Sync audio techniques presented by The Monroe Institute will create different brain-wave patterns, and there are various ways to perceive these differences within yourself.  One method of perception is to feel differences kinesthetically (sensations that are, or seem to be, physical). Pay attention to your body and feel subtle sensations. These sensations might feel like motion: rising and falling, rocking, sliding, and tipping. You might feel “electric” sensations: tingling or vibrations. Perhaps you might feel twitches, pulsing, pressure, or changes in temperature. Ask, “How does my foot feel?” rather than, “Is my foot relaxed” Those feelings may change and shift, come and go; creating subtle patterns which are beautiful in and of themselves. And like the surf, never assume that the frailty of its foam is a measure of the ocean’s power.

In our language, our concepts are deeply tied to the visual. We honor men and women of vision, and value insight. Do you see what we mean? Visual means of perception are important. At the same time, visual perception is often overemphasized and considered essential to the control and use of energy. It’s not necessarily so. One can get caught up in the entertainment value of the visual, and the endless fascination of unfolding visualization can blind us to other kinds of perception.  Visualizations can be incredibly meaningful. However, an attachment to them can become a major block to other perceptual cues.  An auditory perception may manifest as verbal messages, voices, or impressions of voices. lt may also occur as sounds such as static, buzzing, pops and clicks, tones, or even music. These perceptions have a delicacy, a quality difficult to convey in physical, waking consciousness (Consciousness One or C-1) terms. Too often, we close such beautiful­ channels that were open to us by discounting our impression as unreal rather than allowing them to be legitimate.  Gateway participants often report intuitive perceptions: a sudden awareness, a gestalt, a whole-knowing, or “thought­ball” as one person delightfully described it.

There are no right or wrong ways to experience these exercises. Whatever your method(s) of perception, getting deeply into yourself will enable you to appreciate more of that which is around you. Value and build on your uniqueness: in it is wholeness and unity.

WAVE I: DISCOVERY

The Gateway Experience is a means to your self­ discovery, a Gateway to your choice of an ideal or a destination. The ultimate goal of the Gateway Experience is for you to no longer need the tapes. They are like training wheels on a bicycle: wonderful for practice, but inhibiting as you learn to ride far and free. Your journey begins with the Discovery album.  You will learn through direct experience, discovering that words and theories are only one way to obtain knowledge. As a result, as you perform these exercises, your experiences will take you beyond what you think or what you have read, to what you know.

There may be times when you “click-out” of the exercise, especially as you begin to move up to and beyond your level of experience. Clicking-out is different from falling asleep. There is a sense of having dropped out of the exercise. Upon returning to or finishing the exercise, there is no perception of time having passed. You will have stored the memory of your experience, but will have no immediate recall. Clicking-out is a common, frequently reported experience.

As you learn to cooperate with your own inner direction, the paradoxical nature of the Gateway itself emerges: your desire to explore intensifies as you become more willing to release any attachment to results.  Expectations limit the unknown by what you now know.  Any conflict between doing something and being there, or between active and passive states, is resolved in Focus 10. Doing and being merge, triggering what we call “synchronicity,” or a synergism between thought and action, between imagination and reality, between self and universe.  ­In Focus 10, the serious and playful aspects of selfdiscovery also merge, effort and fun are no longer in conflict. You enter a flow. Burdens become light.

So seriously, have fun!

Tape-Taking Recommendations

Locate a distraction-free environment where you can darken the room and remain undisturbed during the thirty ­to forty-five-minute taped exercises. Make sure you will not be interrupted by the phone. However, if you do experi­ence noise (such as dogs barking, street repairs, children playing, etc.), simply note the distraction and use it to go deeper into your experience. For example, each time you hear a dog bark, tell yourself you are settling deeper within yourself, that the noise is allowing you to explore further and further.

Allow at least one hour after eating and avoid alcohol, drugs, or excessive caffeine, which may limit the effectiveness of the Hemi-Sync exercises.

Get comfortable. Use the bathroom before each exercise, even if it seems unnecessary. Loosen any tight clothing and remove shoes and glasses (or contacts). Listen to the tapes while lying down or in a seated position with your head supported, whichever is more comfortable for you.  Shift positions as necessary, both before and during the exercise.  If you itch during an exercise, scratch. You will be able to move gently back into your pattern of relaxation.

There can be a metabolic drop as you enter an exercise, producing a coolness or chill which can quickly change to a perception of heat, motion, or pressure. Have a loose blanket or cover handy, ready to pull up or throw off as needed.

You may wish to keep a journal to document the details of your experiences such as: date/time, body position, medication or unusual diet, mood/attitude, energy level, moon phase, or any other unusual circumstance.

DO NOT use the Gateway Experience tapes while driving.

Required Equipment

Stereo cassette tape player (do not use Dolby or other noise-reduction systems)

Stereo headphones (with separate volume controls if you have a hearing imbalance).

Preventing and Solving Cassette Problems

1.   Be sure the tape is always fully wound and stored in a cassette case.

2.   Be sure the pinch roller (on the tape player) is not worn as it will catch and „eat” the tape.

3.   Clean tape heads, pinch roller, and metal drive posts every twenty tapes.

4.   If the tape appears to be stuck (not winding) – slap it against the palm of your hand three times. This will realign the small plastic sheets inside the cassette.

5.   Allow tapes left in a cold area to warm up at least one hour before using.

6.   Before rewinding the tape, take out all slack.

7.   Store all tapes in a cool, nonhumid area.

8.   If the tape player „eats” the tape, very carefully remove the tangled section. Rewind the tape by sticking the eraser end of a pencil in the spool and tightening the tape.

Discovery #1: Orientation

The tools, exercises, and experiences you will discover or each tape in the Discovery album build upon the tools, exercises, and experiences of the previous tape. Indeed, each tape and album in the Gateway Experience builds upon the same features of the previous tapes and albums. The more intimate and proficient you become with each tape, the more you will be able to explore and master the next tape or album. By carefully and patiently using Discovery, you will build a solid foundation within you that will enable you to get the most out of this in-home training system.  It is also recommended that you perform each exercise as instructed at least the first time you listen to it. Then, you may choose to innovate and do something else. Let your experience during the tape guide you. Stay open to change and flow with your experience. Don’t force anything. If you are curious about the content of each tape, you may first listen to it objectively, over speakers.

In Discovery, repetition of tapes is advancement. Each time you listen to a tape, you become stronger, clearer, and more masterful with it. Return to basic tapes for reinforce­ment; doing so will deepen your experiences and is strongly recommended.

Various tools are developed in Discovery to create bridging as one begins to detect and focus the strong energies we call „nonphysical.” These are often perceived as electrical or vibratory sensations, as well as motion, heat, or pressure. These energies can flow in Focus 10, and can, depending on your choice, influence physical reality.  To use these tapes effectively, please familiarize yourself with the Tape-Taking Recommendations on page 17. The following sections refer directly to processes on this tape:

Hemi-Sync

Hemispheric synchronization is demonstrated in a simple way by placing a steady tone in one ear, then a different steady tone in the other ear. As these different tones are blended together in the brain, the binaural beat or wavering sound you hear is a brain-produced phenomenon created as both hemispheres act in unison. Such signals can stimulate specific states of consciousness, which are automatically learned and then can be recreated from memory.

Hemispheric synchronization focuses your attention, thereby enhancing creativity and problem solving, and providing a greater awareness of your overall environment. Consider light waves as an example of the Hemi-Sync process. Radiant light sources, such as sunlight or a lamp’s tungsten filament, are incoherent in that energy is produced with random timing, and focusing directs an irregular stream of photons to a specific area. In turn, the laser (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation) is uniquely pure (of the same wavelength) and coherent (waves are in phase or synchronized).

Imagine the implications of our ability to focus con­sciousness using the lamp and laser metaphor: with training in consciousness, our minds have the potential to become lamps turned lasers. As a result, our abilities to learn, focus our minds, and direct our thoughts are automatically amplified. Using Hemi-Sync, the specific exercises in the Gateway Experience provide a means for laser-like focusing of human consciousness.

Volume Adjustment

Adjust the volume so that it is just within your hearing range. As you listen to the tape, your senses will become heightened, more sensitized.  If the volume is too high, you may feel startled when you hear verbal instructions during different stages of the exercise. Do not readjust your headphones again during the tape. Shifts in volume of the Hemi-Sync frequencies are intentional. A high volume will not enhance the effectiveness of the FFR or masked sound patterns. In fact, it may reduce the benefits of the exercise.

Surf

Ocean surf-waves of natural energy in action is a symbol of the Monroe audio system: you will learn to perceive, tune, and control waves of your own natural vibrational energy. It is important to understand that you will be learning to control your energy better. As a result, you will be able to attune yourself to, or harmonize with, your environment in more varied and meaningful ways than ever before. This will enable you to establish resonance with, rather than control over, other people and nature.

Energy Conversion Box

Create in your mind a “box,” a part of your personal space that, for the duration of any exercise, can be filled with all your worries and concerns, and then can be set aside, leaving you free and unencumbered.  Create it in your mind, even if you don’t see, hear, or feel it. Make it really yours, so it will work with you by giving you the space to detach yourself from whatever is holding you back.  You may design your own box: perceive it as simple or ornate, conventional or high-tech, physical or nonphysical. In other words, it may be an old, wood chest or an intricately designed marble container; it may be a vacuum cleaner or a nuclear particle collector; or it may be a lead-lined box or a sphere of light. You may also find that your box changes in size, shape, or color as you progress. Allow it to change, and use it as a symbol of your changes and growth Put concrete symbols of worries or distractions into your box. For example, use your billfold as a symbol for money concerns, your watch as a symbol for time concerns, or a photograph representing someone who is on your mind. Experiment. Gateway participants have discovered marvelous things to set aside: a tiny version of the physical world with themselves outside; lists of limiting words like can’t, won’t and isn’t; anchors to both the past and the future; assumptions about both success and failure; symbols of defenses resembling a series of masks.  A man once spent a whole exercise trying to force his box open: he tore at it, pried, and ordered it to open, all to no avail. Baffled, he stopped and confronted his box, and in the sudden knowing of Focus 10, he realized force doesn’t work, and with one gentle movement, he opened his box.  You may also want to return to your box during an exercise. Place whatever you wish in your box whenever you feel like doing so.

Affirmation

The Gateway Affirmation serves several purposes: It helps you focus your attention on what you want to accomplish during any exercise. It helps you focus your intent, thereby enabling you to become more aware of your expanding consciousness. It gives you permission to respond to, and work with, other energy and energy systems. Plus, it helps you stay, relaxed and open to a variety of helpful influences.

Resonant Tuning

Resonant Tuning is a breathing exercise to help you vitalize and charge your entire system. It promotes an accel­­erated gathering of your vibrational energy while reducing your internal dialogue. In addition to preparing you for these exercises, you may use Resonant Tuning for meditation or quieting your thoughts.

What is referred to in this Guidance Manual as non­physical energy, Robert Monroe calls second-state energy. This vital energy flows along lines of force, operating on the principle that our bodies, as well as the universe, function bilaterally, and like batteries, have a positive pole, and a negative pole. Breathing exercises are a universal method of vitalizing and recharging your „battery,” moving this energy through its natural channels in and around the body, loosening knots and blockages, and correcting imbalances. Within the tape exercises, this process can manifest as sudden jerks and twitches, or even as a sensation resembling pain. Odd as it may sound, resistance increases this phenomenon. But by confronting the experience and allowing it to work itself out, you will move beyond it.

During the breathing exercises, follow the pacing on the tape to the extent that it is comfortable for you. As the Resonant Tuning chant begins on the tape, continue the same breathing pattern, vocalizing with the „aaah,” „oooh,” and „uuum” sounds as you exhale. Set your own rhythm, your own pace. Use the sounds on the tape only as a guide. It is important that you actually make the sounds with your physical vocal cords. You will soon grow comfortable with this process and you may notice kinesthetic responses as your body becomes aligned with resonant energy.  As you inhale, imagine an infinity of sparkling, vibrant, vital energy around you. Pull it into all parts of your body and up into your head.  Since energy continues to flow, allow the energy to move and swirl gently around in your head as you hold your breath. Exhale through your lips as if you were softly blowing out a candle, releasing any tired, stale energy out through your body and the bottoms of your feet.  Breathing slightly deeper than you normally would is just as effective as explosive, championship breaths. Open your eyes as you inhale, and close them as you exhale. Coordi­nating your eye movement with your breathing is one way to become aware of your ability to control autonomic (automatic) behavior. Typically, eye blinking and breathing are accomplished without the slightest thought on your part. Now, however, you will plant a seed that may grow into a full realization that you can assume voluntary control over these processes. In other words, you can recognize, change, and direct habitual behavior and reflexes.  Should you relax to the extent you seem to have lost contact with everything physical, simply breathe normally and open your eyes, or move the fingers of your right hand, and your entire body will respond and return to waking, physical consciousness.

Focus 3

Focus 3 is a signpost on the way to Focus 10, a Hemi-Sync state where your brain and mind are more coherent, synchronized, and balanced. You will move to Focus 3 by a conventional count of one to three.

Return to Full Waking Consciousness

At the end of every tape exercise, you will hear a strong audio signal designed to bring you to a state of full, waking consciousness (C-1 ).  Despite the temptation to take off your headphones early, listen to this signal until it is withdrawn. It will bring you completely „back” from the exercise. The more you bring yourself back from an exercise, the further you can go into your next exercise.

Discovery #2: Introduction to Focus 10

Use this exercise after you are completely comfortable with Discovery Exercise Tape #1.

Focus 10

In Focus 10, the 10-State your mind remains awake and alert; your body is calmly, deeply, and comfortably asleep.

You will move into this state of total relaxation by first moving to Focus 3, and then by letting various parts of your face and head progressively go limp and relax. This relaxation of your head will then „flow into your brain,” which will feel and understand such a state, and will in turn allow such relaxation to flow through your whole body. Move along with the instructions, successively focusing upon and then totally releasing each body part. To „look with your closed eyes” at your foot is a way to view it objectively, thus creating a sense of detachment. Your body knows how to do this.

The count to Focus 10 will continue. From four to ten, at each successive count you will relax another part of your physical body.  One of the paradoxes of „body asleep,” or total relaxation, and „mind awake,” is the possibility of sudden heightened sensitivity: hearing the swish of arterial blood flow behind your ears, or feeling the pores of your skin breathe. Spontaneous remote sensing is another possibility in Focus 10: audio material you would swear was actually on the tape this time, but not last time, or the total presence of faraway, delicate odors.

Health Affirmation

When you return to full, waking reality, your body will be so equalized as to overcome all those things that might hinder or prevent it from being and giving its best mental, spiritual, and physical self...  This is the beginning of the Health Affirmation that you will hear at the end of these exercises. It will help you balance your physical and nonphysical energies. Know that the affirmation is working for you without effort on your part.

Countdown

As you return from the tape exercise, move from the count of ten to one, to full, physical, walking consciousness or Consciousness One (C-1 ).