Now, if you shift your focus of attention to Focus 3 of consciousness, please understand that you are still not in a separate place. You are still within your own Consciousness Continuum, but Focus 3 is an area of common consensus reality, so things are very much like the physical, indeed even more physical than the physical if you know what I mean; like the physical on steroids! As it is a common consensus reality (like F1), it means that you can perceive and interact with everyone else and they with you, just as in the physical.

This is where people go when they 'die', i.e. make the Primary Focus switch from F1 to F3.

F3 is also known as the Transition Area, as it is where we all go in order to begin the process of adjusting back to subjective reality once again and to prepare for our eventual Primary Focus switch back to F4. This is the ultimate purpose of Focus 3. How long this process takes to complete will vary from individual to individual and everyone progresses at their own pace. Some people can take hundreds or even thousands of years, in our terms. There's no rush!

This level equates to Monroe's F23 - F27 areas. Focus 3 is big, and I mean HUGE! You could probably spend thousands of years exploring this area and only manage to cover a fraction of it, with new additions and changes occurring all the time.

The fundamental rules of the Wider Reality are readily apparent here in that 'Thought = Action' and 'Like Attracts Like'. This means that people of similar mindsets will tend to gravitate together with others of a similar persuasion. The subjective energy of these groups then allows for the creation of environments suited for the groups in question, although I should also point out that you often get individuals living in some environment by themselves; this is because they have chosen to do so, or expect to, depending on their expectations on crossing over. As I said earlier, F3 is also known as the Transition Area, as it is where we all go after physical 'death', when our Primary Focus switches to F3 (instead of F1) in order to begin the process of adjusting to subjective reality once again and for our eventual Primary Focus switch back to F4. This process proceeds at each individual's own pace, so we could be talking hundreds or even thousands of years for some people! The whole process can be hampered by the fact that many people may not know that they have 'died' or they may have strong religious beliefs which means that they spend years in some created heaven of their own expectation, along with others of similar beliefs. They only remain in these scenarios for as long as they hold these beliefs, so once they begin to have serious doubts about their 'heaven' then their energetic structure will change, opening up other possibilities for these people and a chance to engage with a more free thinking area.

All the heavens of mainstream religion can be found here as well as all the hells. These are all scenarios created by people's beliefs and expectations. If they really believe that they will be going to hell, complete with fire, brimstone and fork-wielding demons, then that is where they will end up, suffering alongside others of similar persuasion. Like any F3 scenario however, at some point they will begin to question what in Hades is going on and if this thought process goes on then the penny eventually drops, allowing them to leave.

Afterlife researcher Bruce Moen calls all these self-created afterlife scenarios 'hollow heavens' and 'hollow hells' to highlight the fact that they are created by US, due to our own expectations; we are not governed by some God-like figure. Nobody judges us or punishes us; the reality is that we punish ourselves. If you are a serial killing cannibal and love it, after death you will gravitate to areas populated by other serial killing cannibals. This may sound great, but a few hundred years of being eaten alive by other people of the same persuasion as yourself is punishment in itself and allows you to see things from the victim's perspective. After a while, this tends to override the cannibal's joy in being able to continually indulge in his favorite activity. Eventually, the cannibal rejects this mode of thought and frees himself from it, allowing him to gravitate to something better.

Focus 3 can best be thought of as a tree, with the least free thinking areas towards the bottom and gradually becoming more free thinking up to the top. With the lower branches, they are populated by all kinds of people involved in horrific practices who are basically slaves to their basest animal instincts. Many will not even be aware that they have 'died'. This region equates to Monroe's F23 - F24.
Further up the tree, you find all the heaven and hell scenarios and other places created from people's expectations after death. They are populated by those who had very strict, fundamentalist religious views on what would happen to them in the afterlife. You will also find many other groups and individuals engaged in an almost limitless amount of other scenarios of their own making. Again while some of them are aware they have transitioned from F1, others may be unaware that they have 'died' or are confused about exactly what has happened to them. This region equates to Monroe's 'Belief System Territories' of F25 - F26.
Then, towards the upper branches of the F3 tree, which equates to Monroe's F27 label, you have the free thinking areas where people are most well balanced and have no fundamentalist mindsets, or warped desires to kill babies with chainsaws. They are very happy, fun loving and joyful. I tend to refer to their attitude as 'dead and loving it'. These upper (or more correctly: Wider), free thinking areas are also huge in number and you can find all manner of interesting people and locales there. There are too many upper F3 areas to possibly count, but they do include some important locations made famous by The Monroe School, such as The Park, where people often come to chill out while recovering from their physical world experience, The Life Review Center, the Library and so on.

I honestly urge you to be prepared for a bewildering array of 'worlds' when you engage in F3; some are wonderful, some funny, some horrific! You get all kinds of towns and places full of people and you might just come across people living alone. It all depends on the person in question. Lots of people are 'dying' these days with no particular religious beliefs so they end up in transition just basically doing what they have always done. Basically, the F3 regions are chock full of people who are acting out all manner of scenarios. And I really do mean *all* manner of scenarios you could possibly think of, and more (infinitely more). At the base level you find people engaged in the most disgusting acts of depravity, where child torture, murder, rape, et al, are the norm. As you go higher, or more correctly wider, you come across regions where people are engaged in all manner of other pursuits, many of which have a religious or mystical slant. Beyond that you get to the upper branches were everyone is the most free thinking and well balanced, as I have described earlier.

Once you can reliably project your consciousness into these regions you can have a lot of fun chatting to the locals and finding out what's what. But I do agree that it is very spooky at first because it all seems so real. That's because it *is* real.

The key thing to do, or rather not to do, is start to overly analyze whatever the circumstances are that you find yourself involved in. The best state of mind to be in is that of a passive, mildly curious observer. Problem is, if you begin to react to the circumstances, especially emotionally, your own release of emotion will cause reality fluctuations that can (and often do!) vary from mild to wild.

What happens then is, you become entangled in a situation where you have the astral circumstances you found yourself in. Then, superimposed on that, are the circumstances you are creating from your own release of thought-release-emotion. Which all gets mighty confusing and generally scuppers the experience. If you feel circumstances are getting out of hand, rather than try and "make it right" simply go back to Physical (F1) and project again.

You do come across some interesting cases. During one exploration, I met a very interesting lady called Mary who had built herself a wooden church and was waiting for “god” to come and bless it for her. You cannot help but have compassion for these people. She had held her faith all her life that one day she would be meeting “god” after she died and there she was, waiting for “him”.

She asked me if I was waiting for god too, and if I was lost. I said I was a traveler passing through (as I tend to do). She invited me in and offered to share what she had. Saying if I was lost then I could stay in her little place while waiting for “him” and he would bless me as “he” would her. Once I was “blessed” then off I’d go to “heaven” and all that jazz. I gave her my thanks and, once I was out of sight, Phased back to physical to make notes.

Why people sometimes get 'stuck' in F3:

People often waste loads of time in the various hollow heavens and hells that I have talked about earlier, as well as all manner of other scenarios. They get stuck in these worlds as they simply don't know anything else. This is the afterlife that they fundamentally believed they would be going to, so that is what they get. Also, you have to realize that many people end up living in circumstances very much the same as they did while physical. Loads of people are living their lives within F3 and they don't fully realize they have actually physically died. There is a part of them that is well aware, but they just get wrapped up in their day to day affairs just like they would have done while physical. Such people will carry on living in such scenarios until the penny drops and/or they receive some help from outside.

Emotional loops:

Emotional loops are an even more serious situation however; more so than a hollow heaven. People often get in the unfortunate situation where they are releasing a particular mix of emotion that is creating a certain kind of objective scenario. Then they are reacting to that scenario in a particular way. But that particular way of reacting causes that same particular mix of emotions to be released, which causes the person to react to the scenario in that same particular way. So that same particular mix of emotions are released, so they react to the scenario in that same particular way… etc., etc.

Of course, within the physical, people can become locked in these kinds of weird circumstances in dreams. But it isn’t long before the alarm clock goes off, or some physical demand comes along and the person snaps out of it. But once someone is sans physical then different rules apply.

There is no need to eat or to excrete, no need for sleep, and so forth. So for someone caught in a loop there is nothing much that will come along and make a demand, break their attention, thus snap them out of it. For example, if there was a need for sleep then, after 20 hours or so, the person would get tired, fall asleep, and thus break the construct. Or they would end up starving hungry, or eventually get a severe need to use the bathroom, or whatever. But no such thing applies and people can become locked in these kinds of constructs for what we would gauge as a time period. This time period could be from minutes to even hundreds of years. There are no hard and fast rules.

Retrieval work:

The solution is to somehow interrupt a person’s thought patterns to make them start thinking of something else. As they do so, the objective circumstances they keep repetitively finding themselves wrapped up in will dissipate.

There are many people resident within the upper branches of F3 who try to help people free themselves from this kind of predicament. They are usually referred to as Helpers. Plus, you get people such as myself who regularly project to this area and see it as a challenge to break some of these constructs in which people become entangled. Some people call it “Retrieval” work and I too use that term loosely.

Helpers and people in F1 who engage in Retrieval work can also try to help those living in closed off belief system scenarios such as the hollow heavens, hells and all the other scenarios that people end up in. Helpers from these upper regions are always on hand to help these people and often try to get through to hopeful cases whenever there is a possibility that the individual in question is beginning to question his or her circumstances. Eventually people start to question the validity of their circumstances, thus the framework of the belief construct is gradually laid bare and people progressively gravitate to the upper branches of F3.

Note: when I use the term “top” or “upper” to describe this region I don’t mean in a superior sense, like this top region is more “religious”. If anything, quite the opposite is the case.

The people who are engaged in the religious constructs are the ones caught lower down, which is kind of ironic when you think about it. This is the main reason why I, personally, detest any kind of fundamentalist religion. These kinds of belief constructs are presented within the physical as a boon to progression in the non-physical, when in fact they turn out to be a barrier. But within Primary Focus 3, you can also see that many more people are disengaging from the physical these days with no particular mystical or religious beliefs, and are thus finding the progression through transition very much easier to achieve.

Creating your own environments in F3:

Within Focus 3, you can construct whatever you like. I made a tree house in a dense forest that ran to the edge of a lake. I made an ocean and a lovely open-plan house with a veranda that led out onto the sand. I’ve created all manner of plants, grasses, fish and other animals.

Now, the great thing is, within Focus 3, once you create something, it remains until you choose to change it, so you can go to it whenever you like. You should also be aware however, that so can anyone else, both those who live in F3 and other people phasing there like you, so don't be surprised if you turn up sometimes and find other people there!

It’s quite tricky learning to create things in F3. You have to merge with the underlying subjective energy. It is not like F2 where your thoughts immediately come to life. You have to concentrate a little harder. But there is a knack to it that you soon pick up and then it becomes second nature. If you get stuck, simply ask someone to help you. You’ll find people are ever so helpful. Also, upper F3, do not be surprised to get all manner of people who obviously know you very well, coming up to say hello. Yet you haven’t got the foggiest idea who they are!

A good reason for learning how to create F3 environments now is that people in the know, so to speak, construct a place for themselves so, when they permanently disengage in a physical sense, i.e. when they “die” that is where they go... to their own place within F27, or the upper branches of Focus 3 as I call it.