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assorted pain or pleasure centers. Instead of suppressing the left hemisphere as
ig done in hypnosis, or largely bypassing and ignoring it as is done in
transcendental meditation, biofeedback teaches the left hemisphere first to
visualize the desired result and then to recognize the feelings associated with the
experience of successful right hemisphere access to the specific lower cerebral,
cortex, pain or pleasure or other areas in the manner needed to produce the desired
result. Special self-monitoring devices such as the digital thermometer are used
to inform the left brain when it succeeds in keying the right hemisphere into
accessing the appropriate area. Once this is done, the left brain can then
xepeatedly instruct the right brain to reestablish the pathways involved so as to
produce the same external, objective measures of success. In this way, the
pathways are strengthened and emphasized to such an extent that left brain
consciousness is enabled to access appropriate areas in the right brain using a
conscious, demand mode. For example, if the subject wishes to increase the
circulation in the left leg in order to speed up healing he may concentrate with
hig left brain on achieving that result while carefully monitoring a digital
thermometer connected to the left leg. When the concentrated effort begins to
achieve success, the digital thermometer will register an increase in the
temperature of the left leg. At that point, the subject can mentally (left brain)
associate the sensations experienced with the result achieved and can begin to
emphasize, by memory recall, the same process to cause its strengthening by
affirmation and repetition, In this way, pain can be blocked, healing can be
enhanced, malignant tumors can apparently be suppressed and ultimately destroyed,
the body's pleasure centers can be stimulated, and a variety of specific
physiological results may be achieved. In addition, biofeedback may be used to
greatly accelerate achievement of deep meditative states particularly for beginners
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who have no experience in meditative techiques and whose progress in that
methodology is enhanced through effective visualization and external, objective
affirmation, Display of the subject's brainwave pattern on a cathode ray tube has
proven to be a laboratory-validated means by which subjects may quickly learn to
place themselves in profoundly relaxed states characterized by the sort of quietude
and singularity of mental focus associated with advanced meditation.
5. Gateway and Hemi-Sync. Now that we have briefly profiled the basic mechanics
of the principal techniques for altering or expanding consciousness which share
some of the objectives and/or methods employed in the Gateway Experience, we may
proceed to focus on what that technique actually involves. Fundamentally, the
Gateway Experience is a training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus
and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left
and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness, moving it outside the physical
sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space, The
participant then gains access to the various levels of intuitive knowledge which
the universe offers. What differentiates the Gateway Experience from forms of
meditation is its use of the Hemi-Sync technique which is defined in a monograph by
Monroe Institute trainer Melissa Jager as, "a state of consciousness defined when
the EEG patterns of both hemispheres are simultaneously equal in amplitude and
frequency." Although Hemi-Sync seems to be rather rare and of only short duration
in ordinary human consciousness, Melissa Jager states that: "Audio techniques
developed by Bob Monroe can induce and sustain Hemi-Sync with the Institute's basic
Focus 3 tapes,..." She also notes that: "Stua@ies conducted by Elmer and Alyce
Greene at the Menninger Foundation have shown that a subject with 20 years of
training in Zen meditation could consistently establish Hemi-Sync at will,
sustaining it for over 15 minutes." Dr. Stuart jTwemlow, a psychiatrist and a
research associate of the Monroe Institute, reports that: "In our studies of the
effect of the Monroe tape system on brainwaves, we have found that the tapes
encourage the focusing of brain energy(it can be measured as with a lightbulb, in
watts) into a narrower and narrower ‘frequency band'. This focusing of energy is
not unlike the yoga concept of one pointedness, which we may translate in western
terms as a single-mindedness." Dr. Twemlow goes on to observe that as the
individual gets into the tapes beyond Focus 3, ". .there is a gradual increase in
brainwave size which is a measure of brain energy or power."
6. Lamp vs Laser: Melissa Jager uses a metaphor to help clarify the process
involved in the use of Hemi-Syne in the Gateway Experience. She points out that
the human mind in its natural state may be likened to an ordinary lamp which
expends energy in the form of both heat and light but in a chaotic, incoherent way
which diffuses its energy over a wide area of rather limited depth. On the other
hand, the human mind under the discipline of Hemi-Sync acts after the fashion of a
laser beam which produces a disciplined stream of light. The stream of energy is
projected with total coherence of both frequency and amplitude such that the
surface area of a laser beam contains billions of times the concentrated energy
found in a similar surface area on the sun. Gateway assumes that once the
frequency and amplitude of the human brain are rendered coherent, it is possible to
begin accelerating both so that the human mind is soon resonating at ever higher
vibrational levels. The mind can then bring itself into sycronization with more
sophisticated and rarified energy levels in the universe. The mind, when operating
at these increasingly rarified levels is assumed to be capable of processing the
information thus received through the same fundamental matrix by which it makes
sense of ordinary physical sensory input to achieve meaning in a cognitive
context. Such meaning is usually perceived visually in the form of symbols but may
also be perceived as astonishing flashes of holistic intuition or even in the form
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of scenarios involving both visual and aural perception. The mechanics by which
the mind exercises the consciousness function will be addressed in more detail
later in this paper.
7. Frequency Following Response. To achieve synchronization of brain hemispheres,
the Hemi-Syne technique takes advantage of a phenomenon known as the Frequency
Following Response(FFR) which means that if a subject hears a sound produced at a
frequency which emulates one of those associated with the operation of the human
brain, the brain will try to mimmick the same frequency pattern by adjusting its
brainwave output. Therefore, if the subject is in a fully awake state but hears
sound frequencies which approximates brainwave output at the Theta level, the
subject's brain will endeavor to alter its brainwave pattern from the normal Beta
to the Theta level. Since the Theta level is associated with sleep, the subject
concerned may progress from a fully awake to a sleep state(provided that he does
not consciously resist) as the brain strives to entrain its wave frequency output
with the one which the person hears. Since these brainwave frequencies are outside
the spectrum of sounds which can be heard in pure form by the human ear, ‘Hemi-Sync
must produce them based on another phenomenon known as the brain's capacity for
deducing "beat" frequencies. If the human brain is exposed to one frequency in the
left ear which is 10 Hertz below another audible frequency played in the right ear,
rather than hearing either of the two audible frequencies, the brain chooses to
"hear" the difference between them, the "beat" frequency. Thus, availing itself of
the FFR phenomenon, and using the technique of "beat" frequencies, the Gateway
system uses Hemi-Sync and other audio techniques employing the FFR phenomenon to
introduce a variety of frequencies which are played at a virtually subliminal,
marginally audible level. The objective is to relax the left hemisphere of the
brain, place the physical body in a virtual sleep state, and bring the left and
right hemispheres into coherence under conditions designed to promote the
production of ever higher amplitude and frequency of brainwave output. Audible and
perhaps subliminal suggestions by Bob Monroe accompany the various brainwave
frequencies, which are sometimes rolled in together with other sounds such as sea
surf to mask the sound frequencies where desireable. In this way, Gateway
endeavors to provide the subject with the tools by which he may alter his
consciousness based on his own volition over time through the repetitive use of the
tapes so as to access, via intuitive means, new categories of information not
available to ordinary consciousness.
8. Role of Resonance, However, brain coherence through entrainment to "beat"
frequencies introduced via stereo headphones is only part of the reason why the
Gateway system works. It is also designed to achieve the physical quietude
characteristic of deep transcendental meditative states which brings about a
complete alteration of the fundamental resonance pattern associated with the sound
frequencies produced by the human body. Yoga, zen or transcendental meditation, if
practiced long enough, will produce a change in the sound frequency with which the
human heart resonates throughout the entire body. According to Bentov, this change
in resonance results from elimination of what the medical profession calls "the
bifurcation echo" so that the sound of the heartbeat can move synchronously up and
down the circulatory system in harmonious resonance approximately seven times a
second. Bentov describes the roll played by the bifurcation echo as follows:
“When the left ventricle of the heart ejects blood, the aorta, being elastic,
balloons out just beyond the valve and causes a pressure pulse to travel down along
the aorta. When the pressure pulse reaches the bifurcation in the lower abdomen
(which is where the aorta forks in two to go into the legs), part of the pressure
pulse rebounds and starts traveling up the aorta, If in the meantime the heart
ejects more blood, and a new pressure pulse is traveling down, these two pressure
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points will eventually collide somewhere along the aorta and produce an
interference pattern." By placing the body in a sleeplike state, the Gateway tapes
achieve the same goal as meditation in that it places the body in such a profoundly
relaxed state that the bifurcation echo slowly fades away as the heart lessens the
force and frequency with which it pushes blood into the aorta. The result is a
regular, rhythmic sinewave pattern of sound which echoes throughout the body and
rises up into the head in sustained resonance. The amplitude of this sinewave
pattern, when measured with a sensitive, seismograph type instrument is about three
times the average of the sound volume produced by the heart when it is operating
nomally.
9, Brain Stimulation. Bentov's biomedical model shows that this resonance is of
considerable importance since it is directly transmitted to and impacts upon the
brain. The resulting vibration is received and transmitted into the brain itself
via the fluid filled third and left ventricles located above the brain stem. An