TMI Journal 2011-1&2 (Winter/Spring)

Moen, B. (1997). Voyages into the unknown: Exploring the afterlife series, Vol. I. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads. Monroe, R. A. (1971). Journeys out of the body. New York, NY: Doubleday. Monroe, R. A. (1985). Far journeys. New York, NY: Doubleday. Monroe, R. A. (1994). Ultimate journey. New York, NY: Doubleday. Nietzsche, F. (1974). The gay science (W. Kauffman, Ed. & Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage. (Original work published 1887) Pearce, J. C. (2007). The death of religion and the rebirth of spirit: A return to the intelligence of the heart. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press. Plato. (1949). Theaetetus (B. Jowett, Trans.). New York, NY: Bobbs-Merrill. (Original work published 4th century BCE) Plato (1951). The symposium (W. Hamilton, Trans.). New York, NY: Penguin. (Original work published 4th century BCE) Reichenbach, H. (1951). The rise of scientific philosophy. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press. Rorty, R. (1982). Consequences of pragmatism (Essays: 1972-1980). 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(Original work published 1966) Next Page 8 TMI JOURNAL Winter/Spring 2011 New Roads to Familiar Places: A Life-Long Consciousness Traveler Reflects on the Focus Levels by Natalie Sudman Natalie Sudman worked as an archeologist in the Great Basin states for 16 years before accepting a position managing construction contracts in Iraq. After being injured in Iraq, she retired from government service to concentrate on art and writing, both long-time passions. Raised in Minnesota, Natalie has lived most of her adult life in eastern Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota. She recently moved to southern Arizona where she is setting up an art studio, offering readings, and plotting future travel adventures. Her artwork is available through Davis & Cline Galleries in Ashland Oregon. A book detailing her near-death experience in Iraq will be published by Ozark Mountain Publishing in 2012. http://www.ozarkmt.com/ In 1988, one of Robert Monroe’s books found me in a used bookstore in Oregon. I bought the book and devoured it in one sitting, quite excited. Using Bob’s instructions as a guide, I immediately set out to travel out of body, and accomplished that goal within a couple of weeks. I didn’t keep up with out-of-body travel, though, finding that I moved more easily and quickly through dimensions without the astral body. I don’t know what that sort of travel is named–I’ll call it “consciousness travel.” One moment I am aware of being a consciousness in this physical body, and the next I am in a nonphysical place as pure consciousness. I’ve done this ever since I can remember, so, for me, it’s effortless. OBE travel seemed slow and ponderous in comparison. Besides consciousness travel, since childhood I’ve seen things before they happen, sensed the history of certain buildings and landscapes, and conversed and worked with nonphysical beings. Before reading Bob’s book, though, I’d never really applied concerted discipline toward learning to control when my sixth sense would function. I didn’t apply effort toward learning to control when I traveled to nonphysical places, where I went when I traveled, nor what I did when I got there. Sensing nonphysical beings that needed assistance seemed like a random occurrence over which I had little control. During my work as an archeologist, I would often “see” buried sites before digging confirmed their existence, but those occurrences were intermittent. I had dabbled in meditation, given energy and psychic readings for friends once in awhile, and practiced energetic healing when the whim struck me. Now, having found that a few weeks of disciplined practice in out-of-body travel gave me a new and interesting level of experience, I have applied that discipline to attaining some control over my consciousness travel and related experiences. Eventually, this led to deeper explorations of the places and skills previously familiar through my intermittent experiences. I found that I could consistently meet up with familiar nonphysical beings by putting myself into deep meditation. In honing meditation skills and control over when and where I traveled, I was also able to access the sixth sense more consistently. The applied discipline deepened my use and understanding of healing levels; allowed me to consciously choose when and how to help nonphysical beings who are “stuck”; and helped me to make better use of rejuvenation environments (places to rest, and/or restore energy when I am exhausted), among other things. I did not consider myself adept, but I was improving. In 2007, nearly 20 years after first reading Bob’s book, I was working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq when the vehicle I was traveling in was hit with a roadside bomb. At the moment of the explosion, I left my body, Next Page 9 TMI JOURNAL Winter/Spring 2011 moving immediately to a place that was deeply familiar and wonderfully relaxing after the frenetic pace of working in Iraq. I won’t recount that experience here, as its conceptual description is rather complex. I’ve written a book detailing the experience, to be published by Ozark Mountain Publishing in 2012. All I will say here is that the experience confirmed and expanded my understanding of the nonphysical realms. It also reignited my resolve to continue exploring. Physical injuries from the roadside bomb landed me in Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a month and then kept me nearby in Maryland for 2 years as I continued outpatient treatment. Early on in this process, I was lolling around the house in a drug-induced drift when The Monroe Institute® (TMI) popped into my mind, though I hadn’t thought of Bob’s book in at least 5 years (probably every TMI alumni will understand that “coincidence”). Back in the 1990s, I had looked up the location of TMI, and I was almost certain that it was located close to where I was recovering in Maryland. In the 1990s, I’d judged the programs at TMI to be beyond my budget. But in 2007, as I was recovering from my injuries, I was pleased to admit that I could afford to attend a program and equally pleased to confirm that TMI was within a 3-hour drive of where I was living. When the surgeries and rehab exercises had tapered off, I took enthusiastic advantage of my proximity to the Institute, attending three courses: GATEWAY VOYAGE, LIFELINE, and GUIDELINES. Familiar with the organization of Bob Monroe’s specific Focus Levels, I had never correlated them to the places I was familiar with from my own experiences of consciousness travel. On arriving at The Monroe Institute for the GATEWAY program, I must have unconsciously assumed that I would be introduced to entirely new and strange places I was as yet unable to access. After all, Bob was a master; I felt that I was little more than a tinkerer in comparison. Upon being guided to Focus 10, I was surprised to find myself in a familiar location. “Hey,” I thought with some confusion, “this is where I spend most of my waking life!” I often move in and out of Focus 10 as I go about my daily business. For better or worse, much of daily life bores me, and, for as long as I can remember, I’ve let my mind wander off to F10 while my body completes its tasks in the physical. (Before you ask, yes, some people refer to me as a space cadet!) I suspect most children do this quite naturally and easily until it’s either unlearned through culture or the skill fades as a natural result of being in a physical body. For whatever reason, I retained the habit. We Gateway Voyagers moved on to Focus 12, and I found that F12 is where I often go to rest and create things in my physical life by creating them here first with my imagination. As we moved into Focus 15, I at first thought, “Finally! A place I haven’t been before.” But moving around within F15, I was drawn to a specific area and found that this area of F-15, too, was intimately familiar. It’s where I go almost daily to perform deep healing work and to gain deep rest. It’s also an excellent place from which to create, and it is where I sometimes meet up with specific nonphysical beings who work with me on various tasks. Whether Focus Levels were new or familiar to me did not detract from the GATEWAY experience. Spending a whole week exploring without the distractions of daily life is a valuable luxury, and hearing the stories of others’ experiences is always fascinating. It was also the first time I’d been anywhere in over a year without either an armed personal security team or my boyfriend as guide and guard. I didn’t realize the significance of this until later: It certainly was a generous place to learn how to negotiate a world that I no longer saw as clearly as I once did due to eye injuries sustained in Iraq. Finally, exploring the nonphysical within the safety net of a group of like-minded people allowed me to access some rather messy personal energy issues related to having been injured in Iraq. My body doesn’t process energy as quickly as my mind does. While my quirky mind is very amused by and quite interested in the fact and consequences of having been blown up, this body is a little less enthusiastic about explosions and injuries, considering it an unwelcome trauma. Thirty years ago, my brother and I took our cat to the vet for a mysterious ailment of the cat’s eye. The vet peeled back the cat’s inner eyelid with a pair of tweezers, and suddenly I felt all the blood rush from my head and I had to will myself not to faint. I was shocked and perplexed by this extreme physical reaction, which my mind considered baseless and bizarre. I was suddenly vividly aware that I was a consciousness sitting within–at this very moment–a physical body that somehow held its own separate memory bank. I could recount many other similar incidents throughout my life, and I am still most often startled and perplexed by the depth and strength of the body’s memory (duh!). TMI provided the space and structure to go into and clear some of that physical body trauma from the explosion Next Page 10 TMI JOURNAL Winter/Spring 2011 and aftermath, and to do it without scaring my boyfriend at home with extended withdrawals from consciousness or histrionic emotional outbursts! TMI provided what I refer to as backup. Moving through that sometimes highly charged trauma energy while surrounded by like-minded and sympathetic people, a cautious and nervous part of my mind felt