The overview says its descriptions for Focus 1 through 21 are taken from Monroe Institute literature. For Focus 22 and above it turns to what it calls the traditional view, on the basis of Monroe's and Bruce Moen's work, and the entries are quoted from Moen's Afterlife Knowledge website. The Focus 22 wording is therefore Moen's. That matters because the file blends Institute descriptions, an account by a contributor credited to The Astral Pulse of moving from Focus 12 toward Focus 21, and Moen's material in one document. Who is found there Moen says explorers often find people in comas, in drug-induced states, who are dreaming, and who are insane or deranged, and he calls it a very chaotic level. He hedges the central claim: these are people perhaps still physically alive. The wording is historical and informal. It reports what an explorer says he met, not a condition anyone could confirm, diagnose or use to describe a real person. The boundary with Focus 23 Moen sorts the two levels by whether the body is alive. Focus 23 holds people no longer physically alive who have become stuck, often confused about or unaware of their death and trying to keep contact with familiar people or places. These are the ones he calls ghosts. They are typically alone and isolated from communication with other humans, with a very narrow range of free-will choices. Focus 22, by contrast, concerns the living in altered or unconscious conditions. Monroe on Art Bell: the tunnel
SOURCE CONTEXT
Focus 22: outside ordinary waking awareness
The selected passage is highlighted. Adjacent passages preserve the surrounding source text.
Asked about near-death experiences, and about doctors who say the bright light with surrounding darkness is a product of dying synapses, Monroe answered that this was as good a definition as any and that what the Institute calls Focus 22 is that tunnel. He added that this is how they commonly identify it. He then turned to a new series for residences, hospitals and hospices called Going Home, designed for a person with a terminal illness or injury and for their families and caregivers. Monroe on coma and anesthesia in general In a lecture, Monroe recalled earlier Gateway groups laid out on mats in conference rooms, where people past Focus 15 lay in absolute immobility yet were still responding, a depth he called very similar to a coma. In the same talk he discussed anesthesia and dying as neighboring points in his picture of awareness separating from the body. He did not name Focus 22 in that passage. Going Home passes through Focus 22 A practitioner's 2002 report on working with the Going Home series describes a guided journey that comes back from Focus 27 through Focus 22 to ordinary waking awareness, which the Institute calls C1. In that account Focus 22 is a waypoint on the return, not a destination. It is a practitioner's description of the series, not Institute documentation of what each stage contains.
Bruce Moen: “Within Focus 22 we often find those perhaps still physically alive who are in an unconscious state. These include people in comas, in drug-induced states, who are dreaming, who are insane or deranged. This is a very chaotic level.” (TMI Web Resources 2012 - An Overview of Focus Levels — TMI Web Resources 2012 - An Overview of Focus Levels.pdf, 2012) Robert Monroe: “That's—that's as good a definition as any. What we call Focus 22 is that—is that tunnel.” (Art Bell, Dr. Robert Monroe & Skip Atwater - Out of Body Experience - Black Screen - Interview Only, 2025-07-15) Robert Monroe: “When people were in past Focus 15, it was nothing so much [as] like walking through a morgue, because there was no breathing that you can detect. Absolute immobility. … This is the weird thing, is that they are responding even in that particular deep, deep state, very similar to a coma, for example.” (Robert A. Monroe - Lecture Series — Lecture Series 1 & 2 (Raw footage from VHS) (Transcript).pdf) “In fact, these levels are far less easily identifiable than you may assume, nor is it [an] area of a purely shared reality between inhabitants, and it is possible to meet various aspects of your own consciousness.” (TMI Web Resources 2012 - An Overview of Focus Levels — TMI Web Resources 2012 - An Overview of Focus Levels.pdf, 2012)