In the mid-1970s the Institute was invited to Esalen in Big Sur to run a weekend workshop built on its sound research. The format ran around the clock in sleep-cycle blocks, which left the trainers exhausted and brought a flood of requests for repeats. Monroe called the series the M-5000, after a hoped-for 5,000 participants, then renamed it Gateway once that number looked out of reach and a different purpose emerged: a gateway for an individual to reach other parts of himself. Institute accounts date the first weekend to 1973, 1974 or 1975. Sound was the way to the sleep borderland Monroe said the Institute turned to sound because it wanted a drug-free way to bring people to the borderland just before sleep and study it. The lab found that certain sound patterns made the brain follow them, a frequency-following response. Hemi-Sync refined the idea by feeding a different tone to each ear so that the brain builds the difference tone itself, which is why stereo headphones are required. In a 1987 article Monroe noted that a generic patent covering the frequency-following method had been granted in 1975. The same preparation opens most sessions
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Gateway
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The Energy Conversion Box is an imagined strong container where everyday worries are set aside for the session. The Gateway Affirmation states that you are more than your physical body and want to expand, experience and understand. Resonant Tuning pairs a breathing pattern with humming. Progressive relaxation follows, then the Resonant Energy Balloon, an image of an energy field around the body. Skip Atwater, the Institute's longtime research director, lists relaxation, breathing, a stated intent and turning on internal perception among the ingredients of a good exercise. Focus levels are places, tools are what you do there Focus 3 is the coherent, synchronized state introduced in the first exercise. Focus 10 is the working base. Focus 12 is expanded awareness, where most of the tools are used. Focus 15 is the state of no time. Focus 21 is the bridge to other energy systems, and the home series continues to Focus 23, 25 and 27. Monroe chose numbers so the labels would carry no religious or emotional baggage. The tools are separate: problem solving, patterning, color breathing, the Energy Bar Tool, the Living Body Map and more. Eight Waves, to be used in order
Monroe's voice guides Discovery (Focus 3 and 10), Threshold (Focus 12 and the first tools), Freedom and Adventure. A.J. Honeycutt, Monroe's stepson, voices Exploring (Focus 15), Odyssey (Focus 21), Voyager (Focus 23 to 27, based on the Lifeline program) and Union (Focus 27, based on Exploration 27). Each album has a guidance manual and six exercises, eight in Union. The publisher says each album builds on the one before and the set must be used in sequence. Out-of-body experience is one thread, not the point The 1983 Army assessment says the program was not set up solely to produce out-of-body experiences, offers no guarantee, and devotes only one tape of many to the technique. Monroe told participants the same and put the rate near 15 percent of attendees during the program. Taylor recalls trainers telling him that Bob Monroe's experience was Monroe's and that he would have his own. What the program trains first is simpler: staying aware while the body rests. What participants report