Todd Masluk, then a doctoral candidate, followed 160 volunteers from eleven Voyage groups and published preliminary results in the Institute's Hemi-Sync Journal in 1996. Nineteen did not return his questionnaire; of the other 141, 121 reported peak or other powerful experiences, 291 in all, and 72 percent of the most significant ones happened while listening to the tapes. The largest category was transpersonal: experiences beyond time and space, peak states and inner guidance. Reported aftereffects included greater self-acceptance, living more in the present and less fear of death. Robert Monroe: “How do you define something that is so intangible that even the results of it may not show up for weeks and perhaps months? [Gateway] in and of itself is properly defined as, say, a means of freedom, a new [kind] of freedom that perhaps you've never before experienced in your life, a chance at this new kind of freedom. Also, it's an exploration, say, of consciousness, and most particularly, your consciousness.” (Robert A. Monroe - Welcome to Gateway Voyage — Welcome to Gateway Voyage (Transcript).pdf)
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Gateway Voyage
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Robert Monroe: “Gateway does not guarantee that you will have an out of body experience. Now, of course, I know you, a lot of you perhaps can say, 'Oh, I will have an out of body experience, per se.' Percentage wise, I would say that … 15% of the people who attend a Gateway session have an [out of body] experience during the session.” (Robert A. Monroe - Welcome to Gateway Voyage — Welcome to Gateway Voyage (Transcript).pdf) “Now the room is where we have our check units. Check units are CHEC, which stands for Controlled Holistic Environmental Chamber. Robert Monroe loved acronyms. And the check units have a black-out curtain that are used for two reasons. One is for privacy and the other is to allow you to be in total darkness while you listen to [Hemi-Sync].” (The Monroe Experience - The Monroe Institute and Gateway Voyage (Martin Taylor)) Joseph Felser: “After the introductions, the trainers ceremoniously collected our wristwatches in a strongbox that resembled a treasure chest. From now on, bells would be rung to indicate times for assembling in the white-carpeted room where we would be debriefing tapes or other activities, such as meals or morning exercise. We were to enter into the right-brain zone of No Time as far as possible. Linear, left-brain anxieties were to be minimized as much as possible.” (Magazine Article 2000 (EHE News) My Gateway Experience - Joseph M. Felser — Magazine Article 2000 (EHE News) My Gateway Experience - Joseph M. Felser.pdf, 2000)
Joseph Felser: “As is customary, the trainers provide some inspirational music in our CHEC unit speakers while we voyagers are attending to emptying our bladders and putting on our ready lights to indicate all systems go. The music, I realize, is the old spiritual, Going Home, which has numerous associations for me. The music itself and the thought of “home” trigger an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, loss, and sadness. Tears flow down my cheeks. I cannot stop sobbing.” (Magazine Article 2000 (EHE News) My Gateway Experience - Joseph M. Felser — Magazine Article 2000 (EHE News) My Gateway Experience - Joseph M. Felser.pdf, 2000) Skip Atwater: “In our four programs that we do here, the later days [in] the programs are about weaning you off of tapes. And we have this famous thing called the non tape exercise, where you go out to your check unit and you put your earphones on and we don't give you a tape to listen to. So that there's this idea that I am not dependent. My exercise isn't on the tape, it's in me. I've just learned with the tape how to get to this place.” (1993 Professional Seminar: F. Holmes ' Skip' Atwater — 1993 Professional Seminar- F. Holmes 'Skip' Atwater (Transcript).pdf, 1993)