In the map used by the Monroe Institute's explorers, Focus 22 is the level where people who are still physically alive but unconscious or in altered conditions are said to be met. Bruce Moen's description, quoted in a 2012 focus-levels overview, lists people in comas, in drug-induced states, who are dreaming, and who are insane or deranged, and calls it a very chaotic level. It sits between Focus 21, the edge of time and space, and Focus 23, where people who have died and become stuck are said to be found. Unlike Focus 10 or Focus 12, it is described mainly by who explorers say they find there, not as a state a listener is trained to enter. Are the people in Focus 22 alive or dead? Alive, in Moen's description, though he hedges with the word perhaps: those perhaps still physically alive who are in an unconscious state. That is exactly what separates Focus 22 from Focus 23. The same overview describes Focus 23's inhabitants as people no longer physically alive who have become stuck, often confused about or unaware of their death and typically isolated from other people. Moen's Focus 22 group is defined by unconsciousness, whether from a coma, drugs or dreaming, rather than by death. The overview adds that the higher levels are far less easily identifiable than people assume. What did Monroe say about Focus 22?
SOURCE CONTEXT
Focus 22: outside ordinary waking awareness
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On Art Bell's radio show, Monroe was asked about near-death experiences and the claim that the bright light is a product of dying synapses. He said that was as good a definition as any, and that what the Institute calls Focus 22 is that tunnel, adding that this is how they commonly identify it. In a separate lecture he compared the deep stillness of people in Focus 15 and beyond to a coma, noting that they were still responding, but he did not name Focus 22 there. The fuller descriptions of the level in the overview are Bruce Moen's rather than Monroe's. How is Focus 22 different from Focus 21 and Focus 23? Focus 21 is, in the overview's wording (credited there to Monroe's 1994 book), the edge of time and space where it is possible to contact other energy systems, and the overview treats it as the ideal platform for reaching the other levels. Focus 22, in Moen's description, is where explorers find living people in unconscious states. Focus 23 is where explorers find people who have died but become stuck, often unaware of their death. The progression runs from an exploration state at 21, to living people outside ordinary waking awareness at 22, to the first level populated by people who have died at 23. Focus 23 has its own page. Can I reach Focus 22 with the Gateway Experience or Lifeline?
Neither is described as targeting it. The overview calls the Gateway Experience a platform from which to explore further on your own, and the Institute's Lifeline page describes the retreat as exploring Focus Levels 23 through 27, the states associated with the afterlife experience, without mentioning 22. A practitioner's 2002 report on the Going Home series describes a guided journey that passes through Focus 22 on the way back to ordinary awareness. Read the current program description before assuming which levels an album or retreat covers, and note the Institute's advice to consult a physician first if you have a history of seizures, auditory disorders or adverse mental health conditions. Does Focus 22 say anything about people in a coma? No. Moen's description lists comas among the conditions of the people explorers say they meet, but it is an account of an explorer's perceptions, not information about any patient. Nothing in the map can tell you whether a particular person is aware, what they experience, or how they will recover. Monroe's own comparison of deep Gateway states to a coma was about how participants looked from outside, not about patients. Questions about a loved one's condition belong with their medical team. References: TMI Web Resources 2012 - An Overview of Focus Levels https://archive.org/details/tmi-web-2012-focus-levels; The Monroe Institute: Lifeline program page https://www.monroeinstitute.org/products/lifeline