When an Explorer met a nonphysical being, the monitor became the questioner. Monroe's own example is a monitor saying, ask him about gravity, then passing the answer back. On the first tape the prompts include asking what the beings' relationship to the Explorer is, what they can do to help the Explorer improve, whether they have a message and what name could be used to reach them again. Monroe likened Explorer and monitor to two brains working together. Questions get reworded In a 1984 session a monitor asked how life entered the physical universe. The communicator replied that the question contradicted the reality of creation, because life is creation rather than something that enters it. The monitor agreed the wording was an error and restated the question. The communicator later explained that on such basic ideas questions have to be redirected for the answer to make sense. Both sides were adjusting, which is why exact wording matters when reading a transcript. Safety and comfort
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The monitor's role in an Explorer session
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The monitor watched the gauges as well as the conversation. Monroe describes sitting in the control room when an Explorer tried a new technique: within seconds every life-support reading dropped to nothing, and after about two and a half minutes he was on his way into the booth to try to resuscitate the body when the readings returned. Other sessions show smaller interventions: monitors add a grounding signal to help an Explorer return, and in one session the monitor told an Explorer who asked for someone to come in that staff would be right there. Bringing the Explorer back The return was as scripted as the descent. One monitor's closing instructions ask the Explorer to come back to the region of Focus 10 and take as much time as needed, then to return to ordinary waking consciousness feeling alert and full of energy, count down from 10 to one and accept a short beta signal to help. Later monitors ask whether the Explorer feels centered, offer a grounding signal and ask where the Explorer prefers the debrief. Restraint and presence
A monitor's judgment included knowing when not to speak. After one session, a monitor explained that the Explorer was in a good flow and they had not wanted to interrupt it, even though other questions could have been asked. A communicator speaking through an Explorer gave monitors related advice: keep encouraging a new Explorer who feels nothing, treat silence as something to explore and suggest small movements of the arms, hands and toes. In another session a monitor said the resistance of new Explorers is projected onto the monitor. Who held the role On the original series the monitor is Monroe, and he describes the role in the first person. Rita Warren, who coordinated the Explorer work, and Martin Warren, who says he monitored many sessions, introduce later tapes and appear on them. Other staff ran the equipment and went into the booth to help Explorers out. Monroe said that attempts to monitor sessions at the Institute's center without full instrumentation were like flying an airplane blind. Robert Monroe: “She is wearing a modified set of headphones to give broad-frequency sound in each ear. Thus she can hear us and we can hear her. I or another monitor is sitting in a control room nearby, and we feed different types of audio hemispheric synchronization signals directly to the subject.” (Responsibility to Self #11)