Gateway practices · 11 MIN READ · 6 SOURCE QUOTES
Color breathing
Color Breathing is the fourth of the six exercises on Threshold, the second Gateway Experience album, and it is done in Focus 12, the state of expanded awareness. You imagine colors in an intense, vivid way, paired with your breathing, and use them to work with the body's own energies. Bob Monroe's voice guides the session while the Hemi-Sync tones play. The publisher describes its purpose as linking mind and body to energize and support healing.
The 1983 Army assessment of the Gateway Process, written by Lt. Col. Wayne McDonnell, calls color breathing a healing technique meant to restore the body and enhance its physical capabilities by balancing, revitalizing and retuning bodily energy flows. Its explanation is that the body's electromagnetic field can change its resonance pattern and entrain energy from the earth's electrostatic field, with each imagined color telling the mind which frequencies and amplitudes are wanted. The report then stresses that Hemi-Sync uses no external light: the mind is the sole agent.
Trainers and participants fill in the practical picture. Hemi-Sync facilitators included color breathing in a weekend workshop for people living with HIV/AIDS, described at a 1993 professional seminar, and said participants get less from it without a grounding in Focus 12. Some participants say they use it for healing; others suspect the color-to-organ matches matter less than the intention behind them. The evidence available is the report's description, facilitators' accounts and personal testimony, not controlled studies.
A Focus 12 exercise from the Threshold album: vividly imagined color paired with breath, which the 1983 Army report calls a healing technique.
Key points
The fourth exercise on Threshold
Color Breathing follows Introduction to Focus 12, Problem Solving and One Month Patterning, and comes before the Energy Bar Tool and the Living Body Map. The publisher says the albums must be used in order because each builds on the tools of the one before, so the exercise assumes you can already reach Focus 12 and know the Gateway preparation. Its one-line purpose, in the publisher's words, is to link mind and body to energize and support healing. Free Flow 12 is on the later Adventure album, not on Threshold.
A Focus 12 skill: intense, vivid imagination
The Army assessment ties color breathing to "the expanded awareness and highly focused attentiveness" of the Focus 12 state and says the task is to imagine colors "in a particularly intense and vivid manner," using them to resonate with, and in turn activate, the body's own energies. Everything happens in the imagination, so the skill being trained is steady, vivid imagery held in expanded awareness.
The colors are cues, not a chart
In the report's account, each imagined color cues the mind as to which frequencies and what specific amplitudes are wanted, so color works as an instruction. The passage does not say which colors to use, in what order or for how long, and it gives no table pairing colors with effects. The practice itself is taught in the recorded exercise, and the album also comes with a Guidance Manual. Participants describe choosing different colors for different intentions or areas of the body.
What the 1983 Army report claims
Under the heading Color Breathing, the assessment calls the exercise "a healing technique" designed to restore the body and enhance its physical capabilities by balancing, revitalizing and retuning bodily energy flows. It says the technique rests on the principle that the body's electromagnetic field can alter its resonance pattern to entrain energy from the earth's electrostatic field. It offers an analogy from light, intense blue applied to a swelling, then states that in Hemi-Sync no external light is involved and the mind is the sole agent.
A companion to the Energy Bar Tool and Living Body Map
The report lists color breathing as technique C, followed by the Energy Bar Tool (D), remote viewing (E) and the Living Body Map (F). In its Living Body Map section the participant pictures the body's outline, fills the nervous and circulatory systems with appropriate colors and applies the Energy Bar Tool, with streams of colored energy flowing out of the tool into the area being worked on. Podcaster Jordan Crowder says he imagines the bar's energy in different colors using color breathing.
Trainers use it in group workshops
The Winter 1994 Hemi-Sync Journal describes a two-day weekend workshop for people living with HIV/AIDS that took participants through Introduction to Focus 12, the Energy Bar Tool, Color Breathing, the Living Body Map and Free Flow 12. At a 1993 professional seminar the presenters, Barbara Bullard and Kat Carroll, said they added Introduction to Focus 12 to the original format because participants got less from color breathing and the Living Body Map without it.
Participants range from literal to symbolic
Podcaster Jordan Crowder says he uses color breathing for healing his body and singles out the next exercise, the Energy Bar Tool, as the fun part. YouTube creator Aaron Doughty, who says he got a lot of value from the Gateway techniques, wonders whether it is "inherently true that red does this to this organ" or whether the intention and belief behind the practice do the work, and calls such techniques "permission slips."
In their own words
Quotes are checked word for word against the recordings and documents they come from. Bracketed words correct transcription errors; “…” marks an omission.
“[It is] designed to use the expanded awareness and highly focused attentiveness associated with the Focus 12 state to imagine various colors in a particularly intense and vivid manner so as to use them to resonate with and in turn to activate the body's own energies. Fundamentally, in terms of practical application it is a healing technique which is designed to restore the body and to enhance its physical capabilities by balancing, revitalizing and retuning bodily energy flows.”
“That color has the capacity to affect the human mind is well known, and the [effectuality] of color in certain kinds of healing is a demonstrable fact. For example, application of an intense blue light to an area of physical tumescence leads to relatively rapid and easily observable reduction in the swelling, while red, and to a lesser extent yellow, have quite the opposite effect. However, in the Hemi-Sync application of the technique, external light sources are not involved but, rather, the mind is the sole agent of the healing and revitalization.”
“I think that they do not get as much out of Living Body Map and color breathing if they don't get into Focus 12. And one, it is a beautiful experience with these people to have them go, "Oh my gosh, there is more than my physical body."”
“As the group moves into the Focus 12 tapes, emotional and mental shifts begin. These shifts become integrated when, at the end of the first day, the Living Body Map is used as a tool to [unify] the physical, emotional and mental states.”
“Color breathing. See, I use this too for healing my body. Especially the next one, Energy Bar Tool. That's the fun stuff.”
“A lot of this too, honestly, I believe can be very powerful permission slips. Whether it is, like, inherently true that red does this to this organ, what if it's more so the intention and the belief behind it that then allows you to having the intention to heal your body, to bring energy there?”
Important things to consider
Build Focus 12 first
Color breathing assumes you can reach Focus 12 on cue. The publisher says the albums must be used in order, and the 1993 workshop presenters added Introduction to Focus 12 because participants got less from the color and body exercises without it. If Focus 12 still feels vague, repeat the earlier Threshold exercises first.
The recording supplies the script
The Army passage states a purpose and a theory, not the steps. It does not say which colors to use, in what order or for how long. Those details are not in the report. The practice is taught in the recorded exercise on the Threshold album, voiced by Bob Monroe, and this page does not reproduce it. Follow the exercise as recorded rather than building a routine from the report.
Vividness is a skill
The report asks for colors imagined intensely and vividly. Mental imagery differs from person to person: some people see color, others sense or feel it. Treat vividness as something that builds over repeated sessions, and record what actually happens rather than what you expect to happen.
Keep to the exercise as recorded
Charts that tie colors to organs, moods or energy centers differ from one tradition to another, and a borrowed chart adds meanings the report does not supply. Staying with the exercise as recorded keeps your experience comparable from session to session.
What the report does and does not show
The assessment is a description with an explanation attached. In the color-breathing passage it states a principle about electromagnetic fields and resonance and gives a blue-light example, but it cites no study, measurement or trial of the exercise. The field-and-resonance account is the report's theory and the swelling example its analogy, not findings from Gateway participants.
A practice, not a treatment
Color breathing is presented here as a practice and as participants' reports. The Army report and the publisher use the language of healing, and some participants use it that way, but nothing in these sources shows that it treats any condition. Do not use it in place of medical care, and do not change or stop treatment because of it. The publisher advises consulting a medical professional before starting the Gateway Experience if you have a medical condition, a tendency toward seizures, an auditory disorder or an adverse mental condition, or take medication that affects your ability to relax.
Write down colors and responses
Keep a notebook: which colors you used, what you imagined and what you noticed in body and mood. Accounts from facilitators and participants differ widely, and your own record across several sessions says more than any single session can.
Common questions
What is color breathing in the Gateway Experience?
Color Breathing is the fourth exercise on Threshold, the second Gateway Experience album. In Focus 12, the state of expanded awareness, you imagine colors intensely and vividly, paired with your breathing, to work with the body's own energies. The publisher describes it as a way to link mind and body to energize and support healing, and the 1983 Army assessment calls it a healing technique designed to restore the body and enhance its physical capabilities. It follows Introduction to Focus 12, Problem Solving and One Month Patterning, and it is done with Bob Monroe's recorded guidance and Hemi-Sync tones after the Gateway preparation.
How do I do color breathing?
Work through Threshold in order so that Focus 12 is familiar. Then play the Color Breathing recording on stereo headphones in a quiet room, after the usual Gateway preparation, and follow Bob Monroe's guidance into Focus 12. There you imagine colors in a particularly intense and vivid way, pairing them with your breathing, as the exercise's name indicates; in the Army report's terms, the colors cue the mind as to which frequencies and amplitudes are wanted. The report gives no color sequence, so follow the recorded guidance rather than a chart. The recording then returns you to ordinary waking awareness. Take a moment before getting up and write down what you noticed.
What does the 1983 Army report say about color breathing?
The assessment, written by Lt. Col. Wayne McDonnell, calls color breathing a healing technique that uses the expanded awareness and highly focused attentiveness of Focus 12 to imagine colors intensely and vividly. It says the technique restores the body and enhances its physical capabilities by balancing, revitalizing and retuning bodily energy flows, and that it rests on the principle that the body's electromagnetic field can alter its resonance pattern to entrain energy from the earth's electrostatic field. The report cites blue light's effect on a swelling as an analogy, then states that Hemi-Sync involves no external light and that the mind is the sole agent.
Which colors should I use, and what does each one do?
The Army report does not assign effects to particular colors. It says only that the imagined colors cue the mind as to which frequencies and amplitudes are wanted. The practice is taught in the recorded exercise on the Threshold album, so start there. Participants describe using different colors for different intentions or areas of the body, but those associations are personal or borrowed from other systems. YouTube creator Aaron Doughty asks whether it is inherently true that red does something to a given organ or whether the intention and belief behind the practice make the difference. Stay with one approach and compare your own sessions.
Is color breathing the same as color therapy or looking at colored light?
No. The Army report separates the two explicitly. It mentions the effect of intense blue light on a swelling and the opposite effect of red and, to a lesser extent, yellow, then states that in the Hemi-Sync application external light sources are not involved and the mind is the sole agent. Color breathing uses no lamps, filters or screens; the colors are imagined in Focus 12, so what is said about physical colored light does not describe this exercise.
Does color breathing really heal the body?
The sources do not establish that it does. The Army report calls it a healing technique and the publisher says it supports healing, but the report's passage cites no study of the exercise, and the rest of the evidence here is personal and facilitator accounts. Podcaster Jordan Crowder says he uses it for healing his body, and the written description of a Hemi-Sync workshop for people living with HIV/AIDS reports emotional and mental shifts as participants moved into the Focus 12 tapes. Those are reports of a practice, not evidence of treatment. Color breathing does not replace medical care, and nothing about it should change how you take or stop any treatment.
Do I need to be in Focus 12 to do color breathing?
Yes. The Army report ties the technique to the expanded awareness and highly focused attentiveness of Focus 12, and the Threshold album opens with Introduction to Focus 12 for that reason. The publisher says the albums must be used in sequence because each builds on the previous one's tools. Facilitators of a 1993 workshop made the same point: participants, they said, do not get as much out of color breathing and the Living Body Map if they do not get into Focus 12. If Focus 12 is not yet reliable, repeat Introduction to Focus 12 first.
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