Books & records · 13 MIN READ · 8 SOURCE QUOTES
Journeys Out of the Body (1971)
Journeys Out of the Body is Robert Monroe's first book, published by Doubleday in 1971 and brought out in a second edition in 1977. It is a first-person record of what happened to a successful New York broadcasting executive after 1958, when attacks of strong vibration began to seize him at night and he eventually found himself floating free of his sleeping body. Monroe kept careful notes from the start, and the book is built from them: the frightening onset, his rounds of medical and psychological checks, his first deliberate experiments, and the territory he slowly came to map.
The book introduced the vocabulary that the rest of Monroe's work builds on. He describes a "second body" that separates from the physical one, and three "locales": Locale I, the ordinary physical world visited while out of the body; Locale II, a nonphysical realm where thought acts directly and where he met people who had died; and Locale III, an Earth-like world that is not quite Earth. It closes with practical suggestions for readers who want to try for themselves. The psychologist Charles Tart, who had studied Monroe in the laboratory during the 1960s, wrote the introduction.
Monroe published it reluctantly, worried about what his stockholders would think. The book went on to become a classic of out-of-body literature: by 1983 it was in its eleventh American edition and six languages, and it helped popularize the phrase "out-of-body experience." The fan mail, speaking invitations and workshop requests it generated fed directly into the programs that became the Monroe Institute, and it is still the book that sends many readers to Gateway.
Monroe's 1971 record of his first twelve years out of the body: the vibrations, the second body, and Locales I, II and III.
Key points
Written by a reluctant businessman
When the vibrations began, Monroe ran broadcasting companies with outside stockholders. Through the 1960s he kept his research quiet, running it as a private research and development division of his own company. In a later interview he said he was very loath to publish in 1971 and only did so because he believed nobody in his business world would notice. He tested that by accepting invitations to speak on the West Coast, including a talk he remembered giving at UCLA to well over a thousand people. When nobody back home heard about it, he kept speaking.
It begins with the vibrations
The early chapters describe the onset in 1958: surges of vibration that came on as he lay down to sleep, which he could not explain or stop. Fearing a brain tumor or mental illness, he went to his family doctor, who found nothing physically wrong and, after a later episode, ran a fuller set of tests that included an EEG. A psychologist friend told him the only thing to do was look into it. Within weeks of the first attacks came the first clear separation, when he found himself pressed against the ceiling looking down at his own bed.
The second body
Monroe's name for the form in which he seemed to travel is the second body. In the book it is distinct from the physical body yet connected to it, can pass through solid objects, and responds to thought more than to muscle. He deliberately avoided borrowing occult or religious terms for it. A 1978 U.S. Army assessment that summarized the book noted exactly this: Monroe wrote as a careful observer who often reported his own confusion and relied on his experiences rather than a spiritual framework.
Locale I: the here and now
Locale I is the familiar physical world, visited while out of the body. Much of the book's early experimentation happens here: Monroe tried to visit friends at a distance, noted what he saw, and checked the details with them afterward. Some visits seemed to match what the friends were doing; others went astray, as in an episode a caller raised with him on Art Bell's radio show, when he set out for one friend's house and ended up somewhere else. In another episode he believed he had physically affected a friend he identifies only by initials.
Locale II: where thought is action
Locale II is the book's name for the vast nonphysical realm. Monroe describes it as a place where physical assumptions no longer apply, where thought moves you and shapes what you meet, and where your deepest desires and fears are exposed rather than hidden. He reports meeting people there who had died, along with other beings, some helpful and some not. Readers often equate it with the dream world, the astral planes or the afterlife. His later books and the Institute's programs remap much of this ground in terms of Focus levels.
Locale III: a world almost like ours
Locale III is the strangest part of the book. Monroe describes repeated visits to a physical world much like Earth, with people, families, work and homes, but with different history and technology that in some ways lagged behind ours. There he repeatedly found himself inside another man's life. He did not claim to know what the place was and offered several possibilities, from a memory of a lost civilization to a parallel world reachable by the mind.
A practical chapter for readers
The book ends with suggestions for anyone who wants to attempt separation: deep relaxation at the border of sleep, working with the vibrational state, and gently easing or rotating out of the physical body. Monroe stresses returning deliberately and reorienting fully afterward. These pages predate Hemi-Sync and the Gateway Experience, and they were written for spontaneous and self-taught explorers, not as a course.
Charles Tart and the laboratory record
The psychologist Charles Tart, who later called Monroe a dear friend, studied him in laboratory sessions in the 1960s and wrote the book's introduction. In a later research paper Tart called him an archetypally "normal" businessman, pulled into the subject against his will by the vibrations of the late 1950s. Tart's endorsement gave the book a credibility most out-of-body accounts of the time lacked.
From book to Institute
The book's success changed Monroe's life. Nancy "Scooter" McMoneagle, who became his stepdaughter when he married her mother in February 1971, recalls that after she finished school she began answering his fan mail for the book, and that because it had become so popular, Monroe was invited to the Esalen Institute in California in 1973, where he and engineer Bill Yost gave the first program.
Read by the Army
Military interest followed the book. Army intelligence officers interviewed Monroe on April 6, 1978, for the Gondola Wish program, and their August 1978 assessment report opens its account of that interview with a summary of Journeys Out of the Body, noting its second edition of 1977. Wayne M. McDonnell's 1983 "Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process" lists the book in its bibliography.
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.
“So, in the '60s, I was very loath to even be public about it, because, because here I was, I was operating two different companies with stockholders in them who I thought would take a very dim view. So it was very covert, this whole lab operation.”
“So, when in 1971 the book was published, I was very loath to do so, and I would not have done so except for the fact that no one, I thought, in my business world knew anything about this, and I took the courage to test it. I got a, a number of invitations to speak on the West Coast and I finally agreed to do this, thinking, "Oh, well, I'll take a chance." And so I appeared at, I think it was UCLA, in front of some [1,200 to 1,400] people and gave a talk.”
“Remember that I started baseline zero in anything that had to do with extraordinary consciousness.”
“Journeys Out of the Body, his first book, was really intended as a diary of his experiences rather than a publishable manuscript, and it was lent to a friend of his who, unknown to Bob Monroe, turned it into a publisher. Bob first heard it was going to be published when the publisher called him and asked if he'd like to see the galley proofs.”
“And then in 1971, he became my stepfather. He had been helping my mother write a book … and sorry to say the book didn't take off, but they did. Okay, they ended up getting married, it was February sixth, 1971. And that was the same year that he published Journeys Out of the Body.”
“Robert Monroe, author of Journeys Out of the Body, a book that has become a classic in the realm of out-of-body explorations. It has been translated into six languages and is now in its 11th American edition.”
“Bob Monroe, who in 1971 wrote Journeys Out of the Body, where he coined the term out-of-body experience, and in that book he described the non-physical universe.”
“I must confess that after I read Monroe's first book, Journeys Out of the Body, I spent a number of years trying to learn how to consciously do this [out-of-body] thing.”
Important things to consider
It is a personal record, not proof
Everything in the book is Monroe's own report of his own experiences, written from notes. Some of his Locale I visits were checked informally with friends, and Charles Tart's laboratory work gave the account some scientific attention, but the book does not establish that consciousness leaves the body. Read it as an unusually careful and candid first-person account, which is how Monroe presented it.
The vocabulary changed later
Locales I, II and III belong to this first book. In Far Journeys and Ultimate Journey, and in the Institute's programs, Monroe largely moved to Focus levels, rings of belief systems and other terms. If you read the books in order, expect the map to be redrawn rather than simply extended.
Popularized, if not strictly coined
Speakers often say Monroe coined the term "out-of-body experience" in this book. He is widely credited with bringing the phrase and its abbreviation into common use, but researchers also used related terms in the same period. The safer claim is that the book made the phrase familiar to a general audience.
This is not a Gateway manual
The book was written before Hemi-Sync and long before the Gateway Experience. Its techniques are Monroe's self-taught methods, not the tapes' exercises. The 1978 Army report on his training program noted that it was not designed to produce out-of-body experiences. You can use the Gateway tapes without reading the book, and the book without the tapes.
Much of it is about fear
Monroe spends a great deal of the book being frightened: of dying, of brain disease, of insanity, of things he met while out of the body. That candor is part of why readers trust it, and why people with spontaneous vibrations find it reassuring. It is also a reminder that Monroe himself had medical checks first. If you have unexplained physical symptoms, a doctor comes before a book.
Some of it is unsettling
Alongside wonder, the book reports hostile beings, disturbing scenes in Locale II and episodes Monroe could not explain. Readers drawn by the promise of easy astral travel are sometimes surprised. Monroe's own advice throughout is to go slowly and to treat fear as the main obstacle.
Online book reports read the text aloud
Several YouTube series read Journeys Out of the Body aloud with commentary. They can be a good introduction, but they mix Monroe's text with the presenter's own interpretations, such as links to 5D consciousness or astral projection systems that are not in the book. Go back to the book itself for what Monroe actually wrote.
Common questions
What is Journeys Out of the Body about?
It is Robert Monroe's first book, published in 1971, and it records what happened to him after 1958, when strong vibrations began to come over him at night and he found he could separate from his physical body. Writing from careful notes, he describes the frightening onset, the doctors and psychologists he consulted, his first experiments, and the places he seemed to visit. He calls the traveling form the second body and sorts his experiences into three locales: the physical world, a vast nonphysical realm shaped by thought, and an Earth-like world that is not Earth. The book ends with practical suggestions for readers who want to try.
Why did Bob Monroe write Journeys Out of the Body?
Monroe had kept detailed notes on his experiences for about twelve years, but he was nervous about going public. He ran broadcasting companies with stockholders and kept his research quiet through the 1960s. He later said he was very loath to publish and only did so because he thought nobody in his business world would notice; he tested it by speaking at UCLA and elsewhere. One 1987 radio host told the story that the manuscript began as a private diary that a friend passed to a publisher without Monroe knowing. Either way, the book appeared from Doubleday in 1971.
How does Journeys Out of the Body describe Locale I, II and III?
They are the three regions Monroe describes in Journeys Out of the Body. Locale I is the ordinary physical world, visited while out of the body; he tried to visit friends there and check what he saw. Locale II is a vast nonphysical realm where thought moves you and shapes your surroundings, where desires and fears are exposed, and where he met people who had died. Locale III is an Earth-like physical world with different history and technology, where he repeatedly found himself living part of another man's life. In his later books and the Institute's programs, Monroe largely replaced the locales with Focus levels.
Is Journeys Out of the Body a true story?
It is a true account in the sense that Monroe sincerely reports his own experiences as he understood them, and he was a notably cautious reporter. An interviewer in 1985 pointed out how critical he was of his own experiences, and Monroe replied that he had started from baseline zero. A 1978 Army summary of the book made the same point. Whether consciousness actually left his body is a separate question the book cannot settle. Charles Tart studied Monroe in the laboratory, but those studies were small. Read it as a first-person record, not as proof.
Should I read Journeys Out of the Body before doing the Gateway tapes?
You do not need to. The Gateway Experience teaches its own sequence of states, starting with Focus 10, and does not assume you have read anything. The book is still useful background: it shows where Monroe's interest came from, why the Institute speaks of being more than the physical body, and what spontaneous out-of-body experiences were like for him. Many people who later took the Gateway Voyage or other programs first came to Monroe through this book. Just do not expect the tapes to reproduce his experiences; the book's techniques predate Hemi-Sync.
Which Monroe book should I read first?
Start with Journeys Out of the Body. It is the most concrete of the three and introduces the basic ideas, such as the vibrations, the second body and the locales, that the later books build on. Far Journeys (1985) moves into nonverbal communication, the Focus levels, loosh and the time-space illusion, and assumes you know Monroe's early story. Ultimate Journey (1994) develops the I-There and the retrieval work behind Lifeline and Exploration 27. Reading them in order lets you watch Monroe's map of consciousness change over a quarter of a century.
Does Journeys Out of the Body teach you how to have an out-of-body experience?
Partly. The final chapters offer Monroe's own suggestions: relax deeply at the edge of sleep, work with the vibrational state when it comes, ease or roll out of the physical body, and return deliberately and reorient afterward. They were written for self-taught explorers before Hemi-Sync existed. Many readers, including the afterlife author Bruce Moen, spent years trying these methods with mixed results. Monroe's later work with sound and the Gateway programs grew partly from wanting a more reliable, teachable route than the one he describes here.
In Monroe’s books
Summarized in our own words; the books are not reproduced on this site.
Journeys Out of the Body. Monroe describes consulting a physician friend, who found no physical cause after tests, and a psychologist friend, who encouraged him to explore the experience rather than run from it.
Journeys Out of the Body. In the practical chapter, Monroe suggests easing or rotating out of the physical body once the vibrations come, and reversing the motion to return, then sitting up to reorient fully.
Journeys Out of the Body. Monroe offers several possible explanations for Locale III without choosing among them, ranging from a memory of an ancient civilization to another Earth-like world reachable through the mind.
Keep exploring
Prepared answers open instantly in the chat; anything else you ask gets a fresh answer.
Connected ideas
People & places
Robert Monroe
Radio executive turned out-of-body explorer: Bob Monroe's 1958 experiences led to Hemi-Sync, the Monroe Institute and the Gateway program.
Read the summary →12 min · 8 quotes · 6 answersBig ideas
Locale I, II and III
Monroe's first map of where he went out of body: the physical Here-Now, a vast nonphysical realm shaped by thought, and a different Earth-like world.
Read the summary →12 min · 7 quotes · 7 answersBig ideas
The vibrations
The vibrations are the whole-body buzzing Monroe felt before his first OBE in 1958; he stopped fearing them, and Gateway listeners report similar sensations.
Read the summary →11 min · 7 quotes · 6 answersBig ideas
The second body
Monroe's name for the lighter, shape-changing form he occupied out of body: what he reported about it, and how phasing later reframed it.
Read the summary →12 min · 7 quotes · 7 answersBooks & records
Far Journeys (1985)
Monroe's 1985 second book moves from his own OBEs to the lab's Explorers, nonverbal communication, INSPECs, loosh and the Gathering.
Read the summary →12 min · 7 quotes · 6 answersPeople & places
Charles Tart
The psychologist who put Monroe in an EEG lab in the 1960s, found a dreamlike drowsy state but no conclusive proof, and stayed his friend for life.
Read the summary →12 min · 8 quotes · 7 answers