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The CIA Gateway document
The document people call the CIA Gateway report is titled Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process. It is a 28-page paper with a two-page cover memo, dated 9 June 1983, written by Lt. Col. Wayne M. McDonnell, a Military Intelligence officer, for the commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group at Fort Meade, Maryland. The CIA name comes from the archive: its pages carry the release stamp "Approved For Release 2003/09/10," but the author and the tasking were Army.
McDonnell was asked to judge the Institute's Gateway program by its mechanics and practicality. He had taken the training himself, and he concluded that he could not say whether it worked without explaining why it should. The result is an argument in stages. Hemi-Sync, he says, brings the two brain hemispheres into step. The relaxed body then settles into a resonance that drives the brain. The universe and the mind are both holograms, drawing on Itzhak Bentov's example and the theories of Karl Pribram and David Bohm. Consciousness can move beyond time-space toward the Absolute, energy at perfect rest, with Bentov's cosmic egg supplying the geometry.
McDonnell wrote it as an internal guide and calls it "certainly not designed to be the last word on the subject." It is best read as a historical assessment: one officer's attempt to turn what he learned at the Monroe Institute into a physics-based argument. By the 2020s, YouTube and podcast hosts were reading it aloud, line by line, as a declassified explanation of reality, and it had reached a far wider audience than the Army readers it was written for.
A 1983 Army assessment of Gateway, later released by the CIA, that links Hemi-Sync to resonance, holograms, the Absolute and patterning.
Key points
An Army tasking that became a theory
The memo opens with the assignment: assess the Institute's Gateway program "in terms of its mechanics and ultimate practicality." McDonnell found that judging practicality meant explaining how and why the process works. His stated aim was to put out-of-body states into the language of physical science, and he hoped the result would guide other Army intelligence personnel who were required to take the Gateway training.
Step one: two hemispheres, one signal
McDonnell starts by comparing hypnosis, transcendental meditation and biofeedback, then shows where Gateway differs. In his scheme the left hemisphere is the verbal, linear, screening mind and the right is the holistic, pattern-oriented one. Hemi-Sync, which he defines through Institute trainer Melissa Jager as both hemispheres showing equal amplitude and frequency, presents a different tone to each ear so the brain hears the difference as a beat.
Step two: the body as a resonator
Following Bentov, the report says deep relaxation changes how the heartbeat echoes through the body. As the heart's "bifurcation echo" fades, a steady wave of about 7 cycles per second rises into the head, and the report says it stimulates the brain to higher amplitude and frequency. McDonnell then describes the Gateway preparation, from the energy conversion box and a sustained hum he calls resonate tuning to the affirmation and the energy balloon, and says the hum and the balloon encourage a resonant state.
Step three: mind and universe as holograms
Using Bentov's frozen-ripple example, the report explains a hologram as a stored interference pattern in which every fragment can regenerate the whole image. It states that the universe is one gigantic hologram and, citing the theories of Karl Pribram and David Bohm, that the human mind is another, tuned to it by energy exchange.
Step four: time-space has an outside
Here the tone shifts. McDonnell notes that the discussion had been "relatively simple and easy to follow" and announces that the fun begins. He proposes that at each point of rest in an oscillation, energy briefly "clicks out" of time-space and joins infinity. If consciousness vibrates fast enough, those clickouts blur into continuity and part of it can work in the dimensions between time-space and the Absolute, which he defines as energy at perfect rest. He reads Gateway as a system designed to establish coherent perception there.
Step five: the cosmic egg and the torus
The cosmic egg comes from Bentov's book Stalking the Wild Pendulum. Reading the distribution of galaxies, Bentov pictures matter streaming from a compressed nucleus through a white hole, turning back on itself into an egg shape and leaving through a black hole, with time as the measure of change along the way. The stream generates an interference pattern, the universal hologram or torus, in which past, present and future coexist.
Step six: patterning and the exercises
The practical section lists Focus 12 tools. Problem solving seeks answers that may arrive as images. Patterning holds a desired outcome in expanded awareness as already achieved and projects it into the universe. The energy bar tool and the Living Body Map use imagery the report describes as aimed at healing. Focus 15 is presented as travel into the past and Focus 21 as the future, and a separate paragraph covers out-of-body movement.
It ends with a research proposal, not a result
The closing pages ask how to shorten the path to advanced states if Gateway were exploited organization-wide: Hemi-Sync tapes first, then REM-sleep frequencies, hypnotic suggestion and repeated attempts at out-of-body movement. A lettered list of steps includes a multi-focus design in which three people go out of body together, one viewing a target in time-space, one at Focus 15 and one at Focus 21, with their data compared. McDonnell finishes by hoping the experiments will lead to "a gateway to Gateway."
Why it went viral decades later
Three things carried the paper. It bears an official stamp, so hosts present it as a declassified answer about consciousness. It says in plain numbered paragraphs that consciousness can leave the body and operate outside time, and it describes exercises people can try with the tapes. And its holographic language fit the Matrix and simulation talk already popular online: a 2023 video compares a Gateway user to Neo, and a 2026 video by Jordan Crowder says the report shows reality has a backend.
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.
“You tasked me to provide an assessment of the Gateway Experience in terms of its mechanics and ultimate practicality. As I set out to fulfill that tasking, it soon became clear that in order to assess the validity and practicality of the process, I needed to do enough supporting research and analysis to fully understand how and why the process works.”
“Finally I again found it necessary to use physics to bring the whole phenomenon of out-of-body states into the language of physical science, to remove the stigma of its [occult] connotations, and put it in a frame of reference suited to objective assessment.”
“General Stubblebine instructed each of us at the school to write a report on the uses of the [Hemi-Sync] process, and its uses at our work site.”
“The human mind in its natural state may be likened to an ordinary lamp which expends energy in the form of both heat and light, but in a chaotic, incoherent way which diffuses its energy over a wide area of rather limited depth. On the other hand, the human mind under the discipline of Hemi-Sync acts after the fashion of a laser beam, which produces a disciplined stream of light.”
“Up to this point our discussion of the Gateway process has been relatively simple and easy to follow. Now the fun begins. Gateway involves more than just perception of those aspects of the universal hologram which can be accessed in the dimension of time-space as we [know] it. To explain how and why human consciousness can be brought to transcend the limitations of time-space is the next task which must be addressed.”
“Once the thought-generated hologram of the sought after objective is established in the universe, it becomes an aspect of reality which interacts with the universal hologram to bring about the desired objective, which might not, under other circumstances, ever occur. In other words, the technique of patterning recognizes the fact that since consciousness is the source of all reality, our thoughts have the power to influence the development of reality in time-space as it applies to us if those thoughts can be projected with adequate intensity.”
“Monroe Institute stresses that the Gateway program was not established solely for the purpose of enabling participants to obtain the out-of-body state, nor does the program guarantee that most participants will succeed in doing it during the course of the training at the Institute.”
“Strangest military report I've ever read. I'm surprised it's not still classified. According to the report, we can use the Gateway process to access other dimensions. Now, if you think that sounds paranormal or like New Age mumbo-jumbo, you're not alone. Even Colonel McDonnell was aware that this was the impression his report would give, so he starts off by grounding his research in science.”
Important things to consider
Army paper, CIA stamp
The CIA label describes the archive, not the authorship. McDonnell wrote for an Army commander inside the Army Intelligence and Security Command. The release stamp shows that the paper was cleared for public release in 2003. It does not show that any agency tested or endorsed the physics inside.
Separate the engineering from the cosmology
The hemisphere and resonance sections describe Hemi-Sync, headphones and the relaxation routine in terms a listener can compare with the tapes. The holographic, time-space and Absolute sections are a much larger claim that rests on Bentov's 1977 book and Marilyn Ferguson's 1978 article on Pribram. McDonnell reports no experiments of his own and proposes some at the end. Accepting the first layer does not require the second.
Some videos overstate its pedigree
Some videos present the paper as the product of decades of military research. The document itself cites a short bibliography of books and magazine articles, and it ends by recommending experiments. The Army did pursue Hemi-Sync training in 1983, as other declassified papers show, but this document is one officer's analysis.
The labels differ from the Institute's today
The report calls Focus 15 travel into the past and Focus 21 the future. A 2012 overview compiled from Monroe Institute literature labels Focus 15 No Time and Focus 21 Other Energy Systems, a level for exploring realities and energy systems beyond what it calls time-space-physical-matter. Treat the report's labels as McDonnell's 1983 reading, not the Institute's definitions.
Same words, different meanings
In the report, "clicking out" is a physics idea about energy fields leaving time-space during an oscillation. In Gateway practice the phrase means a lapse in awareness during an exercise, often from falling asleep. Likewise "hologram" in the report means Bentov's interference pattern, not the physics-world "holographic principle." Read each term in the sense the author gives it.
Read the page images
The archive's text layer garbles words and numbers, and video readings add slips of their own. The scan's text calls the hologram the "finite embodiment" of the Absolute's infinite consciousness, while two video readings say "infinite"; only the page image settles it.
Health note
The report presents the Living Body Map and the energy bar tool as healing techniques. They are practices described by an Army officer, not treatments, and the report is not medical evidence. For any health concern, consult a clinician. If you have a seizure disorder or a serious mental-health condition, or are unsure about audio entrainment, check the publisher's guidance first.
Common questions
What is the CIA Gateway document?
It is a paper titled Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process, dated 9 June 1983 and signed by Lt. Col. Wayne M. McDonnell of Army Military Intelligence at Fort Meade, Maryland. He was asked to assess the Monroe Institute's Gateway program and wrote a 28-page paper explaining Hemi-Sync, holograms, time-space, the Absolute and the exercises. The CIA released it through its reading room, and its pages carry the stamp Approved For Release 2003/09/10. That is why it is called the CIA document: it is an Army paper that the CIA archive made public.
Why was the Army looking at Gateway in 1983?
INSCOM, the Army's intelligence and security command, had taken an interest in Hemi-Sync. A 26 October 1983 cover note from a sergeant first class at U.S. Army Field Station Augsburg encloses a paper stating that two members of the station attended the Monroe Institute in late August at the request of INSCOM's commanding general, Maj. Gen. Albert Stubblebine, who attended as well and directed the two to write papers on using Hemi-Sync at the station. McDonnell's own memo, dated 9 June 1983, predates that course and says he had already taken the Gateway training himself. Other declassified Army papers record a July 1983 contract with Robert Monroe for one-on-one training under a program called CENTER LANE.
What does the Gateway report actually say?
It builds one chain. First, Hemi-Sync tones bring the brain's two hemispheres into coherence while the body relaxes toward sleep. Second, the quiet body settles into a resonance of about 7 cycles per second that stimulates the brain. Third, the universe and the mind are holograms, drawing on Bentov's example and the theories of Pribram and Bohm, and expanded awareness lets the mind read more of the universal hologram. Fourth, consciousness can move beyond time-space toward the Absolute, energy at perfect rest. Fifth, Bentov's cosmic egg and the torus it generates put past, present and future into one pattern. Sixth, exercises such as problem solving, patterning, Focus 15 and Focus 21 put the picture to use, and the paper closes with proposed experiments.
Does the report prove that Gateway works or that reality is a hologram?
No. It is an explanation, not a test. McDonnell cites other people's work, such as the Menninger Foundation studies of a Zen meditator by Elmer and Alyce Greene and Dr. Stuart Twemlow's observations of Hemi-Sync users, and he leans on Bentov's book and Ferguson's article for the larger model. The report is solid evidence of what one Army officer was reading and thinking in 1983, and of how he tried to put out-of-body claims into the language of physical science. Whether the holographic and Absolute sections describe reality is a separate question that the paper does not settle.
Why did the CIA Gateway document go viral?
It combines an official stamp with extraordinary claims and a how-to. Hosts introduce it as a declassified military paper saying that consciousness can leave the body, move outside time and reach the source of reality, and they point out that it describes exercises people can try. Its talk of holograms and hidden layers also matched the Matrix and simulation conversation already popular online. Creators then read it aloud in multi-part videos from front to back. The paper itself is more modest than its online reputation: it is a signed Army assessment that calls itself a guide and not the last word.
Does the report tell you how to leave your body or time travel?
It describes how the Gateway program teaches those things; it does not replace the tapes. For out-of-body movement it lists maneuvers such as rolling out, lifting out and sliding out, and three conditions McDonnell infers: a body so quiet that the heartbeat echo fades and resonance near 7 cycles per second sets in, synchronized hemispheres, then heightened alertness in the right hemisphere. It also reports the Institute's position that the program is not built solely for out-of-body experience and does not guarantee it. The practices themselves are taught through the Gateway Experience albums and the Gateway Voyage.
Where can I read the original?
The scanned report is on the Internet Archive as (TMI-ARMY Files) 1983 - Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process, in the collection The Monroe Institute and the Army. The item offers a full-document file, a CIA-stamped copy and a separate page 25; the CIA-stamped copy skips that page. The CIA's copy carries the document number CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5, which you can search in the CIA reading room. Read the page images alongside the text layer, since the OCR garbles numbers and names, and look at the exhibits. Video readings such as Jordan Crowder's two-part series are useful for following along, but they stumble and add commentary, so check any line you plan to quote against the page.
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PODCASTS & VIDEOS
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Conversations and presentations connected to this topic. Each speaker brings their own experience and interpretation.
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Researching Brain Coherence at the Monroe Institute
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A researcher’s discussion
Walter discusses brain-coherence research at the Institute. Use the conversation to explore research questions alongside the historical material; the interview alone does not establish a mechanism or outcome.
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