Information Collection Potential

The information acquisition potential associated with the out-of-body state seems to attract the most attention from the standpoint of developing practical applications for the Gateway technique.

Unfortunately, although the out-of-body state can apparently be achieved by many people without excessive expenditure of time or effort, the purposes to which it can be put are currently limited by the fact that although individuals in that state may travel anywhere on an instantaneous basis in either the terrestrial or in other spheres, information distortion in the former context remains a major concern.

To date, according to one of the trainers at Monroe Institute, numerous experiments have been conducted involving persons moving from one coast to the other in the out-of-body state to read a series of ten computer generated numbers in a university laboratory. Although most have acquired enough of the digits to make clear that their consciousness was present none have ever succeeded in getting all ten correct.

This seems to be a function of the fact that physical reality in the present is not the only holographic influence which the individual may encounter in an out-of-body state. There are also energy patterns left by people or events occurring at the same physical site being viewed, but from the past rather than the present. In addition, since thoughts are the product of energy patterns, and energy patterns are reality, it may also be possible that individuals encounter thought forms while in an out-of-body state which mingle with physical reality and are not easily differentiated.

Finally, as Melissa Jager writes, there is another potential problem area in the sense that holograms can be viewed . Pseudoscopically, that is to say inside out or backwards just as well as they can be seen in proper perspective. Some of the distortions occurring may ultimately prove to be traceable to this cause because in the out-of-body state an individual may perceive the holographic energy patterns given off by people or things interacting in time-space reality in a somewhat distorted form.