Lamp vs Laser
Melissa Jager uses a metaphor to help clarify the process involved in the use of Hemi-Sync in the Gateway Experience. She points out that 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. The stream of energy is projected with total coherence of both frequency and amplitude such that the surface area of a laser beam contains billions of times the concentrated energy found in a similar surface area on the sun.
Gateway assumes that once the frequency and amplitude of the human brain are rendered coherent, it is possible to begin accelerating both so that the human mind is soon resonating at ever higher vibrational levels. The mind can then bring itself into synchronization with more sophisticated and rarified energy levels in the universe. The mind, when operating at these increasingly rarified levels is assumed to be capable of processing the information thus received through the same fundamental matrix by which it makes sense of ordinary physical sensory input to achieve meaning in a cognitive context.
Such meaning is usually perceived visually in the form of symbols but may also be perceived as astonishing flashes of holistic intuition or even in the form of scenarios involving both visual and aural perception. The mechanics by which the mind exercises the consciousness function will be addressed in more detail later in this paper.
Gateway and Hemi-Sync
Now that we have briefly profiled the basic mechanics of the principal techniques for altering or expanding consciousness which share some of the objectives and/or methods employed in the Gateway Experience, we may proceed to focus on what that technique actually involves. Fundamentally, the Gateway Experience is a training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness, moving it outside the physical sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space. The participant then gains access to the various levels of intuitive knowledge which the universe offers. What differentiates the Gateway Experience from forms of meditation is its use of the Hemi-Sync technique which is defined in a monograph by Monroe Institute trainer Melissa Jager as, “a state of consciousness defined when the EEG patterns of both hemispheres are simultaneously equal in amplitude and frequency.”
Frequency Following Response
To achieve synchronization of brain hemispheres, the Hemi-Sync technique takes advantage of a phenomenon known as the Frequency Following Response (FFR) which means that if a subject hears a sound produced at a frequency which emulates one of those associated with the operation of the human brain, the brain will try to mimic the same frequency pattern by adjusting its brainwave output. Therefore, if the subject is in a fully awake state but hears sound frequencies which approximates brainwave output at the Theta level, the subject’s brain will endeavor to alter its brainwave pattern from the normal Beta to the Theta level.