Role of REM Sleep

It is interesting to note that Bob Monroe informed the Gateway class that finished 7 May 1983 that an ex-trainer of his operating in Charlottesville, Virginia found that he could guarantee out-of-body movements by bringing participants down into a rapid eye movement (REM) state of sleep and then use the Hemi-Sync tape technique. This may well be a function of the fact that most if not all people reputedly go into an out-of-body state during REM sleep.

REM sleep is the deepest possible level of ordinary sleep and involves complete disengagement of the body’s motor cortex functions from the neck down and nearly complete suppression of consciousness in the left brain hemisphere. The effect of this is to put the body in a state of complete stillness so far as the skeletal muscle structure is concerned, thereby further promoting the state of deep rest needed to eliminate the bifurcation echo. In addition, it leaves the right, hemisphere of the brain free to respond to the instructions and suggestions contained on the Gateway tape.

However, use of the Hemi-Sync tapes at this point may be less a factor in actually achieving the out-of-body state than it is a matter of focusing the brain enough so that a residual memory of having naturally achieved an out-of-body state is carried into the waking state. Indeed, it may even be postulated that some dreams associated with deep levels of sleep are in fact functions of the same kind of altered consciousness involved in interaction with the universe that plays a role in all of the Focus 12, 15 and 21 states described above.

The difference between those states and the condition of the mind in REM sleep seems to be that the left hemisphere is almost totally disengaged in the latter experience such that memory of what was achieved in the altered states of consciousness cannot usually be retrieved by conscious desire because the left hemisphere has no knowledge of its existence or its location in the right hemisphere. Admittedly, some people can be trained to remember their REM state dreams through intense conditioning in the waking state but even that may be more a function of establishing pathways in the right hemisphere which the left hemisphere can access following reentry into the wakeful state than it is an indication of any specific left hemisphere conscious involvement in the process during REM sleep.

In any event, the three apparent conditions required for voluntarily inducing an out-of-body state in most individuals seems to be:

1. Achievement of a state of profound quiet in the body such that the bifurcation echo fades and resonance at approximately 7 Hertz is established
2. Synchronization of the two brain hemisphere wave patterns
3. Subsequent stimulation of the right hemisphere of the mind to attain a state of heightened alertness (which, of course, interferes with brain hemisphere synchronization but not until a sufficient level of enhanced frequency range has first been established to help achieve the out-of-body state).