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Robert A. Monroe on Exploring Expanded Consciousness

Monroe Institute26:02

Transcription

The author of this book journeys out of the body. When he welcomed rock [Music] [Applause] [Music] What is it? Out-of-body experience [Music] Let's start with this very important question [Music] What is an out-of-body experience? What is it? Well, it's best described as a state of consciousness, awareness that does not depend on physical sensory input. Meaning it is acting separate and apart from your physical body. Recent studies indicated that 25% of the population in the United States remembers having at least one spontaneous out-of-body experience.

There's been a lot of scientific discussion as to what that is, and our religions have given it a name too. But basically, you are able to exercise facts; similes is the best word—of the sensory input that you have in the physical sense and the physical continuities of word. So if you can think of that that you are perceiving and separate and apart from this physical mechanism that provides you with this input, you are able to see, for example, and you are able to hear. That out-of-body consciousness, as it were, is able to be, well, to say, two inches away from the physical; or if you want to put it to the extreme, you can go to Mars and cruise around Mars and see what's going on there. It's that unlimited.

Now there are those who would refer to this as the astral body. Would that be a good term to use here? Well, we don't like it, and the reason we don't like it is because it has sort of an occult connotation to it, in the sense that it was used in a time sort of prior to the scientific model that we attempt to follow. So we, like, way back in the early 60s, came up with the OB, out-of-body experiences. We were in our professional sound people; in other words, sound was our business, the production of sound in various ways. So we turned to sound quite naturally in order to do these things. First of all, in order to find out how we could begin to control the out-of-body experience, we began to use sound [Music] sound to affect consciousness.

We soon learned that by using known brainwave frequencies and converting them into what sound amplitudes, our frequency to sound amplitudes, we were able to induce sleep very easily and to stay awake very easily. And that was the beginning; those are categories of consciousness, and we use that running frequency of amplitude to create a resonance by listening to it. And these induce various states of consciousness; basically, we call it a frequency following response because you can identify them by taking an EEG, a brainwave study, and see these particular patterns within the brain. So if you wanted the person to go to sleep, you would feed a particular system of theta and delta waves, and they would get sleepy. And then as we went on, we found a better way to do it because these brainwave frequencies that are common in the human brain are of a frequency that is lower than human hearing.

Let's use the illustration that here's an 8 Hertz signal, which means 8 cycles per second, that we cannot hear. So how to get it into the human brain other than using an amplitude method? We found the Vanara beat would work very beautifully in that respect. But in essence, it works this way: if we put a 100 Hertz audio signal, which you can hear, and put it in one ear, and put a 108 Hertz signal in the other ear, the differential between those two would be an 8 Hertz signal. When we used that and had a person listen to it, the brain would synthesize that 8 Hertz frequency; they wouldn't, the brain wouldn't hear it incidentally, but the electrical signals in the brain synthesized that 8 Hertz differential. A slight variation of it as part of the human resonance is the one that we as humans grew up with and through millions of years, and it will create a form of physical relaxation.

There are different kinds of meditative states, for example. Years ago there was a great to-do about getting into the Alpha state, and it was old, "Let's get ourselves into alpha." Alpha is just a state of conscious relaxation, and we have not found it interesting enough to play with. What about theta? Theta is a state where a lot of creativity occurs; in theta it's great for ideas, word pictures, and things like that. The crossover state between this type of consciousness and the consciousness of Delta sleep, because of that you are partially freed of the restrictions that are upon you during this normal wakefulness here, and as a result you are freed; your mind is freed to perceive in ways it is, has not perceived before, and that's what we're, that's where a lot of meditation takes place. So you'd like to look at this thing in a pragmatic way, I guess, scientifically speaking, very much all right.

Now let's say then pragmatically, what would be the purpose of an out-of-body experience then? Well, that's that's the enigma, the question that took me a lot of work to find out what value it had, if any. And the second thing is that through the years, what purpose? That's open to a lot of discussion; there have been all sorts of ways that one can use it, and one does use it. I think the key thing is to recognize that we are firmly sure now that everyone goes out of their body during what we call Delta sleep, or deep sleep. But that's a sleep where you are at a very low level of physical response, and it's that deep sleep—the deep sleep you'll have during our sleep cycle for anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes and maybe sometimes more. We all have cycles of Delta; we have cycles of an hour and a half cycle of sleep, a pattern we have all during our whole sleep period, but a part of that is the Delta sleep state, and we sort of drift down to that Delta state, and then we get there, and then we become totally inert; blood pressure goes down, temperature goes down, and we respond very little to any external stimulant. We found in lab studies that a person in the out-of-body state resembles near perfectly the profile of Delta sleep.

All right. Now the difference, of course, is their consciousness is there, and that's true. A person in the out-of-body state, by me, a peculiar kind of means of establishing a still, a relationship with a physical body, can report in while they're in the out-of-body state. All right now let me stop for a second. What you're saying is that people that you have worked with recorded out-of-body experiences, is that correct? That's true. Those experiences from those people are such that they're actually able to respond while they are out-of-body. What do we know about that then? They report what they're doing and how they're doing; some very few, and it is—you, you can communicate back to them. In other words, they're using their hearing and vocal means to, in turn, stay in contact with you. It's it's a learned thing, a thing that you have to learn, and not everyone can do it. Now that each EEG looks at a person who is talking to you during this state, does the EEG show Delta still? It shows Delta superimposed with a beta signal, our composite, made a signal that indicates a part of the brain is operating to do this communication process.

I know that's very interesting. I presume that was really interesting at the speech center becomes activated. Okay, so let's come back then to this question then that I started out with. I'm sure Robert that this question was asked when, for example, Columbus went to the New World; people said, "Why would you want to go there?" So I'm sure that this question is being asked now to you: Why would people want to do this type of research? Well, I had to face that question all the way back in, would you believe it, back in 1958 and 59, which is a long ways back. I needed desperately to learn how to control it because I would suddenly move out of my body anytime I would lie down, and that became very embarrassing and very frightening, and I had to learn how to control it. Conventional science had no answer whatsoever for that; my post-friend psychologist, a psychiatrist, didn't have the answer either. So we set up an R&D program in my company trying to find out answers for this, and one of the things that happened—they took, for example, a full year of validation and documentation of where I went and what I did and what I perceived—in order for me to recognize that it was nothing more than an illumination. So it's not that easy to transfer it from what might be a dream or a hallucination into a reality; it just takes that left brain of ours; it takes sometimes a great deal of evidence to convince it.

All right, are you saying then that when a person first has an out-of-body experience, they may not be able to logically understand what has happened? That's quite true, and we rationalized it away because we just don't have, culturally, any answer for it. The best way I can describe that is, for example, that we now know that anyone who has a flying dream is symbolizing an out-of-body state; they can't identify it any other way. So they have a flying dream, and some people have to rationalize it, but say they were in an airplane. So they're actually experiencing the feeling of free flight, and then through the dream they interpret it in whatever way they can through their logic. Yes, in virtually all cases that we've encountered where a person has a falling dream, and that's reentering the physical body—you can pick up hundreds of thousands of people who have had a falling dream where they fall and wake up—and that's reentering the physical; their interpretation of it because they are totally unaware of it has to translate it somehow, so they do the best they can.

I can give you one of the most interesting facets of out-of-body activity that has certainly been attracting attention over the last, say, 10 years. What is it? Something like 25 million people that they know of that have had it, and that's a near-death experience, which is a rather extreme version of the out-of-body. The one thing that that certainly does with everyone who has an NDE, as they call it, is get them past the belief stage into the knowing that they survive physical death. That is a very profound piece of knowledge; that if you get that knowledge, it alters your life considerably. Now we have better and more scientific explanations for what's taking place. Think of it this way: you, I, at this moment are very carefully focused in time-space. We have a focusing mechanism that we call a physical body, and it gives us all this heavy physical sensory input that gets us and keeps us phased into time-space. In other words, we're here; our consciousness was here; our mind is totally here. The moment that you stop focusing in that time-space that intently—let's call it inattention, just that much—you become slightly out of phase with this physical time-space. This means that you are in thought, as it were, instead of totally there. Let's say that you're still 90% focused in time-space and 10% into something somewhere, someway else, and then you have the stages called daydreaming, which are a little, a little more out of phase, and then you have a controlled out-of-a-state; they call it meditation, where let's say that you are 30 to 35% phased into another reality system or getting in touch with it while you are still—a great part of you is still in phase with time-space. Doesn't make much to follow that phasing relationship outward to where you get into states caused by drugs, alcohol, and things like that, where you are more and more out of phase. You get into illnesses, and they create greater degrees out of phase, and it—very innocently—we all fall asleep, and then we are, say, 90% out of phase; we're still in touch with time-space, but our consciousness, our our mind is elsewhere. So that's a real quick version of what we call phasing. This is, as we now perceive it, is a massive phase relationship of which the out-of-body is one part of a spectrum. If you can think of consciousness as being a spectrum that encompasses time-space here on earth and moves into other energy systems as it changes in pattern, so that when you are asleep you are drifting even deeper into what life stepped into Delta sleep, where you are very much—say, 90% out of phase with time-space—and this means that you have an awareness, a consciousness there. The fact that you don't remember it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Let me see, am I, am I going to guess that 100% is death? 100% is death. Yes, and all that is very simply that if you have that wonderful knowledge that you do survive physical death, no matter what you do and act and be and think here, you are merely then—don't have a focusing mechanism to phase you into time-space; that's all falling apart, so you can't stay here any longer. Then you are there; you are there in that area past Delta sleep, but you are there; you're conscious, your "awake," and you have means of perceiving there, and that's what the out-of-body state is—is a temporary visit there, if you want to think of it that way. What is focused 10/10 is a very specific state that might be called a meditative state, but we make it much simpler than that and keep it a very broad range. We take a simple definition and say the mind is awake, body asleep; the body's just detuned actually, so that these heavy physical sensory input patterns are not interfering with your ability to think.

People make it quite a great discovery, intent in the sense that they discover they do not need all of that five physical sensory patterns in order to be awake, alert, and full of mind, consciousness as it were. All right. Now what about 12 and 15? These are pretty spectacular as far as I was concerned. Well, they do get fun as they go along. 12 is a thing that we've discovered and through the years, the state where, once having detuned other physical inputs, we find that you could begin to perceive in other ways. We call it a state of expanded awareness, but what has happened is that these other means of perception have been covered over or overwhelmed by all the physical input, and the moment those get detuned and you still retain your consciousness, you begin to perceive in these other ways. And 15 is an interim nice state which we call the state of no time. It is fun because people have great expectations of what state no time is. No time is not no space, but no time. The interesting part about, of course, is that nothing is there. People get into 15 and have all these things they expect of it when it's really—it has to be a self-instigating place; nothing will happen unless you make it happen. You can lie around in no time forever unless you take soft steps in order to move in any given direction, and this is a basically a very careful fear-reducing process so that you're not afraid of these unknown states. And the way we do it is that we prove very succinctly to the individual that he's been, he's only learning to control what he's been doing all the time, and it's the control factor that counts, so that when he wants to go to 10, he can do it because he has no fear of it anymore.

Your comments and a few ideas; prayer, anything about prayers? Somewhere along the way, 2000, 5000 years ago, whatever, someone learned a system that would induce communication or contact into these other energy systems; in other words, ask for help; there's another way to put it—and use methods and techniques that did do that. But as this was handed down step-by-step through generation after generation, what worked 5,000 years ago—someone along the way says, "Well, why should I clap my hands? I don't need to clap my hands, so I'll just say the prayer"—or someone says, "Dhanya, well, I don't need to close my eyes; I'll keep my eyes open." A whole series of things, patterns that would induce the result from the prayer have been deteriorated, distorted, and often forgotten through all these years. Okay, there's obviously a right way then to pray. That's correct. Yes. All right, go to focus 12. All right, focus 12. Yeah, angels and archangels, archetypes. From my perspective now, there is a system of, let's call it, helpers that is a part of each individual, and those helpers are in continual service of that individual—are now aimed specifically at that individual. But the interesting part is is who they are. They are parts of you, and they are parts of you who have lived previous lives. So the guides, for example, our existence is that we have had, and we are now, let's say, compartmentalized. Right now, with a focus, when part of us is focused, that's right, in time-space, any other parts of us are not focused. That's right. But then, so you need a little help to fix the sore—oh, well, one of your, one of your, your life personality's 20,000 years ago knows all how all about fixing sore toes. How do we get in touch with them? With focus. Well, that comes out of 21; that's the focus 21.

Are there other worlds, other beings? What are we looking at then? There—well, what you're looking at, first of all, are the multitude of—when you get into this non-physical area of being, states of being, the first thing you encounter, of course, is what we call the belief system territories, where one is attracted automatically after they exit here by this phasing process because it's something familiar to them. And these are, of course, all of the various religions have a belief system that creates a state of being in this non-physical area, this non-physical part of this consciousness continuum. I know it sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook, but it's very simple. Does that mean that if you are a Christian, you will come across saints and perhaps Jesus the Christ, etc.? All of that. Yes, that is a one large part of this consciousness spectrum. I know that is Buddhism, so Islam, all sorts of it. Now and then you're saying to me that there are people who do not have belief systems—let's say, for example, an atheist—or and they know they don't have to be, that they don't—their intellect grows to a part where that's not enough. Would you like to spend all eternity lying on a cloud and strumming a harp? Absolutely not. If you can get—and there are a lot of people, more people than you would care to think, that are not—let's call them—have been trapped in belief systems. Then I get around to the basis of what's so stimulating and exciting about the out-of-body experience and becoming proficient at it; you realize there are a myriad of other options, and most of them make the belief systems look rather silly. Those options are so broad and so detailed. I can give you option number one, which is a very, very common one, and that's to recycle and have another lifetime here. All of us do that many, many times because we have become addicted to being human. We like to eat; we like the sexual drive; we like the excitement, the fun of it, and all the process of being human; we like so much that we got to come back and have more. And there's no law that makes you do that; that's the important part; it's you that wants to do this. So people who say you have to come back because of your karma, you can undo your karma in other, other places, and you don't need to undo it; you can undo it yourself by a simple twist of your thinking; that's all. And that's so—buddy, that is an option to come back and—Peach probably does that several thousand times in—idea. Yeah, that's the one option to come back and recycle. And setting the belief systems aside, then you got this great fan of the whole physical universe, and you can go and live another type of intelligent life on some other planet six million light-years from here or something like that. We know of about five anyway already, but they—mind you—these are not human forms; that's the interesting thing to realize. They're nicely planned and nicely organized; very beautiful design in their worlds. These are the dominant species, just as we are the dominant species here on Earth. So really, they're the top of the chain in that particular place. That's true. So you say—I'm trying to answer that fundamental question—what would you do is being able to willfully, consciously control and in the auto body state. You can pre-explore all these things before you do have a physical exit here. So do you have a pretty good idea what you'd like to do next before you are forced to do this? So after you've exhausted the physical universe, which may take an eternity if you want to get addicted—there, can you see how easy you get addicted—the point is that these various other intelligent species mature, and I guess that's the word, just as we eventually mature, and we emigrate. And the reason we emigrate is because we've had all we can get out of this, and very frankly, you know what the real reason for emigration is: we become bored. And you can see how could you possibly become bored because you realize that you could become involved here forever in finding out each electron and each biological pattern, everything else, and it goes on endlessly. So if you get a good sampling of it, you find almost at will—this is where I came in; it's a repeating cycle. And then, of course, the thing you're probably waiting here is, "What do you do in a non-physical sense?" Well, that's the vista that truly opens up because one of the things that you become aware of—that a graduate of this compressed learning human school—it becomes the equivalent of a God in these other energy systems because of things that we learn so naturally; we think are, well, they're just everyday stuff—is exquisitely, exquisitely valuable in these other systems. And as such, the temptation gets very great not to be a god, but to do things in these other energy systems. For example, I reach and I very, without thinking, pick up a cup of coffee and sip the coffee and put it down again; that is a manipulation of energy, mechanical energy, electrical energy, and chemical energy all connected with it. The ease with which we learn to do these kinds of things can be applied in other kinds of energy, can you see? And the other system that we learn so vividly—we learn measurement; that it's so hard to understand that—well, they, everybody learns measurement. Well, so we have—we're a polarized environment; we have good and bad, or constructive or destructive, whatever labels you want to put [Music] so we learn measurement [Music] and that Larry measurement system again is very, very valuable in evaluation. What we really have most of all—we take with us and do take it with you—is the thing we came to get, and that is—if we use the symbol left brain—that's what it is: intelligence, the ability to analyze, calculate, all of that is what you came to get, and you take it with you. And, oh, that's the stuff that is pure, pure invaluable elsewhere. Give these other energy systems. We look at this mass roiling world in which we live, and if you begin to recognize there is a very profound purpose in all this [Music] the key freedom is freedom from the fear of the unknown, and that principle unknown being what is beyond this physical existence. The moment a person learns that [Music] it alters his life here so spectacularly because all this—if you look around you and you find how much what you do is based upon fear—and most of it is fear of non-survival, one way or another. So if you can think of that as being a key thing, and you also learn to accept and explore one's own self, and that self-exploration takes place again on the part of the individual, but because once he is free of that fear then he is free to explore his self first—never mind all this other spectacular areas—learns to free himself of all of the restraints that he had self-induced with any [Music] [Music]