The 1983 Army report on the Gateway Process describes Focus 15 on page 22 as "Travel into the Past," a state beyond Focus 12 reached with extra layers of sound on the tape. It calls Focus 15 "a very advanced state" that "probably less than five percent" of participants fully reach in a seven-day course. The Monroe Institute's bulletin in the same collection labels it a state of no time. The report describes the exercise; it reports no test of it.
What page 22 says
The wheel of time, and the five percent
How the report explains it
Where to read it
What the documents say, and what people claim
What page 22 says
Focus 15 is item G in the report's list of techniques. It begins by noting that all the earlier techniques are done at Focus 12. Then: "the technique of time travel into the past involves further expansion of consciousness through the inclusion of additional levels of sound on the Hemi-Sync tapes."
The author guesses at what the extra sound does. Some is "probably merely an intensification of the basic Hemi-Sync frequencies." Other parts seem "designed to provide subtle, almost subliminal suggestions." He is describing what he heard as a participant, not a tape he analyzed.
The wheel of time, and the five percent
The instructions on the tape are, in the report's words, "highly symbolic, with time being visualized as a huge wheel in the universe with various spokes each of which gives access to a different part of the participant's past."
Then the frankest line on the page. Focus 15, it says, is "a very advanced state" that is "extremely difficult to achieve." And: "Probably less than five percent of all participants in any given Gateway Experience actually fully achieve the Focus 15 state during the course of the approximately seven days of training." The report adds that Monroe trainers "affirm that with enough practice, eventually Focus 15 can be achieved," and that they claim access not only to one's own past but to "other aspects of the past." Both are trainers' claims, labeled as such.
How the report explains it
The physics argument comes earlier. On page 14 the report says that "access is opened to both the past and the future when the dimension of current time-space is left behind," and on page 18 that the universal hologram "reflects the development of the universe in the past, present and future." Focus 15 is where the author applies that model to the past. See Why does the Gateway report call the universe a hologram? and What is "the Absolute"?
In the closing proposals (pages 26 to 27), step G is to approach "Focus 15 and 21 objectives" from the out-of-body state, and step H imagines three people viewing one target: one in the present, "one viewing it at Focus 15 as it slips into the immediate past, and one viewing it at Focus 21." The Monroe bulletin GW22280 lists Focus 15 with a label meaning no time; that is the Institute's wording.
The documents: Focus 15 is an exercise aimed at the past, pictured as a wheel with spokes, reached by few participants in a week. Its justification is a model borrowed from Itzhak Bentov's writing. Nobody in the record reports a verified retrieval of past information.
The claims: that the Army or the CIA confirmed time travel. The report's own words are "probably," "seems," "affirm" and "postulated." The next step, Focus 21, is described the same way: see Focus 21.
Last updated November 4, 2026.
READ THE DOCUMENTS OFFLINE, IN LUCID DREAM TRAINING & JOURNAL
The three field manuals in Lucid Dream Training & Journal cover the practice session, Focus 10 and Focus 12.
The Gateway Process, answered: Page 25, Focus 10 to 21, the frequencies, click-out, who wrote the 1983 Army report and whether it works: short answers with page numbers and CIA record IDs.
What is Focus 21 in the Gateway Process?: The 1983 Army report calls Focus 21 the most advanced Focus state, aimed at the future. What page 22 says, and how it fits the report's proposals.
What is Focus 12 in the Gateway Process?: The 1983 Army report calls Focus 12 a state of expanded awareness and lists six techniques used in it (pages 20 to 21). What it says, and what it does not.