The 1983 Army report on the Gateway Process does not give a frequency for Focus 10, 12, 15 or 21. What it does explain, on pages 5 and 6, is the method: two slightly different tones, one per ear, so the brain "hears" the difference as a beat, and the Frequency Following Response, by which brainwaves tend to follow that beat. The numbers it mentions are a 10 Hz example, Theta as a target, a body resonance near 7 to 7.5 Hz, and Bentov's 4 to 7 Hz range.
The method: beat frequencies and the Frequency Following Response
The numbers the report actually gives
What the report does not say
Where to read it
What the documents say, and what people claim
The method: beat frequencies and the Frequency Following Response
Page 5, paragraph 7. The report says Hemi-Sync relies on the Frequency Following Response: "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 tries to match it by adjusting its own output. If a waking person hears a Theta-range rhythm, the brain "will endeavor to alter its brainwave pattern from the normal Beta to the Theta level."
Brainwave frequencies are too low to hear as tones, so the tape uses beats. The report's example: one tone in the left ear "10 Hertz below another audible frequency played in the right ear," and "the brain chooses to 'hear' the difference between them, the 'beat' frequency." The 10 Hz figure is an illustration, not a setting from a tape. The beats are "played at a virtually subliminal, marginally audible level," sometimes under sounds like surf, with Robert Monroe's voice over them.
The numbers the report actually gives
Page 3: the report cites Itzhak Bentov's claim that mechanical or acoustic vibration "in the range of 4-7 Hertz" for long periods may produce effects like long meditation. This is Bentov's figure, about vibration in general, not a Hemi-Sync setting.
Page 6: in the resonance model the relaxed body is said to carry energy "in a range of between 6.8 and 7.5 Hertz" and to end up "vibrating coherently at approximately 7-7.5 cycles per second," which the author links to the resonance of the earth's ionospheric cavity. Page 23 repeats the target as "resonance at approximately 7 Hertz."
Page 22: for the single out-of-body tape, the report quotes a magazine interview with Monroe about a Beta-range signal and notes that "30 to 40 CPS is considered to be the normal range for Beta." The exact figure Monroe gave is garbled in the scan, so it is not repeated here. Page 4: the report says Hemi-Sync can be induced with the Institute's "basic Focus 3 tapes," quoting a Monroe trainer, again without a number.
What the report does not say
There is no table of frequencies by Focus level anywhere in the 28 pages. Pages 20 to 22 attribute the move to Focus 12 and Focus 15 to "additional forms of 'pink and white noise'" and "additional levels of sound," not to named frequencies. Searches for "3 and 7" or a "Gateway frequency" will not find them in this document.
The Monroe Institute's own two-page bulletin in the same collection (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210048-0) describes the method as binaural sound pulses and says Monroe patented it in 1975. It gives no frequencies either. The Institute's settings were commercial material, not part of the Army's analysis. See also What are the Gateway tapes?
The documents: a description of binaural beats and the Frequency Following Response, a 10 Hz teaching example, a body resonance near 7 Hz borrowed from Bentov's model, and no per-level frequency list. The report calls the mechanism a design assumption and proposes tests.
The claims: that the "CIA frequencies" are listed in the report, or that a particular Hz value is government-verified. They are not in this document. Any frequency list sold or shared as "from the CIA report" came from somewhere else. For the Focus levels themselves, start with Focus 10.
Last updated November 4, 2026.
READ THE DOCUMENTS OFFLINE, IN LUCID DREAM TRAINING & JOURNAL
The session audio in Lucid Dream Training & Journal uses a 4 Hz beat differential for Focus 10 and 7.2 Hz for Focus 12; those are the app's own settings, not figures from the report.
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 10 in the Gateway Process?: Focus 10 is named once in the 1983 Army report on the Gateway Process, on page 20. The steps that lead to it, and how the Monroe Institute labeled it.
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.