What are the Gateway tools, like the energy conversion box?
The 1983 Army report describes the Gateway exercises in two groups. Pages 19 to 20 cover the preparation: the energy conversion box, resonant tuning, the Gateway affirmation, the first Hemi-Sync frequencies, deep relaxation and the energy balloon. Pages 20 to 21 cover six "tools" used in Focus 12: problem solving, patterning, color breathing, the energy bar tool, remote viewing and the living body map. The report describes them as the Monroe Institute teaches them, and never uses the word "REBAL."
The preparation steps (page 19)
The energy balloon (pages 19 to 20)
The six Focus 12 tools (pages 20 to 21)
Where to read it
What the documents say, and what people claim
The preparation steps (page 19)
Paragraph 28 says the process "begins by teaching the individual participant to isolate extraneous concerns in a visualization device called an 'energy conversion box.'" You imagine putting your worries in a box and closing it. Next is resonant tuning (the report spells it "resonate tuning"): "a monotonous, protracted humming sound that sets up a feeling of vibration particularly in the head," hummed with a recorded chorus.
Then the Gateway affirmation, which the report paraphrases rather than quotes: a statement that the person "is more than merely a physical body" and "deeply desires to expand his consciousness." Paragraph 29 adds the first exposure to Hemi-Sync tones and progressive relaxation with "pink and white" noise.
The energy balloon (pages 19 to 20)
The participant imagines "an 'energy balloon' comprised of an energy flow beginning at the center of the top of the head and extending down in all directions to the feet," then up through the body and out again. The report notes that it sets up "a pattern very reminiscent of the cosmic egg" from its cosmology.
It gives the balloon two purposes: to help reach a resonant state, and "to provide protection against conscious entities possessing lower energy levels which the participant might encounter" out of body. Online the exercise is often called the REBAL, short for resonant energy balloon. That abbreviation does not appear in the report. These steps lead to Focus 10; see What is Focus 10?
The six Focus 12 tools (pages 20 to 21)
Paragraph 30 lists techniques "or 'tools' as the Monroe Institute characterizes them," lettered A to F. Problem solving (A): fill expanded awareness with a problem and project it "out into the universe," with answers arriving as intuition over "the next two to three days." Patterning (B): project a desired outcome as already achieved; the report records that Monroe trainers caution against forcing the pace. It has its own page.
Color breathing (C): imagine intense colors to "resonate with and in turn to activate the body's own energies"; the report presents this as a healing technique, which is the Institute's framing, not a tested result. Energy bar tool (D): picture "a small, intensely pulsating dot of light" charged with energy and stretched into a cylinder. Remote viewing (E): turn that bar into "a whirling vortex" and send imagination through it. Living body map (F): picture the body's systems in colors and apply the energy bar to them.
Two cautions from the text itself. The report says the tools are meant to yield "useful feedback of value for promoting self-discovery and personal growth," an inward goal. And the "remote viewing" tool here is a Monroe visualization, not the Army and SRI intelligence method; the 1978 Gondola Wish report draws that line explicitly. See Why did the Army send soldiers to the Monroe Institute?
The documents: the tools are guided visualizations, described in one or two paragraphs each by an officer who did the course. The report attributes their purposes to the Institute and explains them with its own hologram model. It reports no measured effect of any tool.
The claims: that the energy conversion box or the energy balloon are classified techniques, that color breathing is an approved medical method, or that the Gateway remote viewing tool is how the Army spied. None is in the record. What the record shows is a relaxation and visualization curriculum, written down plainly.
Last updated November 4, 2026.
READ THE DOCUMENTS OFFLINE, IN LUCID DREAM TRAINING & JOURNAL
Lucid Dream Training & Journal has an original field manual on the practice session, alongside its manuals for 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 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.
What is patterning in the Gateway Process?: Patterning is a Focus 12 technique on page 20 of the 1983 Army report: project a goal as already achieved. Its wording, its theory, and its warning.