What does the Gateway report say about REM sleep and out-of-body experiences?
On page 23 of the 1983 Army report on the Gateway Process, paragraph 32, "Role of REM Sleep," records that Robert Monroe told a Gateway class ending 7 May 1983 that a former trainer could produce out-of-body experiences by bringing people into REM sleep and then playing Hemi-Sync. The author adds that "most if not all people reputedly" leave the body in REM sleep, and that the tapes may mainly help people remember it. His closing proposals build on this idea. No test is reported.
The claim on page 23
How the report explains REM
Dreams, memory and the lucid-dream link
REM in the report's proposals
Where to read it
What the documents say, and what people claim
The claim on page 23
The paragraph opens by noting that Bob Monroe informed "the Gateway class that finished 7 May 1983" about an ex-trainer of his in Charlottesville, Virginia, who "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."
Notice the chain. A trainer's results, told to Monroe, told to a class, written down by an Army officer who was in that class (the cover memo says he took the training). The report offers it as hearsay, not as data. The author then adds his own guess: "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." The word is "reputedly."
How the report explains REM
The author calls REM "the deepest possible level of ordinary sleep" and describes it as complete disengagement of the motor cortex from the neck down with the left hemisphere nearly switched off. That is his own description, with no source cited. He argues that this stillness removes the heart's "bifurcation echo," the resonance idea he takes from Itzhak Bentov, and leaves the right hemisphere free to follow the tape.
He then softens the claim: the tapes "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" is carried into waking. In other words, the experience may happen anyway, and the tape helps you remember it.
Dreams, memory and the lucid-dream link
The report goes a step further: "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" as Focus 12, 15 and 21. The difference, he says, is that in REM the left hemisphere is almost totally disengaged, so the memory cannot usually be retrieved.
Then a sentence many dreamers will recognize: "some people can be trained to remember their REM state dreams through intense conditioning in the waking state." This is the point where the Gateway report meets dream recall practice. For practical steps, see How to lucid dream. The report's three conditions for a voluntary out-of-body state close the paragraph: a profoundly quiet body resonating near 7 Hz, synchronized hemispheres, and then a right hemisphere stirred to alertness.
REM in the report's proposals
The REM idea shapes the conclusion on pages 26 and 27. Step B: "Then add strong REM sleep frequencies to induce left brain quiescence and deep physical relaxation." Step E: repeat the tapes after the autohypnotic suggestion "that an out-of-body movement will occur and be remembered." Step F: learn to "maintain it even after REM sleep state ends." Paragraph 31 on page 22 notes that "Only one tape out of the many which make up the Gateway Experience is devoted to the techniques involved in the out-of-body movement."
The documents: a secondhand report that REM sleep plus Hemi-Sync produced out-of-body experiences, an author's guess that such experiences are common in REM, and a proposal to test the idea. The physiology is the author's own sketch, uncited.
The claims: that the Army proved astral projection happens in REM sleep, or that a tape guarantees it. The report says "reputedly," "may well be" and "postulated." What it actually documents is an idea worth testing, and a dream-recall observation that stands on its own.
Last updated November 4, 2026.
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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.
Is the Gateway Process real, and does it work?: The 1983 Army report found Gateway plausible and proposed experiments. No declassified record reports results. What the documents do and do not show.
What frequency does the Gateway Process use?: The 1983 Army report never lists Hemi-Sync frequencies by Focus level. Every number it does give, with page references, and what beat frequency means.
What does "click out" mean in the Gateway Process?: In the 1983 Army report, "clicks out" is a physics idea on page 12. In the Monroe Institute's brochure it means blanking out in an exercise. Both, sourced.