My TMI Gateway Experiences

[light487]

Introduction
So I have been listening to "The Monroe Institute" (TMI) tapes for a week or so now and over that time some interesting and not so interesting things have been happening, not just during the time the tapes are playing but at other times as well. So I figured the best thing to do, rather than post in numerous different threads on the forums, is to start writing about the little events and realisations here in one consolidated thread with a view of later conslidating or distilling it further into a set of ideas, methods, concepts and other things to aid both myself and others on their path.

Rather than trying to remember all the little details about the other events and stuff that's happened, today I'll just concetrate on what has happened yesterday and last night. I've listened to each of the tapes, 1 per day with a day or two where I didn't listen at all because I was either too busy or too tired to do so. Yesterday, my girlfriend (who lives with me) was working the evening shift and so that allowed me to be completely alone in the apartment at a time when I was still not too tired and sleepy. I got everything all setup, dimmed the lights and all that and put on the tape.

14 September 2011
The guided experience went pretty much how it had in the other instances, except that this time I was really focused and clear. As I was walking myself towards the Focus-10 state, I could really feel my awareness growing like a bubble of nothingness around me. It's like, for most of the time, we are limited in our awareness to the extend of our physical bodies. Yes, we can sense things off in the distance, hear distant sounds, see distant objects, maybe even smell or taste things in the air (like when someone up the street is baking a cake).. but still all of those senses have the focal point of your body and/or head. Like a radar display, the centre is where we are and all the little blips are shown in relation to the centre. That is the physical awareness. However, now I was starting to perceive that my "centre" was growing larger. So instead of being a dot in the middle of the radar, it was now an increasing sphere of awareness.

Just as I was about to say "10" to myself to get myself from Focus 9 to 10, the voice of Monroe comes on and says "You are now in the 10 state".. totally scared me with the suddenness of his voice. Jolted me a bit and I did lose a bit of my focus from that. In any case, the tapes was still rolling and I followed the instructions on "rolling like a log in the water" and separating from my body. I couldn't really feel any separation or any feeling of motion when I was trying to turn without moving my physical body. However, I went along with it as a patterning exercise to train my mind that this is what I am wanting to do.

The tape tried to get me to fall asleep but I didn't, however what I did do was move into a deeper level of awareness, so after the tape had assumed I was sleeping I just lay there and enjoyed the feeling without any expectations or desires beyond enjoying the peace and calm. I began "noticing" little things.. sounds, sensations, visual stuff. In one instance I actually could see and almost feel a scene but it was like looking through a window and being stuck on one side of it, unable to get there. At one point I noticed that the blackness had become more 3D than normal and remembered my phasing so I tried to visualise the Astral Pulse Island as a target. I noticed it was a little dark and I "wished" there was more light. Suddenly a very visual orangey/yellow light came on in the upper left of my awareness, shining down on myself and the "room" around me.

I "noticed" the light and how real it seemed. It was more real than the imagined room around me, which was like a airport waiting lounge now that I think about it. I could "choose" to look out the windows but couldn't really see much outside. I chose to sit down and try to really feel the vinyl of the chair. The coolness of it, the smoothness of it, the texture of the red vinyl and so on. Again, nothing really happened.. but looking at the experience now, I can see that my awareness was definitely heightened and I could more easily perceive these things.

The next thing of significance was when I asked for assistance/guidance without trying to use any expectation of how the guidance should come. This is the instance of the scene I mentioned above. It was like I was laying in a bed with several people surrounding the bed. I can recall at least 2 of the people very clearly and recall that there was several, maybe even 5 or 6 people all around the bed. They were all happy and laughing but it was a good natured laugh like everyone was having a great time.

The bed was a raised, wooden frame with a single-size mattress covered with loose fitting burgundy sheets. I could see my legs and feet from my perspective but as I said before, it was like I couldn't quite get in to the vision as if it was shrouded by frosted glass. It was like they were all my friends, people I had known for a long time but I did not know them. Never seen their faces before in the physical world but there was a familiarity between us. It felt like they were all very happy that I had finally "come around" as if I had been in a long coma and was just now starting to wake up. As if they had been waiting for this moment and now it was happening, so everyone was happy and laughing.

Anyway, the scene faded away eventually and was left back in the state of complete relaxation. I tried the "rolling log" thing a couple more times. Nothing much happened and then I gently eased myself out of the Focus 10 state and back to Focus 1. I know that the tapes allow you to learn how to quickly switch between F1 and F10, then back again but I like coming out of these things slowly.

Recent Realisations
Just something general I have been noticing is that the more I am focusing on these subjects, the more I am meditating, the more I am trying for an OBE and to look within myself; the more I am starting to notice messages and ideas that are coming through to guide me. My abstract awareness of noticing the deeper meanings of events are starting to become more and more frequent. I also realise that while a F20+ (or F oC 2-3) experience (ie. an OBE) is certainly a holy grail experience.. it's not the only experience that is important. Learning to enjoy these states for what they are is just as important. Like when I was just laying there in a deep state of relaxation; nothing really was happening in the sense of OBE but it didn't matter because something WAS happening. I was in another state of awareness, my awareness had expanded to around a 3 metre (9ft) radius sphere and it felt both a little scary and good at the same time. That is just as valid an experience as having an OBE.

[light487]

Another thought I just remembered about the "scene" with the people around the bed is that it was like the scene was in a little box off to the right and slightly raised from what I perceive as the horizon within the blackness. It did not take up my entire forward vision, just a small portion of it. It was like I could reach in to that "box" and interact if I chose to but was still aware of the rest of the blackness. Like I said, it was still separated from my main consciousness and awareness in that I couldn't fully enter it.

EDIT ( 2 Hour Later than above): I just had a thought about the directionality of my visions within the blackness. The visual sensation of the light coming on was in the left of my vision, whereas the scene with the people around the bed was to the right. The left side of the brain is all about creativity and visual stuff, whereas the right side is all about analytical stuff. So should I find the same thing happening again is rather than trying to step into or control the aspects within the scene, I might try to shift the scene over to the opposite side. So if it's on the right-side of my "vision", I'll try to get it to move to the left and into the centre, perhaps this will trigger a hemi-sync event to take place and pop me into the scene automatically. I don't know.. worth a try.

[light487]

15 September 2011
Last night I chose to listen to Tape 5 again. My girlfriend was home as normal so I took myself into the spare bedroom where I could close the door and turn off the lights etc. I told her what I was doing so she wouldn't wonder where I was and come to disturb me etc.

For some reason I wasn't able to stay as focused as I was able to the day before. Once I got to the bit about "turning like a log in water" I tried again to visualise the process but just couldn't get it to work for me. I am able to visualise myself floating up and looking down at my body though, so I tried to remain focused on that part as best I could. After the tape instructed me to re-enter my body I chose to try and roll out physically. My body was heavy and couldn't really feel it physically, so I tried just rolling like I would if I wanted to roll to my side. Of course my entire body moved and I lost a bit of my focus. So definitely not the way to do it. It's just that it is so abstract and doesn't actually tell you whether you should be willing your body to move or actually trying to move.

Anyway, I tried to stay focused some more, willing myself into a deeper conscious state, trying to feel my body floating etc but I just couldn't stay focused and eventually I was woken up by my girlfriend almost 4 hours later.   Not a failure by any means, it's just part of the process/practising. No special events, no interesting things happened, no bubble of awareness. A few full-body tingles and other weird feelings but nothing "out of the ordinary".

[jkjk8991]

Hey man, great stuff reading this, lately I've been in a drought in terms of my motivation to keep a dream journal and with my meditation, but this has really inspired me to keep going, im going to listen to track 5 right after i post this actually, haha.

Just something general I have been noticing is that the more I am focusing on these subjects, the more I am meditating, the more I am trying for an OBE and to look within myself; the more I am starting to notice messages and ideas that are coming through to guide me. My abstract awareness of noticing the deeper meanings of events are starting to become more and more frequent. I also realise that while a F20+ (or F oC 2-3) experience (ie. an OBE) is certainly a holy grail experience.. it's not the only experience that is important. Learning to enjoy these states for what they are is just as important. Like when I was just laying there in a deep state of relaxation; nothing really was happening in the sense of OBE but it didn't matter because something WAS happening. I was in another state of awareness, my awareness had expanded to around a 3 metre (9ft) radius sphere and it felt both a little scary and good at the same time. That is just as valid an experience as having an OBE.

This really made me smile, I love that attitude and wish it reflected in my own more. This kind of thought should really be applied to life, in every day things. If your just walking down the road, well look around and see the beauty, the colors, don't just coast through it on auto pilot ya know? Lately I've been thinking of this a lot, just how much we actually remember from a days events. It's like, yesterday was a just a really long dream and we only remember the more memorable parts like a dream, except since its longer it has more memorable parts. We just sort of turn on our auto pilot and walk through each day without ever really being aware, to quote the great movie Waking Life, "You got to be able to recognize it. You got to be able to ask yourself, " Hey, man, is this a dream?" Most people never ask themselves that...when they're awake or especially when they're asleep. Seems like everyone's sleepwalking through their waking state, or wake walking through their dreams.  Either way they're not gonna get much out of it."

Keep it up man, I'm really enjoying it

[light487]

Thanks for the feedback, I've been experimenting a bit with Binaural tracks rather than the TMI thing for the last few days, so nothing specific to TMI to report today.

One thing that came to me as I was reading your reply is that we also need to make sure we are not just "going for a ride". Not to say that is what you are doing, it's just something that came to me while reading your reply. Something Tom Campbell says in one of his lectures is that for some people the OoBE is only about "going for a ride on a rollercoaster".. for the fun of it. Yes it's enjoyable and fun and beautiful.. and there's nothing wrong with having experiences like that. However, we need to remember to ALSO be on the look out for "learning experiences" while we travel whether it is physical or nonphysical.

The first step maybe to stop walking around on autopilot, I totally agree, but it is not the last step. Once we stop walking around on autopilot, we then need to be on the watch for learning opportunities as well... be they experiences to learn to cope physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually; even the simple act of looking out of a window from the train as you ride to work can be an opportunity to learn. Like today I was on the train looking out through the window and the window had a lot of scratches and marks on it. I looked out and saw some other people on a train station platform, waiting for their own train and I thought, "You know.. it's a little like looking through a portal into the physical world, much like I am now looking through my own portal (eyes) through to the physical world.".. stuff like that.

[light487]

19 September 2011
Ok.. So I have downloaded Frank's "edited" Wave I - Tape 2. He basically has 5 mins of Hemi-sync, followed by the tape but he then snips off the end of the tape after reaching Focus 10, then switches over to some Isochronic music for the remainder of the 1.5 hour audio track. I followed Frank's visualisation guide for this experience and unsurprisingly I found that I was able to get A LOT more out of the experience. The more I imagined myself in an imagined environment, actually performing the actions step-by-step within the same fixed environment, the more I was able to focus deeper and deeper.

By the time I reached Focus 10, I was deeper than I had been during the majority of the previous sessions. Even when I was at Focus 4, my feet had become totally and completely "non-existant" to the point where my automated body functions wanted to move my feet to acknowledge or prove they were ok. I really had to struggle against the urge to move my physical feet, I could feel that part of my brain wanting to move them because of the lack of feeling in them. This feeling was replicated in my legs during Focus 5 and to a lesser degree in the rest of the body parts as I moved to focus 9. When I got here, I tried to use similar visualisations as in Focus 4 on my hands (i.e. wriggling my nonphysical fingers) but it didn't seem to have as dramatic of an effect. I guess the struggle to still my brain's automated functions took a bit away from my focus during the Focus 4 and 5 stages. This is just going to be a matter of practising more and more with this visualisation and Focus 4 to 9 process, so that it becomes automatic to not want to move my physical extremities.

Anyway, I finally arrived in the Focus 10 "Hut", still following Frank's suggested visualisation. At this point I just enjoyed the new music a bit and centred myself in the hut gazing out through the "window" in the direction of Focus 12. I had a quick look behind to see where I had come from (i.e. at the road from the Focus 3 "archway" and along the stepping stones through all the focuses to where I now stood) to re-affirm that I was not "there" any more but instead in Focus 10. Then I attempted to project my consciousness into Focus 12. I can't really say I was all that successful because I couldn't really get more than the briefest of glimpses of the "3D Blackness".

After not having much luck there, I tried to do other things.. like use affirmations and declarations to pop myself to various destinations. First I tried karen659's "to the Door!" affirmation/declaration. First just stating my intent to go to the door.. then with more purpose "TO THE DOOOOOORRR!!! AAAAARRRR!!".. at which point I had a laugh, internally to myself. I never really got annoyed or agitated.. just tried to really push myself as hard as I could for it to happen, without forcing it. Then I decided to back off and try to get deeper for a while.. after a while I decided to call for assistance from guides. I believe that I was assisted to a certain extent because a few times I could feel an outflowing deep sense of gratitude followed by increased nonphysical sensory awareness and other tingles and energy fluctuations.

At one point it felt like "they" were trying to help me by lifting my left leg out but I had the idea that they wanted me to do the rest. Like they were there to help me to help myself rather than do all the work for me. Then I got into the "affirmation" stuff again at the same time.. like I was, and they were, cheering me on "Get up! Come on, man.. you just have to sit up.. get up off the bed, and then you're away.. just sit up, it's as easy as that.. c'mon! you can do it!" and so on.. it ended up being more of an "UP... UP!!.. UP!!!" thing.. and then after a while, I did almost feel like I was sitting up but I couldn't really get more than a sense of "trying" to sit up rather than any true sense of motion or actually feeling like I was sitting up.

Anyway, after trying a bunch of times I decided that enough was enough "for now" and that I would go back to Focus 1. When I got to Focus 3, I set my intentions for tonight that I would have an awesome dream(s) about AP.. and that when I was dreaming I would realise it and become aware so that I could try to AP from the dream. After setting my intent, I continued on back to Focus 1, opened my eyes, stretched and then stopped the tape. I basically got to 1hr 19mins on the audio track.. so, not bad really.. didn't fall asleep or even come close to losing consciousness and had several really, really good and thorough attempts as well as some interesting experiences. Can't really complain about that.

[matthewof1989]

very interesting! lots of good insites! thanks for sharing!

[light487]

Just a quick update to say that I "slept like a baby" last night.. no recollection of even dreaming despite my intention to have "awesome dreams about AP'ing and to become aware". I kept sort of repeating to myself "I'm gonna have really awesome dreams about AP tonight!" latching on to an excitement emotion to drive it in deep.. like the excitement you'd get when you are about to go and something enjoyable.. like "I can't wait! I'm gonna have such a great time today! Woot!", that kind of emotion.. and by the time I got into bed and switched out the light.. I was in a VERY good, peaceful/serene mood.. felt really "awesome".. but then I just slept.. haha..

I'm not really disappointed, it was a restful sleep and I obviously needed a rest because I normally have above average dream recall.

[light487]

26 September 2011
I've had a few sessions in between the last and now but nothing of any particular note happened. Even this one I had last night wasn't totally successful in terms of getting out of my mind/body.. just had a few more realisations and other sensations that I can only assume are steps along the road.

During this experience I had a lot, I mean.. more than usual, moments where I had either phased to another awareness state or simply had daydreams. In one instance, for example, I imagined that my body was being carried by 4 people down an underground tunnel. It only lasted for a few seconds but it was more like a dream because I was seeing my body rather than inside my body. The next moment I felt a "prod/poke" on my right-side abdomen and I was back to being fully awake in my mind. So what I think happened here is that I was falling asleep and my training to stay awake, poked me to be awake.. at least that's how I perceived it.. even though I did thank myself or whoever it was who poked me.

So I had a few of these "lapses".. whether they were sneak-peaks into other planes of awareness, I really don't know.. I don't want to make any conclusions at this point. Anyway, so I am there.. in my body, in Focus 10 and I am basically just trying to make myself aware that I am just this mind-thing who is control of a physical body.. that I am not actually the physical body and that the physical body is like a vehicle. I, my mind, is the driver of that vehicle but am not the vehicle itself. I understand this from an intellectual point of view of course but to really believe it is another matter; it's going to take time to really push this concept deep into my sub-conscious

As I was laying there, I started to notice that there was indeed (at least) 2 distinct "bodies". There was the physical "vehicle" and then there was the "sensory" body. I wrestled around with the idea that my sensory awareness is at all parts of my body at all times. So even though many times I perceive myself to be located "up heree" in my brain because that is where my eyes are, I tried to think of it in terms that my feet were the same and that all of my body infact was just part of an awareness/sensory body where all the parts of my body were "eyes". It didn't really get much past the concept stage but it did allow me to experience that separate-body thing a little more deeeply. However, there was still of course the focus on the body and not really any substantial non-physical awareness was taking place,

While I rested there I started to become aware of new sensations that I hadn't noticed before. One that was particularly new and different was the feeling of the eye-pillow on my eyes rising and falling. At first I thought it was just my heartbeat pulsing the up and down movements of the pillow but then I realised that it was happened much too slow and in more of an ebbing sensation. I realised that it was more than just a physical sensation, infact it wasn't physical at all. The feeling of the "pillow" was going within my face. I also became aware, somehow, that the intensity of the feeling was directly related to my depth of awareness. Not that it ever got uncomfortably intense of course.. just that the more it felt "real", the deeper I was in my awareness. At one point I could actually see a tunnel made of "thought" that was sort of up, away from my head. I think I got a bit excited at that point and lost the focus and wasn't able to recover it. I think that was "the way to" Focus 12 or some other awareness level. So this "sensation" appears to be something I can "notice" and be curiously aware of, which will allow me to focus deeper. Something to experiment with at least.

One last thing was that even though I was still "in my physical", I felt very rubbery.. or elastic. Rather than trying to "push" up, which I'd already tried, I decided to push down through the bed instead. I could feel my body, well.. at least my sensory awareness of my body, pushing down.. stretching, like a gel or soft rubber. I was certainly a lot further "down" into the bed than I could do with my actual physical body. I confirmed this after I had come back to physical focus by pushing down with my physical body. I also was able to "wriggle" around inside my physical body, again with a feeling of soft rubber or gel; rocking, wriggling, playing around with the sensation. Again, using this sensation to make a firmer realisation that there is infact a distinctly separate awareness level that is separate from my physical body.

Eventually I called it a night and brought myself back to the physical.