Im not sure if my body just doesnt need to sleep as much but Ive noticed, especially since I stopped using substances, that I cant sleep as well. Energy food fills me to some degree. I'm going on day 2 of no/little actual sleep and I feel fine, but I want to be able to fall asleep. Not just lay awake and suddenly it's 5:30am. I deleted my social media apps off my phone today so I think less screen time will make me feel more relaxed. Even though I have such great astral experiences, Im just frustrated that I struggle this hard to fall asleep. Can anyone relate?

I meditated earlier today, got connected on the bridge in f21 and had a loving energetic connection with my total self. We went into f23, then back out into extreme presence. And now I'll go back and forth between no thoughts and wondering when I will get tired until it's 5:30am again. Then I'll doze off until 7. Then wake up for work. and it's only 8pm where I am.

Been lurking here awhile. It seems like OBE’s are actually very rare occurrences, based on the comments

Wanted to get a better view of how this breaks down in this community. Please vote if you’re comfortable sharing. Thanks

View Poll

My first binaural beats experience

I've had countless lucid dreams - lots of sleep paralysis - mostly evil feeling ones in the middle of the night, but this one was different.

I was getting sleepy midday, I put on a binaural beat off YouTube and started to relax. Eventually I felt that strange buzz in my head that happens during sleep paralysis but this one was being amplified by the binaural beat. When sleep paralysis hits, it feels like someone smacks me in my forehead and I feel my jaw go limp as my body goes to sleep. This time I felt like I got hit by a sledgehammer.

The visuals started coming in but weren't holding strong but I realized my body was free and I could move about. I wasn't anywhere in my apartment though, I was gliding and kinda dancing around on hard wood floor somewhere. I thought ok this is cool, just normal lucid dreaming kinda thing. I looked outside a large glass windows and saw rocky, dusty hills like you would see at an excavation sight or something.

I was struggling to keep the visuals very vivid but I was just enjoying the free floaty body thing. Then out of nowhere I felt a hand grab mine as if to shake it hello. Couldn't believe it. I couldn't see so I rubbed my hand up it's forearm and up to feel it's face. It felt dainty and feminine and insanely soft so I thought it was a women. I asked "who are you?" And clear as day in a males voice it said, "Sid." "Sid?" "Yeah, Sid." "I thought you'd be a woman." "I didn't know if I should be a man or a woman."

At this point I'm in utter astonishment and I feel myself slipping out of the experience and back to the real world. I'm asking him "where are you from?" But it's already fading away too fast. I can kinda hear his voice faintly but it was too late - I was already back.

Very, very interesting experience. Binaural beats definitely do something incredible. They amplify that frequency that I feel during sleep paralysis.

I've had lucid dreams where I'm interacting with beings but they never feel alive - well accept some demonic ones. But this felt very much like interacting with another conscious entity. I hope Sid reaches out to me again next time. Mind blown!

As the title says. Im still new to the gateway tapes but no stranger to putting myself into what he calls mode ten. Its extremely frustrating to reach the point of full body relaxation simply to be ripped out of it and told the exercise is over. Does anybody know of some gateway tapes without the guided speech? I find the actual sound bath/noise to be extremely helpful. The talking not so much. That being said he does have a very nice voice.

I’m about to meditate with some gateway tapes. Anyone want to meditate at the same time and try to connect and sync in another realm? Dm me if interested.

I'm not going to get into the groggy details but for the past 6 months I have been having difficult mental health struggles, I grew off the experience for a couple months and only did the odd expand meditation, the other day I was in the middle of an anxiety episode and decided to do free flow 12 to relax instead of letting myself spiral.

While I was there I made myself open to anybody who wanted to communicate, I heard a noise which I couldnt tell if it was a laugh or cry and I could sense something, it moved from my right hand side to my feet back to my right side and eventually it felt like it had surrounded me, I was scared and tried to push it away and after the second reminder sound it went away.

It was scary but afterward I felt so free and clear minded, before it was like there were thoughts attacking my mind and I couldnt think without being interrupted but after it was silence. Since then its not like I've been totally fixed but the clear headedness hasnt gone away yet

So as the title says, I experienced the vibrations for the first time after trying vectors.

I started doing the tapes about 6 months ago, and took a two month break roughly 2 months ago. Then I started doing them every day. I've been hesitant to move into Wave 3 because although I deeply desire having an OBE, I'm terrified of it.

Today I listened to vectors, and for the first time I wore an eye mask and lied down. AND for the first time in my apartment there was truly no noise and my cat didn't come and bother me. I live in an open industrial loft style apartment, so my cat distracting me has been getting in the way of meditating.

I got sleepy at the end and noticed the next meditation started playing, so I paused it, keeping my headphones and eye mask on. But I never came out of focus 10, and I also never really fell asleep. I was adjusting myself slightly and felt like I was having double vision even through my mask. Then it happened. I turned to face my couch cushion and I could see it through my mask (that I didn't know was on still) and I started to sit up and felt my body vibrate all over. And I heard a loud vibration and whomp sound on my ears. I felt myself lift an inch out of my body then my heart started racing and I realized what was going on. But the weirdest part was that I heard very clearly someone walk on the rug next to my couch to where I was lying down and stop when they got next to my head. I thought it was my husband. Then started to wonder who or what it was. I struggled to get out of it then remembered I never got out of focus 10, do I moved my fingers and said "1" in my head and was able to wake up and hear the world around me. My husband was at his desk, and I stood up and told him what happened because he knows I was doing it.

I did remote viewing yesterday with my husband hiding the objects and I thought I was struggling with it until I got to pushing the tube from my head and I felt like my eyes were rolling in the back of my head and my body was vibrating, just not like it was today.

Does this mean I'm close? Has anyone else heard other people walk by their body when they're in the middle of leaving it? I'm not going to lie, I'm a little fearful of pulling the plug and leaving it. How can I stay comfortable with the idea that I'm safe and have control?

I was just reading this book by Michael Raduga

"The Phase - Shattering the Illusion of Reality"

There is a paragraph that denies the possibility of physically pinching someone during Astral Projection. What do you guys think?

Here is the paragraph-

>"For example, in one book I read about how after "leaving the body," you could fly up to people you know, pinch them, and leave a real bruise. Many people's jaws drop when they read that, as did mine when I was a child. But now, I could try it out. Having caught the moment of awakening, I could employ a technique, "leave" my body, fly out to my friends and family, and pinch them everywhere possible. Well, I tried it dozens of times before asking myself a simple question: If the author had really done it, then why did he talk about it so casually, and why didn't he at least try it out one more time? He would have received the Nobel Prize if it were true, for starters. Alas, he gave us nothing but a brief description. All such stories are based on the same template. As are all such books. And none of them can be repeated in an experimental setting..."

(If any of this is too confusing or sounds weird remember this. I almost never talk about this, I have maybe shared 10% of everything, I am just lost and sad right now so my spelling and grammar can probably be confusing and I just want to share a piece of me which is hidden to everyone around me. And sorry that it’s long :))

I don’t know why I am typing this, because I feel like I have never been able to put all of this into words, but here goes I guess. First of all English is not my first language, so sorry for any spelling mistakes or whatever. I’ve wanted to share this here since I started the tapes around one year ago, because I noticed it was hurting my progress. Now 1 year later I feel ready to share it here, just some random Sunday night. I don’t expect replies or anything, I just have to get this out there and if anyone has any insight I’m open to it. Also if any mod thinks this isn’t tape related I get that and I can post it elsewhere. Put because it has hurt my progress with the tapes and is the reason I’m even typing this I want to post it here.

I have 3 brothers, one older two younger, they are very important for this story. When I was 9 (March 2015) my parents decided to move to Sweden after growing up in the Netherlands. Both my parents are Dutch with some Indonesian blood from my dad’s side. My father had not had a job for 4 years and my parents wanted a total reset. Sweden was their choice because of the nature and because my father had built a connection there with another man let’s call him Peter. Peter rented out a small house to us where we begin our lives in a small town of around 2000 people. Everything was scary to me, new language, new school, new everything. After half a year of living in Sweden my parents divorced. I won’t go into the details but it wasn’t a good separation and my father moved out. It affected me deeply. I became more quiet and kept to myself.

One year after the separation everything was okay. Parents were fighting about money and other stuff but mostly hidden from us kids. My father had decided to move closer to where my mom lived who we were staying with most of the time. We saw my father each weekend but that changed when he moved closer to us. We started living one week at my mom’s, then on Sunday we went to my dad and stayed there for the week, then back again to my mom and so on. You get it, that was the new system. My father had met a new girlfriend who moved in with him. Which means she became our new stepmother.

I was 10 almost 11 when this was my living situation and is were things got bad for me. I am very close to my mother, always have been, and started missing her a lot when I was at my dad for the week. I also noticed that my youngest brother, was having a tough time with being away from a parent for a whole week. Things got worse when my stepmother started accusing my mother (who she had not even met btw) of sending me to spy on her relationship with us. She then made a new rule for when we were at my father’s for the week. That we were not allowed to speak dutch and had to speak Swedish because “we lived there now” or something like that. This upset all of us kids of course. We had only lived there for a year, almost two and were used to speaking dutch at home, our mother tongue.

I just noticed there is to much to share and will just skip through some parts and talk about the biggest problem I was having, (when at my fathers) around the time I was 11-16 years old. My youngest brother. He expresses his emotions a lot. As a kid of like 5-6 years old this is normal. He could get very angry but also very quickly switch. But he was mostly sad due to the separation and everything. My father didn’t know how to handle him. He just got mad at my him whenever my youngest brother just needed love and patience. It became so bad that my father and stepmother would argue and scream at my 5 year old brother. That is where I came in. I started to go against my father and stepmother every time they got mad at my brother. What I can remember is that I usually took over their frustration to me instead of my brother, to protect him. During this time and for the coming like 4-5 years my youngest brother would need me even more. He often could not sleep, was scared of the dark and needed someone with him to be able to get sleepy. He slept in the same bed as my other younger brother, but he always fell asleep very quickly. On the weekends my father and stepmother went to bed at around 10-12 pm. Tucking in my youngest brother with an iPad and then going to sleep. He could not put himself to bed, he was fucking 5 years old. So every night on the weekends at around 12-3am he would come into me and my older brother’s room. Every time I went with him, put on some childhood stories and lay next to him, holding him or his hand until he fell asleep. I loved doing this because I knew I was the only one with the patience for it. Much more happened but that was the consistent thing, I did every weekend, at my father’s for years. One might ask, “if you shared a room with your older brother, why didn’t he help?”. He was awake every time my brother came to our room because he couldn’t sleep. But that is the next big thing that has created this emotional suppression. My older brother. But that is a story which is just as long so I’ll save that for another time.

I learned early on that I had to suppress my anger, sadness and everything, to stay strong for my youngest brother, older brother and mother. Why I had to stay strong for them are other stories, which have almost the same impact as the energy I put into helping my youngest brother, but I feel like this is already to long so I can share that to if you are interested, some other time. I couldn’t cry at my grandfathers funeral, who I was very close with. I kept it all in. In fact I kept all my sadness and anger in. All the shit that happened to me and my brothers. My ex girlfriend, who is the next chapter of the whole story about my emotional suppression. Because she kept me in my cycle, even when I was 17-18, of taking care of others and suppressing my own feeling, because she, well needed it, and I was so used to it so I did.

Anyway I love the tapes and know that releasing emotions from my traumatised nervous system is important to be able to go further with the tapes. Last night I was practising focus 10 without the tapes and noticed that my hands felt like gloves. It felt like my real hands (idk what to call it, I am not experienced enough to just say “yeah that was my second body or out of body feeling” or whatever) were stuck in my body’s hands. Scared to let go like I’ve always been. Scared to face the past, my emotions everything. I have tried talking to my mother and a spiritual life coach and everything. Nothing has helped. I feel like the thing that would help is expressing my anger and sadness to my father. Who has become more relaxed now and devoted that evil women. But I am scared.

Remember this is not the whole story and thank you if you have read this far. It means everything to me.

I love this sub and am thankful for all the tips and interesting things I’ve read on here. I hope you have a good day and remember you are strong and powerful.

I've been trying to Astral Project for the last couple months. I've learned a lot but also feel like I'm kind of not advancing like I'd like.

I've done the Gateway tapes. I'm on Wave 3 currently but I haven't been as consistent as I was when I started and it's been a couple weeks since I have listened to them

Lately I've found myself using the Expand app by the Monroe Institute. I tend to put on Focus 10 or Focus 12 under the timer section for an extended duration and just trying to feel it out.

Usually just before or starting the audio I put an intention out there like "I deeply want to exit my body" and repeat it in my head a few times.

What process do you guys go through that works for you?

If you could please be as detailed as possible and let me know if there is anything I should be doing that CANT be skipped I'd appreciate it!

A dreadful hypothetical that came up in a lucid conversation over a gravity bong, creative writing query. What do ya'll think?

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share my logs, a bit of my background with altered states, and get some feedback from the community on how to optimize my transition to Advanced Focus 10.

I’m 27, a software engineering student dealing with massive daily workloads (thesis development + intensive daily cardio), which means I usually crash hard at night. This physical exhaustion has been a major variable in my practice.

Here is my breakdown. I'd love to hear your thoughts on my progress and what to look out for next.

My Background: Pre-Gateway Altered States

Long before discovering the Gateway Experience, I had a highly active, involuntary "native" system. I experienced intense sleep paralysis frequently—sometimes multiple times a night. Back then, it felt like some external force was forcing me into that state against my will.

My historical pattern has always been tied to a specific type of insomnia: whenever I struggled to fall asleep despite being physically exhausted, it was an infallible sign that sleep paralysis was coming. During those native episodes, I often felt my "energetic hands" moving independently, but I also experienced scary hypnagogic auditory hallucinations (unintelligible voices) and weird shadow figures emerging from the ceiling. Because I didn’t have administrative control or tools, my brain interpreted the physical lockdown through fear.

The Gateway Logs: Post-Gateway Experiences

Wave I: Orientation & Focus 3

• The Orientation Breakthrough: Entering Focus 10 through the Orientation track felt incredibly natural and fast. Because my body already knew the physiological mechanics of sleep paralysis, Orientation bypassed a lot of the usual beginner resistance.
• The Focus 3 Projection: The very first time I hit Focus 3, things escalated quickly. I felt myself floating completely out of sync with my body and vividly projected right into the next room. It caught me off guard, the sudden shift freaked me out, and I snapped back.

Wave I: Intro to Focus 10 (The Sandbox Phase)

• The Posture & Chemical Dilemma: At first, practicing Intro to Focus 10 while trying to force myself to consciously stay flat on my back was tough. I almost thought about taking a mild sleeping aid to lower my alertness, but realized that would just dull my conscious mind and ruin the Mind Awake/Body Asleep matrix. I fixed this by putting a pillow under my knees to release lower back tension.
• The Transition from Voluntary to Native: Initially, I struggled because I was trying to force a state voluntarily that my body already knew how to do natively. I kept hitting an "insomnia wall" right after the audios due to hemispheric synchronization. But I learned to use a hybrid method: using the audio to trigger the deep vibrations, taking off the headphones, and letting the native sleep paralysis take over smoothly in absolute silence.
• Overcoming Physical Hurdles: I've dealt with intense environmental heat, a too-low volume bug that forced my analytical mind to overwork, and sudden phantom sensations like an uncomfortable rubbing/massages on my feet or severe full-body itching (the nervous system's connectivity test).
• The Sharigan Deflector & New Memories: During a recent 1:00 AM deep session, I hit Focus 10 so fast I beat Monroe's verbal cue. Inside the state, I heard an unintelligible voice. Remembering my pre-Gateway fears, I immediately visualized the Sharingan spinning in front of me as a focal anchor to ignore the voice and the foot sensations. It worked perfectly. I even unlocked a memory of consciously bringing my energetic hands together and clapping/rubbing them against each other, confirming a highly stable secondary energy body.
• Time Distortion & Click-Outs: My last few sessions have run the full 37 minutes, but due to deep time dilation, it feels like only 15. I frequently experience "click-outs" (temporary loss of linear awareness) and wake up right as the track loops.

Community Feedback & Next Steps

I’m currently practicing right before bed with a blackout mask and calibrated volume. I can now enter and exit Focus 10 multiple times in a single session, though my reasoning inside the state is definitely less logical and much more driven by raw emotion/intuition.

Given that my biological baseline lets me separate my energetic hands, manipulate visual anchors to kill fear, and hit the paralysis threshold rapidly, am I ready to move on to Advanced Focus 10?

Monroe's Intro text can get a bit blurry at low volumes, so I plan to read the scripts beforehand to familiarize my subconscious with the verbal audio cues without needing to analyze them syllable-by-syllable.

For those who had natural sleep paralysis before Gateway, did moving to Advanced Focus 10 (the quick-counting and active REBAL manipulation) help eliminate the dead time where itching and phantom tactile sensations pop up? Any advice on stabilizing the emotional impulses once you're locked into the state?

I would like to evolve my focus level , any advice?

Thanks for reading!

I had a strong experience here listening to the sleep exploration tape.

I woke up in my bedroom like always, I felt my legs tingling, I felt a presence in front of me that was moving my legs side to side and then moved my legs to the corner of the bed suggesting for me to stand up. I did. However, after that I got out of that state and found myself laying down in bed again. Look to the ceiling I saw the image of a shaman in a green smoke doing q celebration chant. There were no drugs involved. I just slept listening to tape 5 without much previous training.

It was so real and so easy that I am afraid of trying again. It was all great but I felt vulnerable.

Whatbis your experience? I would like to hear from people with similar experiences and what happened after that?

So I have a mysterious case on my hands and I will tell you why!

I first started messing with the Gateway Tapes in 2022 when a friend gifted me an iPod with high quality recordings of the entire Monroe tape collection. I took to it quickly and had a number of strange experiences, I once posted about how a MRI tech saw a phantom arm on my MRI mid procedure while I was practicing f10 from memory, and at some point around 2 years ago the iPod disappeared.

I had already become hesitant to use the tapes anymore so it kind of felt like a sign but I also suspected a bad date of having taken it. Since then, I have completely rearranged the room, deep cleaned thoroughly, gotten entirely new bedding and not to mention searched EVERYWHERE for this dang iPod. It was gone, I figured the bad date took it because I showed him the iPod and he was interested in the tapes, and that was that. No more gateway tapes.

Well, I’ll spare the details but basically my life has a way of being cosmic and karmic and I’m at a point where a lot of my wishes have been granted but I’m learning all sorts of lessons, there’s a real trickster like energy afoot, and I’ve been feeling like everything is starting to come together in a strange and wonderful and scary way.

The other day my cat got into my bedroom, which is also my studio, and that’s not allowed and he knows it. He darted under my bed and I lifted my bed skirt and… there was the iPod, sitting there with my naughty cat positioned right behind it.

This was immediately shocking because not only is the bed in the opposite side of the room from when I last saw the iPod, but I clean under there every so often (easily 10 times in the last 2 years) and just recently had. There was barely any dust on it compared to the light layer that had collected since my last sweep.

So, the tapes have reappeared. The date didn’t take the iPod. Back when I was using the tapes I had a lot of bizarre stuff happening and I feel very intrigued and hesitant to use them again. While using the tapes I had secret information given to me that turned out to be true… and now I am feeling afraid of whatever truths it may reveal now, especially after disappearing and reappearing like that during this time in my life.

So, what should I do? :)

I'm fairly sure that I have a decent level of focus 12 but I just need somebody to clarify how exactly it feels

when I reach focus 12 there isn't anything extremely different but I feel hyper aware, kind of like when you're falling asleep and hear a loud noise and your body instinctively scans its surroundings, except it lasts far longer. Usually in focus 10 I'm very relaxed and oblivious to my surroundings but after the focus 12 countdown I become very aware almost to the level of perception and particularly I become aware of the door, the window and my phone. This perception doesn't really leave the confines of my room though.

Is this the regular state of focus 12 or just focus 10 with extra steps?

I love my daily coffee (and I am addicted to it), but I often see it suggested that any type of substance or stimulant can alter or detract from the Gateway Experience.

I’m trying to balance my daily routine with my tape practice and would love to hear your personal experiences.

Also, I would like to know what other or routines did you have to cut out because they were actively ruining or blocking your outcomes?

Thanks in advance to anyone who wants to share their experiences.

I am intrigued, but I haven’t started listening to them yet, and I am just looking at both sides to see if there is any reason that I shouldn’t.

Thank you in advance!