Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: CIA: The Gateway Experience: Brain Sync

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

CIA: The Gateway Experience: Brain Sync

Motivation Manifestated; Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

CIA DECLASSIFIED: The Gateway Experience: Brain Hemisphere Synchronization

(Motivation Manifested, 7/2/21) The author of the Gateway Process Report is Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell. There isn’t much information available on him nor many photographs.

In 1983, McDonnell was tasked by the commander of the U.S. Army Operational Group with figuring out how The Gateway Experience, astral projection, and out-of-body experiences work.

McDonnell partnered with others to produce the report, most notably Itzhak Bentov, a very Googleable Israeli-American scientist who helped pioneer the biomedical engineering industry.

A scientific approach

From the outset of the report, McDonnell states his intent to employ an objective scientific method in order to understand the Gateway Experience process. The various scientific avenues he takes include:

A biomedical inquiry to understand the physical aspects of the process.
Information on quantum mechanics to describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness.
Theoretical physics to explain the time-space dimension and means by which expanded human consciousness transcends it.
Classical physics to bring the whole phenomenon of out-of-body states into the language of physical science (and remove the stigma of an occult connotation).

Methodological frames of reference

Before diving into the Gateway Experience, McDonnell develops a frame of reference by dissecting three discrete consciousness-altering methodologies.

He’s basically saying there’s no way one is going to get through the Gateway without a solid grounding in the brain-altering techniques that came before it.

1) He begins with hypnosis. The language is extremely dense, but the gist of it is as follows: The left side of the brain screens incoming stimuli, categorizing, assessing, and assigning meaning to everything through self-cognitive, verbal, and linear reasoning. The left hemisphere then dishes the carefully prepared data to the non-critical, holistic, pattern-oriented right hemisphere, which accepts everything without question. Hypnosis works by putting the left side to sleep, or at least distracting it long enough to allow incoming data direct, unchallenged entry to the right hemisphere. There, stimuli can reach the sensor and motor cortices of the right brain, which corresponds to points in the body. Suggestions then can send electrical signals from the brain to certain parts of the body. Directing these signals appropriately, according to the report, can elicit reactions ranging from left leg numbness to feelings of happiness. Same goes for increased powers of concentration.

2) McDonnell continues with a snapshot of transcendental meditation (TM). He distinguishes it from hypnotism. Through concentration the subject draws energy up the spinal cord, resulting in acoustical waves that run through the cerebral ventricles, to the right hemisphere, where they stimulate the cerebral cortex, run along the homunculus and then to the body. The waves are the altered rhythm of heart sounds, which create sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the fluid-filled cavities of the brain’s ventricles. He observed that the symptoms begin in the left side of the body, confirming the right brain’s complicity. Bentov also states that the same effect might be achieved by prolonged exposure to 4-7 Hertz/second acoustical vibrations. He suggests standing by an air conditioning duct might also do the trick.

3) Biofeedback, on the other hand, uses the left hemisphere to gain access to the right brain’s lower cerebral, motor, and sensory cortices. Whereas hypnosis suppresses one side of the brain, and TM bypasses that side altogether, biofeedback teaches the left hemisphere to visualize the desired result, recognize the feelings associated with right hemisphere access, and ultimately achieve the result again. With repetition, the left brain can reliably key into the right brain, and strengthen the pathways so that it can be accessed during a conscious demand mode. A digital thermometer is subsequently placed on a target part of the body. When its temperature increases, objective affirmation is recognized and the state is reinforced. Achieving biofeedback can block pain, enhance feeling, and even suppress tumors, according to the report.

The Gateway mechanics

With that, McDonnell takes a first stab at the Gateway process. He classifies it as a “training system designed to bring enhanced strength, focus and coherence to the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness.”