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The US Army once wrote a report on leaving your body.

ConsciousnessEstablished

In 1983, Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. Wayne McDonnell assessed the Gateway Process, a meditation method taught at the Monroe Institute in Virginia. The report was declassified in 2003 and went viral two decades later. The document is real. What it describes is not proven.

Truth label: Established. Strong evidence and broad agreement among experts.

Go deeper

What Gateway is

A training programme using sound, breathing and focus to reach deep, altered states. Its creator, Robert Monroe, wrote about his own out-of-body experiences.

What the report argues

McDonnell explains the method using ideas from physics, including holograms and energy fields. It is one officer's analysis, written to judge whether the method was worth exploring.

The missing page

Page 25 was missing from the public copy for years, which fuelled endless theories. It surfaced in 2021 and turned out to be fairly ordinary.

Learn

  1. The sound trick. Gateway uses "binaural beats": a slightly different tone in each ear, which the brain hears as a third, pulsing beat.
  2. Why the military cared. During the Cold War, US agencies explored many unusual ideas in case rivals were ahead. Gateway was looked at alongside remote viewing.
  3. How to read it. The report proves the Army took the method seriously enough to study it. It does not prove that out-of-body travel works.

Test yourself

What does the 1983 Gateway report prove?

The Army studied the method. The report shows official interest, not that the experiences are real.

What sound technique does Gateway use?

Binaural beats. A different tone in each ear creates a perceived beat.

Sources

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