Back in the 1980s when everybody was presumably still coming down from the 1970s, the CIA conducted an investigation into human consciousness. In case you were wondering, no, that doesn’t sound entirely within the CIA’s remit, but better bizarre reports on consciousness than interfering in foreign elections!


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The report is an assessment of the Gateway Experience, proponents of which argue that there is an altered state of human consciousness that may be able to transcend space and time. The Gateway Process is a technique for entering this altered state of consciousness that was developed by the Monroe Institute, which specializes in studying human consciousness and its capacity for expansion.


Fortunately for us, the 29-page document was declassified in 2003, allowing us to read it in full to try and wrap our heads around what the hell the CIA was doing in the early 1980s. It’s believed that the report was connected to the CIA’s wider investigation into mind control and hypnosis in the context of aiding espionage conducted during the Cold War.


The report is long and dense, with journalist Tom Hale describing it as “touch[ing] on everything from neuroscience to quantum mechanics, wavering between hard science and pseudoscience as if wobbling between the two on a tightrope.”



As the report explains, the Gateway Experience is “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, moving it outside the physical sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space.”


Sure, okay.


According to the report, the universe is nothing more than a system of “interacting energy fields,” and human consciousness is no different; this means that through meditation, people can “hemi-sync” the brain waves in their left and right hemispheres, which will trigger an altered state of consciousness that frees you from physical energy and allows you to tap in to the universe’s energy fields.



It’s an interesting read, particularly if you’re tripping on psychedelics. But despite the deployment of scientific language and concepts, it shouldn’t be treated as anything more than it is: an unusual report on a pseudoscientific procedure published by the United States’ foreign intelligence service during the height of the Cold War.


Don’t let me deter you from attempting to uncouple your consciousness from your body and traverse space and time, however; how you choose to spend your weekends is your business.