May/June 2004 Alternative Health
The Monroe Institute and Hemi-Sync®: Tools of Exploration

by Nelson Lerner

Meditation has finally reached the mainstream. Last summer it even made the cover of Time magazine (with a levitating Heather Graham, no less!). The article focused on the science of meditation - what happens in our brains, and why it is so beneficial. While techniques to meditate were presented, what wasn’t addressed is how our busy lives and over-stimulated brains sometimes make it difficult to relax and "quiet the mind".

Hemi-Sync® is a patented, state of the art, clinically proven audio technology that can help one safely and easily achieve specific states of consciousness, including meditation. Developed over 40 years ago by Robert Monroe, founder of The Monroe Institute, Hemi-Sync® has almost limitless applications, including meditation, relaxation, learning, creativity, sleep, healing and pain control.

The technology of Hemi-Sync®- synchronizing to the binaural beat

Short for hemispheric synchronization, Hemi-Sync® utilizes the naturally occurring phenomenon of a binaural beat to help the brain achieve a specific set of frequencies. Simply stated, when two slightly different frequencies are played in each ear, the brain creates a third signal, called a binaural beat, and effectively hears the difference between the original frequencies. For instance, if you heard a tone of 100 Hz (cycles per second) in your left ear and one of 104 Hz in your right ear, your brain would create a third signal at a frequency of four Hz. Because there is a correlation between brainwave frequencies (delta, theta, alpha and beta) and states of consciousness (deep sleep, dreams, relaxation and focus), Hemi-Sync® can be used to help create virtually any state of consciousness, from deep sleep to focused learning.

What makes Hemi-Sync® so powerful is the synchronization of the hemispheres that occurs as a result of the creation of the binaural beat. Whole brain coherence is a natural state, but in our hectic lives it is very rare, though geniuses and the very gifted are thought to achieve it fairly easily. It has long been thought that this whole brain state is especially conducive to profound meditative experiences. In the seventies, research on longtime meditators found that they did in fact attain hemispheric synchronization but could only hold it for limited periods of time, up to about ten minutes.

Listening to Hemi-Sync® allows one to easily achieve and maintain hemispheric synchronization and there appears to be a training process. Research shows that with practice one can learn to achieve both desired states of consciousness and hemispheric synchronization without listening to tapes.

This is a simplification of the process - the brain is enormously complex and doesn’t resonate to just one frequency at a time. The Monroe Institute has spent over forty years developing sophisticated combinations of frequencies. The early research performed by Robert Monroe was trial and error as he worked with a group of people whom he called his explorers. The Institute now uses sophisticated, state-of-the-art brain neuro-mappers to analyze the brain and then reverse engineer their findings to produce their Hemi-Sync® designer mixtures.

Applications of Hemi-Sync®

Meditation has been practiced for millennia and for many the benefits go far beyond relaxation. Monroe, inspired by his own extraordinary experiences, became fascinated with the idea of using Hemi-Sync® as a tool of consciousness exploration. Working with his explorers, he discovered distinct states of consciousness that could be experienced by anyone when listening to a certain mix of Hemi-Sync® frequencies. These states, or focus levels as he called them, became the basis for The Monroe Institute's residential programs.

It would appear that these states are universal. An article about The Monroe Institute Programs published in The Wall Street Journal in 1994 noted: "One Gateway (residential program) alumnus and fan is Kai Sui Fung, the 91-year old head of the Zen Buddhist temple in Vancouver British Columbia. He believes that (Monroe Institute) Gateway students can reach meditation states in a week that took him years of sitting. His temple now uses audiotapes from the Monroe Institute as a training tool."

Unlike other meditation systems, there is no dogma at The Monroe Institute, other than the suggestion that we are more than our physical bodies. If anything, there is a message of self-empowerment. We are unique beings who perceive and bring our own overview to what really is a personal undertaking. The openness that is created combined with the Hemi-Sync® exercises and a carefully crafted progressive format for exploring consciousness results in many participants having profound experiences that can change their overview of life. The Monroe Institute (TMI) has been running programs since 1973 and has had over 20,000 participants

There are other applications for Hemi-Sync® besides meditation – sleep, relaxation, mental focus and creativity being a few. One that deserves mention is the Surgical Support Series, meant to be listened to before, during and after surgery. A double blind peer reviewed study, found that those that used the Surgical series tapes needed less anesthesia and recovered quicker than those listening to tapes that did not have Hemi-Sync® signals.

The Monroe Institute holds three patents on the Hemi-Sync® technology and continues with its research into consciousness, maintaining its cutting edge position in the field. It has an impressive board of advisors, including Charles Tart, Peter Russell and Joseph Chilton Pearce. When he started this work back in the late fifties, Robert Monroe was already a very successful executive in the radio and cable TV business, so he didn't need to make a lot of money from it. Rather, he was a curious person who had some remarkable experiences and wanted to explore and develop his technology and programs as his way of helping improve the world. In fact, for many years the programs at the Institute were not advertised - people found out by word of mouth - yet somehow the programs were always filled. A real life "if you build it, they will come" story.

Laurie and Nelson Lerner are Monroe Institute Outreach Trainers and Reiki Masters. They also design and facilitate Hemi-Sync® programs for healers, therapists, hospitals and schools. Their healing/coaching practice is located in Hood River, OR. For more information contact them at 509-493-8916 or www.lernerconnect.com.

Upcoming Monroe Institute workshops in Portland: May 14th (intro) and May 22-23rd through Healing Waters & Sacred Spaces, (503) 528-1430, and June 5th at New Renaissance Bookstore (503-224-4929.