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American founder of The Monroe Institute and Hemi Sync technologies

Robert Allan Monroe (October 30, 1915 – March 17, 1995) was an American radio broadcasting executive who became known for his ideas about altered states of consciousness and for founding The Monroe Institute which continues to promote those ideas. His 1971 book Journeys Out of the Body is credited with popularizing the term "out of body experience". Monroe developed Hemi Sync which he claimed could facilitate enhanced brain performance. He was one of the founders of the Jefferson Cable Corporation, the first cable company to cover central Virginia.

Robert Allan Monroe was born in 1915 in Indiana and grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, and Columbus, Ohio. His mother, Georgia Helen Jordan Monroe, was a non practicing medical doctor, cellist, and piano player. His father, Robert Emmett Monroe, was a professor of Romance Languages who led summer tours to Europe. Monroe had two older sisters, Dorothy and Peggy, and a younger brother, Emmett, who became a medical doctor. Monroe had an early fascination with flying and music. According to his third book Ultimate Journey, he dropped out of Ohio State University in his sophomore year due to a hospital stay for a facial burn that caused him to fall behind in his studies. During almost a year away from college, a desire to find work led him to become a hobo who rode freight trains. He returned to Ohio State to graduate after having studied pre med, English, engineering, and journalism. He married Jeanette, a graduate student and daughter of a lawyer, in 1937, and divorced her in 1938 or 1939. He married Mary Ashworth, a divorcee with a daughter Maria, in 1950 or 1951. They had Bob's only biological child together, daughter Laurie. They divorced in 1968. He then married Nancy Penn Honeycutt, a divorcee with four children. They remained married until her death from breast cancer on August 15, 1992. Monroe developed ulcers in young adulthood and so was classified 4F (unfit for service) during World War II. He spent the war years working for a manufacturing company that designed a flight simulator prototype. He wrote for an aviation column in Argosy magazine and was given a job with the National Aeronautic Association (NAA), for whom he produced a weekly radio show called "Scramble! ", the primary purpose of which was to interest youth in aviation. In 1953 Monroe formed RAM Enterprises, a corporation that produced network radio programs, as many as 28 programs monthly, principally in dramatic and popular quiz shows. In 1956 the firm created a Research and Development division to study the effects of various sound patterns on human consciousness, including the sleep state. Monroe was especially attracted to the concept of sleep learning. This was a natural direction to take, applying to this new area the audio production methods used in the firm's commercial activity. The purpose was to find more constructive uses for such knowledge than was ordinarily available, and the results of this research have become internationally known.

According to his own account, while experimenting with sleep learning in 1958 Monroe experienced an unusual phenomenon, which he described as sensations of paralysis and vibration accompanied by a bright light that appeared to be shining on him from a shallow angle. Monroe went on to say that this occurred another nine times over the next six weeks, culminating in his first out of body experience (OBE). Monroe recorded his account in his 1971 book Journeys Out of the Body and went on to become a prominent researcher in the field of human consciousness. Upwards of 20,000 people are estimated to have attended TMI's residential Gateway program during its first thirty years. TMI claims a policy of no dogma or bias with respect to belief system, religion, political or social stance. The institute is housed in several buildings on of land south of Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. In 1978, the U. S. military evaluated TMI and arranged to send officers there for OBE training. In 1983, it sent additional officers. The Institute has an affiliated professional membership, and also publishes scientific papers on a subset of its own studies of altered states of consciousness.

In 1994, a front page article in The Wall Street Journal reported confirmation from the former director of the Intelligence and Security Command of the U. S. Army sending personnel to the institute. It also stated the opinion of the head of the Zen Buddhist temple in Vancouver British Columbia that "Gateway students can reach meditation states in a week that took [me] 30 years of sitting". A reporter for The Hook, weekly newspaper for Charlottesville, Virginia, who visited The Monroe Institute said, " with a few exceptions, the only 'normal' people with whom I could fully identify were the trainers, who seemed remarkably well grounded for people whose day to day experiences include astral projection and disembodied spirits". The reporter also concluded that "there is something significant being developed at the Institute. Whether it's just a brilliant guided meditation complete with trance inducing stereoscopic sound, or a doorway to a world of spirit entities, I cannot say". concerning audio techniques designed to stimulate brain functions until the left and right hemispheres became synchronized. Monroe held that this state, dubbed Hemi Sync that could be used to promote mental well being or to trigger an altered state of consciousness. Monroe's concept was based on an earlier hypothesis known as binaural beats and has since been expanded upon a commercial basis by the self help industry. Hemi Sync is short for Hemispheric Synchronization, also known as brainwave synchronization. Monroe indicated that the technique synchronizes the two hemispheres of one's brain, thereby creating a 'frequency following response' designed to evoke certain effects. Hemi Sync has been used for many purposes, including relaxation and sleep induction, learning and memory aids, helping those with physical and mental difficulties, and reaching altered states of consciousness through the use of sound. The technique involves using sound waves to entrain brain waves. Wearing headphones, Monroe claimed that brains respond by producing a third sound (called binaural beats) that encouraged various brainwave activity changes. In 2002, a University of Virginia presentation at the Society for Psychophysiologial Research examined Monroe's claim. The presentation demonstrated that EEG changes did not occur when the standard electromagnetic headphones of Monroe's setup were replaced by air conduction headphones, which were connected to a remote transducer by rubber tubes. This suggests that the basis for the entrainment effects is electromagnetic rather than acoustical. Replicated, double blind, randomized trials on anesthetized patients have found Hemi Sync effective as a partial replacement for fentanyl during surgery. A similar study found it ineffective at replacing propofol, however.