The Gateway Tapes: does a CIA document prove music can take you to a “shifted reality”?
The Danish physicist Niels Bohr once addressed his sons’ complaints about the obtuse nature of concepts in physics by saying, “You are not thinking; you are merely being logical.” In other words, it can often be hard to wrap our heads around certain concepts while still keeping them firmly attached to our bodies. Some theories (particularly those involving music) are outlandish, bordering on insane, to the point that entertaining them feels like a waste of time and energy. But is it?
The CIA didn’t think so in 1983 when they tasked a team of researchers to explore the use of the Gateway Experience. This test involved listening to different pieces of music in the hope that they would stimulate the listener’s consciousness to the point that the way they perceived the world changed; they could access alternate realities and travel forwards and backwards in time. In the first paragraph of their assessment, the researchers confessed, “That proved to be an extremely involved and difficult business.”
As explained in the report, “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 the restrictions of time and space.”
While the concept may sound a bit out there, it’s not the first time that scientists have looked into altering brainwaves through music. It has been used as a means to treat people with mental illnesses for a while now; as psychiatrist Dr Segundo Robert-Ibarra notes, “Music is a way to reach people initially resistant to traditional talk therapy.” He continues, “Grief and depression have a way of high-jacking the mind and creating a sense of no longer being yourself. Listening to familiar music that has a personal meaning can be a way for people to remember who they were before experiencing trauma.”
John Head, a Houston Methodist, agrees, saying, “Music is so sticky because it interacts with multiple parts of our brain. It can help normalise an otherwise chaotic space like an unfamiliar hospital or a monster encounter.”
The Gateway Tapes expand upon the theory of using music to massively alter brainwaves. They operate within a branch of theoretical physics that doesn’t look at the brain in the same way that most other scientific practices do. Instead, it views the brain as a hologram connected to a wider hologram, which is the world around it.
Scientist Keith Floyd describes this theory, saying, “Contrary to what everyone knows is so, it may not be the brain that produces consciousness—but rather, consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain…”
The Gateway Tapes would theoretically change the frequencies that make up human consciousness so that it can interpret the hologram it is connected to differently. It was widely considered to be a success, as it was reported that people began to review an alternate world around them when exposed to the frequency conveyed within the tapes.
Physicist Marilyn Ferguson discussed these results, saying they could explain why people believe they’ve been exposed to paranormal events that go beyond what we see in our everyday lives. She confirmed The Gateway Experience “Marries brain research to theoretical physics; it accounts for normal perception and simultaneously takes the paranormal and transcendental experiences out of the supernatural by explaining them as a part of nature.”
The power of the tapes was said to go a lot further than just giving people a different view of the world, though. There were various levels to them, and as people progressed and could connect with them differently, it was said that they could do completely supernatural things. Unfortunately, the report didn’t give any explanation on how long it will take people to transcend the laws of nature, as it specifies, “The amount of time required to reach advanced energy states and to fully exploit the techniques varies with the individual.”
However, in an unknown amount of time, it is believed that people should be capable of stepping outside the realms of time and space. The report specifies that there are different branches of the universe. There is the material universe, which is the one that we can comprehend, and then there is the Absolute universe, which is conscious energy in infinity. Essentially, there is still energy and life, but we can’t perceive it because it exists without boundaries. The report then states that several different dimensions exist between our perceived universe and the infinite universe. It’s believed that if people can connect enough with The Gateway Tapes, they can explore these other dimensions.
At this point, the whole thing begins to read like a video game manual, as the research explains that the more people progress with the tapes, the more they will be able to exploit newfound powers. The methods available expand, as the report references “Colour Breathing” and using an “Energy Tool Bar” to home in on frequencies. People can eventually travel back in time at level 15, but interestingly, they can’t travel forward until level 21.
It sounds ridiculous, but thinking back to Bohr’s quote earlier about how we tend to process things logically rather than open our minds to possibilities could suggest that we need to be more willing to accept such outlandish theories. After all, they haven’t only been put forward by the CIA; other musicians also believe otherworldly properties are contained within songs.
Sun Ra was famous for putting forward the idea that he got his musical inspiration given to him by The Creator and beings from other planets. He was always willing to play out-of-tune harmonies, saying that any music that didn’t subscribe to standard practices wasn’t “Earth music.”
It could well be that if you open your brain (which is a hologram) enough, you, too, will have the ability to travel in time, see the world from different perspectives, and transcend realities. If you want to give it a try, then listen to the playlist below, which contains the songs used in The Gateway Tapes.
