--- title: "Robert Monroe: Life, Books and the Monroe Institute" description: "Robert Monroe (1915 to 1995) was a US radio producer who wrote three books on out-of-body experiences, starting in 1971, and founded the Monroe Institute." url: https://shimmr.app/learn/robert-monroe/ --- - [Learn](https://shimmr.app/learn/) - [Meditation](https://shimmr.app/learn/meditation/) # Robert Monroe: his life, his books and the Monroe Institute Robert Monroe (1915 to 1995) was a US radio producer who wrote three books on out-of-body experiences, starting in 1971, and founded the Monroe Institute. The Shimmr team Published Oct 31, 2026 4 min read - **Who he was:** Robert Monroe was born on 30 October 1915 in Lexington, Kentucky, worked as a radio writer and producer, and died on 17 March 1995, aged 79. - **What he is known for:** from 1958 he described experiences outside his body, and his 1971 book “Journeys Out of the Body” helped make the term “out-of-body experience” popular. - **His books in order:** “Journeys Out of the Body” (1971), “Far Journeys” (1985) and “Ultimate Journey” (1994), best read in that order. - **The Monroe Institute:** in 1977 Monroe renamed his research organisation the Monroe Institute; today it is a non-profit in Faber, Virginia, that sells the Gateway Experience course. - **The sound:** Monroe did not invent binaural beats, which were described in 1839; his Hemi-Sync recordings layer them with noise and a guiding voice. Hear it ## Who was Robert Monroe? Robert Monroe was an American radio writer and producer who became one of the best known writers on out-of-body experiences. If you search for Robert Monroe, you usually meet him through his books, the Monroe Institute or the Gateway tapes. According to the [Psi Encyclopedia](https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/robert-monroe) of the Society for Psychical Research, he was born on 30 October 1915 in Lexington, Kentucky, and died on 17 March 1995, aged 79. In the 1940s and 1950s Monroe wrote and produced radio programmes, and he went on to own radio stations. That work with sound shaped the rest of his life. In spring 1958, while he was experimenting with learning from recordings during sleep, he began to have experiences he described as leaving his body. He spent the next decades writing about them and building ways to reach similar states with sound. ## What did Robert Monroe write? Robert Monroe wrote three books, now often sold together as the Journeys trilogy: | Year | Book | What it covers | | --- | --- | --- | | 1971 | Journeys Out of the Body | His first experiences from 1958, told like a diary | | 1985 | Far Journeys | Longer journeys, his own map of states and terms such as loosh | | 1994 | Ultimate Journey | His later ideas about life, death and what he believed comes after | The first book is the one most people mean. It helped make the phrase “out-of-body experience” popular, and it is the most down to earth of the three: he describes what happened, how it felt and his own doubts. Later books move much further into his personal beliefs. ## In what order should you read Robert Monroe’s books? Read Robert Monroe’s books in the order he wrote them: “Journeys Out of the Body”, then “Far Journeys”, then “Ultimate Journey”. Each one uses words and ideas he set up in the book before, so starting with the third can be confusing. Read them as one man’s account, not as a manual or a scientific report. Out-of-body experiences are real experiences in the sense that many people report them, and neuroscience studies them. But no study has shown that anyone actually leaves their body. Our article on [astral projection](https://shimmr.app/learn/astral-projection/) covers what the research says. ## What is the Monroe Institute? The Monroe Institute is a non-profit organisation in Faber, Virginia, built around Robert Monroe’s work. The Psi Encyclopedia notes that he renamed his organisation the Monroe Institute in 1977 and moved it to a larger site. Today it runs residential programmes and sells home audio courses. The best known of those courses is the Gateway Experience, a series of guided recordings with numbered states called Focus levels, starting with [Focus 10](https://shimmr.app/learn/focus-10/), “mind awake, body asleep”. It became famous in 2021, when a 1983 US Army report on the method, kept in the CIA’s public archive, went viral. You can read the full story in our guide to the [Gateway tapes](https://shimmr.app/learn/gateway-tapes/). ## Did Robert Monroe invent binaural beats? No, Robert Monroe did not invent binaural beats. The effect was described by the physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in 1839: play one tone in your left ear and a slightly different tone in your right, and you hear a slow pulse that is not in either sound. The Psi Encyclopedia says the idea came to Monroe’s team when one of his scientists read a magazine article about binaural beats. His own early patent is about something else. [US patent 3,884,218](https://patents.google.com/patent/US3884218A/en), filed in 1970 and granted on 20 May 1975, describes inducing sleep with a familiar, pleasing repetitive sound shaped by the pattern of a sleep EEG, the test that records brain rhythms. It does not mention binaural beats. What Monroe did create is Hemi-Sync, his name for a blend of several binaural beats, masking noise and a guiding voice. Our article on [Hemi-Sync](https://shimmr.app/learn/hemi-sync/) explains how it differs from plain binaural beats and what the evidence says. ## What is loosh? Loosh is a word Robert Monroe used in “Far Journeys” for a kind of energy that, in his account, living beings give off, most of all through strong emotion, and that other beings collect. It is an idea from his own experiences, not something anyone has measured. Online it has grown far beyond his book, so if you want to know what he actually said, read the book itself. ## How can you try the sound behind Monroe’s work? You can try binaural beats, the sound underneath Hemi-Sync, with any pair of headphones. Lie down, keep the volume low and give it 15 to 30 minutes. Never listen while driving, and if you have epilepsy, ask your doctor first. Shimmr is not affiliated with Robert Monroe or the Monroe Institute and contains none of their recordings. It is simply a way to try binaural beats on your iPhone. A Theta session, or the Tense → At Ease Shift, which glides from Beta to Theta over 15 minutes, is a gentle start. - [Gateway tapes alternative A modern take on the Gateway tapes. Made by someone who has used them.](https://shimmr.app/gateway-tapes-alternative/) In the app Tense → At Ease · 15 min A binaural Shift that glides from Beta to Theta for headphones, lying down. On a speaker, try an isochronic Theta session instead. ## Common questions **Who was Robert Monroe?** Robert Monroe (1915 to 1995) was an American radio writer and producer who became known for describing out-of-body experiences. He wrote three books about them, developed the Hemi-Sync audio method and founded the Monroe Institute in Virginia. **What order should you read Robert Monroe’s books in?** Read them in the order he wrote them: “Journeys Out of the Body” (1971), “Far Journeys” (1985) and “Ultimate Journey” (1994). Each book builds on the ideas and terms of the one before. **What is the Monroe Institute?** The Monroe Institute is a non-profit organisation in Faber, Virginia, that Robert Monroe gave its name in 1977. It runs residential programmes and sells home audio courses such as the Gateway Experience, built on his Hemi-Sync sound. **Did Robert Monroe invent binaural beats?** No. Binaural beats were described by the physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in 1839. Monroe built his Hemi-Sync method on them, layering several beats with noise and spoken guidance. **What is loosh?** Loosh is a word Robert Monroe used in “Far Journeys” for a kind of energy that, in his account, living beings give off through strong emotion and other beings collect. It comes from his own experiences; nobody has measured or shown it. Keep reading - [Science Hemi-Sync vs binaural beats: what is different, which frequencies it uses and the evidence](https://shimmr.app/learn/hemi-sync/) - [Meditation The Gateway tapes: what they are, what the CIA report says and the binaural beats inside](https://shimmr.app/learn/gateway-tapes/) - [Meditation Is astral projection real? What science knows about out-of-body experiences](https://shimmr.app/learn/astral-projection/) This article is for general information and is not medical advice. Binaural beats are not a treatment for insomnia or any other condition.