Recalibration, right on time.
Field Notes 20260601-20260607 - Retrospective
This week’s Retrospective is a little different than the usual, and a little longer as well. At the end of last week (20260525-20260531), I made the decision that my physical body was essentially forcing on me. To avoid a total breakdown and an injury, I took this week (20260601-20260607) completely off from my usual early morning physical activity and replaced it with early morning meditation sessions.
This kind of week isn’t functionally new. My goal throughout the year is to, at the very least, take 4 weeks off from physical activity spread out over 12 months. Historically, this has kept me from acquiring new injuries, and when a year goes swimmingly well, all remains on a tight schedule. Well, we can’t count on things being perfect, reality is change. Last March did a number on my family and myself health-wise, which forced me to take a couple weeks off to recover from serious illness after helping others recover from it.
My basic mind treated this as “recovery time” instead of what it really was, actively fighting off a serious infection. So I never really had time to physically recover, so the issue was forced, and I took the time off. I’m also realizing that 4 weeks off sprinkled throughout the year might not be enough as I age, so I’ll be looking at this cadence more carefully.
The following is a collection of brief session notes from this week’s early morning meditation and trance sessions. A good time was had, much-needed recalibration that came at the exact right time.
- 20260601 - Monday
- 20260602 - Tuesday
- 20260603 - Wednesday
- 20260604 - Thursday
- 20260605 - Friday
- Through The Week of 20260601-20260607
20260601 - Monday
Morning
Meditation
- 90 Minutes.
- The Gateway Experience, “Intro to Focus 10” & “Advanced Focus 10”.
Starting the “De-Load & Reload” week with the ground-level fundamentals. It felt very nostalgic to hear Bob’s voice in those old recordings, and indeed there were a couple things I forgot or took for granted. First of all, it was nice to only focus on mind awake/body asleep. For 90 minutes that’s all I did. This session was one of the most enjoyable ones in a long time, and ironically it’s the exact kind that I was contemplating regarding practicing presence for over a week or so.
Afternoon
Meditation
- 20 Minutes.
- Expand App, timer section, F10 (mind awake, body asleep).
Quick afternoon “Release & Recharge” session to address some things I’ve been noticing lately. Nice and easy, I could feel a bit of a change from this morning’s session. Initiating F10 and settling in seemed gentler and more efficient.
20260602 - Tuesday
Morning
Meditation
- 90 Minutes.
- The Gateway Experience, “Intro to Focus 12” & “Advanced Focus 12”.
Initially, it took me a long time to get used to Focus 12 (expanded awareness). I made the classic mistake of using what others report as a template for what I thought I should be experiencing with this one. Don’t do that. There’s no problem reading about experiences of others, but you must always remember that your reality is your own… I could write a lot about that subject all by itself but this isn’t the place for that. With that, in my subjective experience, “consciousness expansion” leans more on the feeling of it rather than a visual, concept, or some other confirmation.
Afternoon
Meditation
- 15 Minutes.
- Expand App, timer section, F12 (expanded awareness).
Following yesterday’s template, I settled down for a quick session and focused (heh) on F12 this time. I took my time with it, and once I was coasting already in F12, I cast out what I used to request in the past a lot, “Show me something amazing, show me something new.” I’ll report back on that later.
20260603 - Wednesday
Morning
Meditation
- 90 Minutes.
- The Gateway Experience, “NVC I” & “NVC II”.
Before moving on to Focus 15 and refreshing with fundamental tracks, I took a pause in non-verbal communication (NVC) tracks. These are structured like a legitimate exercise, a drill even. You spend half of the time in F10 (mind awake/body asleep) and the other half in F12 (expanded awareness). While in F10, you’re guided to practice visualization as subjects are prompted with start and stop commands. When you move on to F12, you are then tasked to put yourself in a receptive posture and see if any NVC comes your way.
This morning I had a little bit of activity here and there. During one of the F12 sections, and while I was visualizing something, an amber, gold, and red mix of color burst from behind my eyes and outward. It was like someone turned on a flashlight really fast right between my eyes. The flash briefly flooded my field of view with a felt “click,” and then it was gone. Nothing too strange, this happens from time to time, although I’ve never had amber/gold/red hues like this before.
Perhaps this was the answer to my request from yesterday.
Afternoon
Meditation
- 30 Minutes.
- The Gateway Experience, “Sensing Locale 1”.
This is a fun exercise in which, as you lie there in expanded awareness of mind awake/body asleep mode, you attempt to reach walls that surround you in your physical environment. You’re not physically moving, but you are training that visualization muscle beyond normal everyday use cases.
During one of the first few times I attempted this tape a couple years ago, I had a very sudden OBE experience. For a moment, and very abruptly, I was jarred out of my body and watched myself lying on the ground (I was meditating on the floor of my office). What’s actually odd about it is that during this activity my point of view would flip between rising out of my physical body and watching myself rise out of the physical body as an outline double. I think about this experience a lot.
20260604 - Thursday
Morning
Meditation
- 90 Minutes.
- The Gateway Experience, “Intro to Focus 15” & “Exploring Focus 15”.
This morning was a little interesting, mainly for my own observation (like most of this is anyway). These tapes switch to Robert Monroe’s daughter, Laurie Monroe, for the intuition, Focus 15, and Focus 21 sets. I think she’s fantastic and I’ve become accustomed to her voice and instructions, but there’s just one thing… It doesn’t matter how deep or light of a trance that I’m in after the prep/first part of each track, when her voice comes in, I snap right out of mind awake/body asleep. I think it’s the mixing; volume is way too high, and I’m probably overly sensitive about it.
Over a couple years, I’ve learned to jump right back into mind awake/body asleep after being disrupted very quickly, so it’s not an issue anymore, but again this morning I was reminded of this… twice. Overall, I spent most of my time doing light manifesting work and just enjoying the place of F15 (place without time), it’s so dang peaceful.
Afternoon
Meditation
- 30 Minutes.
- The Gateway Experience, “Exploration, Sleep”.
So this was interesting because I think I’ve only done this one once. Feeling a little tired this afternoon, so I figured this is a good one to coast with. I fell asleep about halfway through, and now it’s clear why I don’t remember much about it.
20260605 - Friday
Morning
Meditation
- 90 Minutes.
- The Gateway Experience, “Intro to Focus 21”.
Back to my ol’ pal “Intro to Focus 21”. F21 has been one of those focus states I’m not quite sure I’ve got a handle on, unlike F10, F12, F15, and F18. I’ve stopped comparing my own experiences with others, and I lean on my own subjective experience a lot more now. Much like the other focus states, the sense, feeling, intuition that I’m “there” is there; unlike the others, I still don’t have the full picture or functionality.
Running the marathon of focus states from bedrock up to my old, familiar F21 “wall” was a valuable exercise. It’s not really blocking anything, just my trajectory within The Gateway Program, but I recognize there’s something here that still needs to be addressed. Pausing my “knocking on the F21 door” for a few months to focus on other areas, such as presence, was one of the best decisions I’ve made, and it highlighted that I should be practicing presence throughout all of my waking life, not just a deep dive and move on.
My next course of action for F21 is long, deep, unguided sessions, not sessions about inundating myself with F21 tracks but actual, structured ones with at least two complementing halves. This is exactly where my Gospel of John logion study comes in, the Presence Companion: considerable time meditating on select logion, in an environment where I can shift focus to accessing the F21 state.
Through The Week of 20260601-20260607
https://perceptindex.substack.com/p/the-round-room
https://perceptindex.substack.com/p/snap-right-out
https://perceptindex.substack.com/p/not-just-a-deep-dive-and-move-on
https://perceptindex.substack.com/p/show-me-what-i-havent-turned-toward
