Lehal Library

Today the Gateway Program is held for a full seven-day period at our Center facility in Virginia. The Center is designed specifically to handle the Gateway Program. No longer does one have to lie on the floor for taped exercises. Instead the Center now provides what are called CHEC Units (Controlled Holistic Environmental Chambers), which provide isolation much as we had in our original laboratory booths. Not only are the taped exercises conducted by headphones in the CHEC Unit, but the participant actually sleeps in these during the night. Because it is much like a Pullman berth on the old railroad trains, some people initially feel they cannot sleep in there the first night, because of a sense of claustrophobia perhaps. With the environmental treatment in the CHEC Unit—fresh air and temperature control plus sleep sounds that are available—the main problem after the second night is to wake them up, the isolated sleep has been so productive and restful. It helps achieve such a complete sleep that a number of participants have built CHEC Units in their own homes. Because the Gateway Program is so difficult to produce and conduct properly, each year we question the value of continuing it. All things considered, it is certainly not a financial success, although supposedly we are the only research facility that charges for the privilege of being a volunteer. Each time we consider closing it down, we receive just coincidentally another report from a graduate who states how meaningful and how constructive have been the results of his attendance. So we schedule another year of Gateways. * “No time” consciousness. † Controlled Holistic Environmental Chamber.