Barbara Bullard.

The name is synonymous with the Professional Division, at least it is for me. That is because since I joined about 4 years ago, Barbara has been the mistress of ceremonies at every Professional Seminar I attended. She has also been a member of the PD Steering Committee/Leadership Council. I posed several questions to her:

1. What drew you to TMI in the first place? What were the circumstances?

I had been an expert in Super-Learning strategies for over 20 years by the time I discovered TMI. All of my students at Orange Coast College knew that I was looking for an audio presentation that naturally synchronizes the hemispheres of the brain. In 1988, one of my former students sent me an ad from The Monroe Institute about the Hemi-Sync® technology. The students in my advanced class ordered 24 Hemi-Sync tapes, having not heard them at all. They ordered 2, I got one free, and we all experimented. After the first 6 weeks, it was clear that these tapes were extraordinarily purposeful. Therefore, to see what was behind these tapes—that wasn’t behind the other myriad tapes I had—I went to my first TMI Gateway Voyage® program in 1988. Little did I know my own life would change at the Gateway.  

So what happened?

I took my Gateway in Reno, Nevada. The participants slept in yurts and we had our sessions in a circus tent. The first three days of the program nothing happened. I was not naive about guided imagery, I’d done lots of it. My reference point was always audio. There was never much visual imagery for me. The third night in a dream I encountered Edgar Cayce. He said to me that I had been asking for this opportunity for years. He told me to stop analyzing and surrender to the process. The next day during an exercise, I decided to go to sleep. The program facilitator appeared and took my hand and together we floated over trees, touching down at a medicine wheel made of rocks in the middle of a forest. There were three red feathers in the medicine wheel and the wheel was surrounded by seven pine trees. I sat down at the south position of the Medicine Wheel. A Native American Indian chief sat in the east. He foretold future events in my life and in the lives of my family members. When I went back to be with the group for debriefing, I gave my report for the exercise. After the meeting, some persons in the group took me to the hills of Reno to the very Medicine Wheel with three red feathers and surrounded by seven pine trees I had seen in my meditation. We meditated there. During the meditation, a Native American appeared and wanted to use my body as a channel to speak through, but I refused twice. Suddenly another meditating member of the group, a woman, fell backwards and in the voice of an American Indian man foretold the futures of the other members of the group. This experience was more paradigm-shifting than any previous experience for me.

2. When and how did you join the PD?

I came home from the Gateway in July, and felt strong and focused in level 10 through 15, but 21 was fading. In November, I received an inquiry from TMI. If I was willing to do research on Hemi-Sync, I could attend the Professional Seminar in 1989. Since I knew that the tapes were working so well for Super-Learning and now, for many other health issues for my students, I said, “Yes, I would study the tapes for the positive effects on my students and clients.” I attended my first Professional Seminar in 1989. Again, little did I know how my life would change.

What happened?

I realized I had to get out of “being an expert” and get into simply “being.” I always wanted to help others to have an experience of consciousness. At that point in time going to the Seminar included a lab session facilitated by Skip Atwater. I was at the point where I was comfortable getting into Foci 10, 12, and 15, but Focus 21 was not as clear. I wanted to anchor in Focus 21. About an hour into the lab session a Christ figure showed up. He said “Follow Me, I’ll show you love.” I agreed immediately and He raised His right hand and beamed me with love. Then Mother Mary came out from behind the Christ figure and said, “Follow Me, and I will give you peace.” I said, “But I’m not Catholic!” She replied that it didn’t matter. I had to integrate the Goddess, the Divine Feminine. And I agreed and She beamed me with peace. Then They told me They would combine the love and peace and give me ecstasy, and They did. After the session, I ran into Dr. Mohammed Sadigh, creator of the Metamusic® piece Inner Journey, and he asked what had happened to me as I had light streaming from my eyes. I said I didn’t know and he told me to take at least an hour alone to journal the experience. Later when I finished writing and went down to dinner, everyone saw the light streaming from my eyes.

3. How do you use the tools from TMI in your professional life?

For these 25 years, I have used Hemi-Sync and, more importantly, beta Metamusic to help my students super-learn profoundly. I have also been a guest speaker at academic conferences and Edgar Cayce conferences, to demonstrate how others can use Hemi-Sync successfully. I, of course, use them in my personal life every day. And I use Metamusic with alpha to sleep with every night—it has made a world of difference. The major tools that I use and I researched are the beta Metamusic that I helped create with TMI in 1994. The first one was Remembrance. Four years later was Einstein's Dream. Seven years later we created Indigo for Quantum Focus and Seasons at Roberts Mountain. After that, I continued my long-standing collaboration with John Epperson, musician extraordinaire. We created Golden Mind and Illumination for Peak-Performance. Then, TMI suggested other musicians, and I created Guitarra Clásica, Breakthrough for Peak-Performance, and Elation with Michael Maricle. I suppose I am most renowned for the creation of my beta Metamusic, which has been used around the world for ADHD, dyslexia, peak experience, and learning by everybody. I had two greatest successes. The first happened after I created the first beta Metamusic®, Remembrance. I created it to help my then ten-year-old son who was dealing with ADD to stay off the drug Ritalin. It is thought that the brains of ADD sufferers are unable to generate beta waves from the left hemisphere. He listened to Remembrance for six weeks and went out of ADD. He took no medicine and graduated high school with a B+ average. The second success happened completely out of my range of influence. A concessionaire was at a conference selling Hemi-Sync music. He was playing Remembrance at his table. Six Buddhist monks entered the room and shortly thereafter came over to him and said, “This is good for the brain; it teaches what Buddhism teaches you.”

4. I know you have had a prominent leadership role in the PD. How did that come about?

Being a communications professional, leadership roles are my forte. I would say that my prominent leadership role in the PD came about in 2010-2011 when the PD was being revised and the Steering Committee was created, later to become the Leadership Council. Because I was a person who had one of the longest histories with the Professional Division of TMI, I was asked to be on the Leadership Council. I reluctantly agreed. Since then, it has been a pleasure to be part of the leadership team that collaborates with TMI to make the Professional Seminars more powerful. My 40 years in communication and public speaking came of service again.

5. Tell us about your education, your point of origin (where you were born and grew up) and your work.

Education: I received my BA in 1965 in Rhetoric from Cal State Long Beach, my General Secondary Credential in 1966, and my MA in Rhetoric in 1967. In 1966 I became the youngest teacher ever hired at a California community college, and I became employed at Orange Coast College. My point of origin: I actually was born in Santa Monica, California, to a military family. So, we all went to Japan for three and a half years after WWII to be part of the rebuilding. When I was 9 and a half, we moved back to the South U.S. (North Carolina and Georgia). At 13, we moved to Germany for three years. And ultimately, when I was 16 and a half, we returned to the United States. I believe the international travel—and the experience of people of every creed, color, and belief system—has been the core to my work as a communications professor. (As for listings of my awards, you can find them on my resume.)

6. Any favorite TMI seminars? Any priceless TMI stories you would like to share? Please also mention any personal info that you would like to share about yourself and your family.

I suppose my favorite TMI seminar was my first in 1989. Usually, I am the professional; I am the expert. Amongst all of the other PD members, I found out just how little I knew, and just how much there was to learn—that was incredibly exciting to me! Most of the other PD members had been to many more TMI residential programs than I, so they were quite surprised by the “basic” questions I was asking, but each and every one of them was so gracious in bringing me up to speed on Hemi-Sync, the brain, and consciousness. There are too many priceless stories, and most are too personal, but one in particular was when Jim Greene and I [both pictured in photo below] and others began a persuasive barrage to get Bob Monroe to release some of the Gateway Experience series exercises to be used for the AIDS work. Bob did so and the Positive Immunity Program was launched right before he died. I am very proud of all of the work that each of us did to bring forth the Positive Immunity Program. Another priceless time was when the Seminar included Holographic Breathwork™ practitioners doing a session using Stan Grof’s Breathwork system combined with Hemi-Sync—the most powerful thing that I have ever experienced. To watch all of these engineers, scientists, and introverted researchers that I had been associated with for years, yell, cry, moan, and have ecstatic experiences was something I will never forget. It was so popular that the Holographic Breathwork combined with Hemi-Sync was done the next year.

What I have always appreciated about the Professional Division is the collaboration with other professionals—that everybody brings such extraordinary talents and they're so willing to share with all of us. I was introduced to Reiki I and Reiki II by Susan Cord. I have had numerous crystal healing experiences from Dr. Brian Dailey and others. The interaction with other people who are members of the PD has been priceless to me. As for TMI experiential programs, as you know, those are very “personal.” For me, one of the most priceless TMI events was in 2010 when I treated my two daughters to the Gateway Voyage® and I took the Guidelines® program. We met after the week and I heard the stories of Theresa and Christina, and how much further they had gone with Hemi-Sync than I had ever thought about going. That was awe-inspiring. They taught me that too often I stay in my head and analyze the events rather than surrendering as they did. They were great teachers. On my bucket list is to get my husband, Jay, and my youngest son to attend a Gateway Voyage.

Barbara Bullard has written a book with Alex Bennet: Remembrance: Pathways to Expanded Learning with Music and Metamusic®.

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