Monroe's Locales: Mapping the OBE Realms
Robert Monroe divided his out-of-body travels into three 'Locales': the physical world, a nonphysical realm, and stranger territory beyond. It's a detailed, influential map - and a map of subjective experience, not of real places. What the locales are and how to read them without buying the metaphysics.
Robert Monroe didn't just report leaving his body; he drew a map of where he went. He sorted his out-of-body travels into three "Locales," a geography of the nonphysical that became one of the most influential frameworks in the OBE tradition. It's detailed, internally consistent, and worth understanding, as long as you're clear that it maps experiences, not places.
For who Monroe was and how to read him generally, see monroe.
The three Locales
Locale I is the ordinary physical world, perceived as if from outside your body. In Monroe's accounts this is where a "traveler" might observe their own bedroom or a real distant location. It's the locale that generates the testable claims, and also the one that has never held up under controlled testing.
Locale II is where Monroe placed the vast majority of his experiences: a nonphysical realm he described as responsive to thought and emotion, populated by other beings, structured by mental state rather than physical law. In modern terms this reads as a richly detailed dream environment.
Locale III is the strangest, a parallel, dreamlike world resembling the physical one but subtly wrong, which Monroe speculated might be another reality. It's the most speculative part of an already speculative scheme.
How to read the map
The productive stance is to treat the Locales as a phenomenology, a careful classification of the kinds of experience these states produce, rather than as a travel guide to real destinations.
Read that way, the scheme is genuinely interesting. That an experienced practitioner found his OBEs falling into recurring types may say something about how the brain generates these states, and many practitioners report structures that rhyme with Monroe's. See the practitioner location-catalog for the same impulse in a more grounded form.
What the map is not is evidence of external realms. Locale I's testable claims, perceiving real remote places, have not survived controlled examination, and Locales II and III are, by their own description, thought-shaped worlds, which is precisely what a dream is.
Why the shared structure isn't proof
People do report similar realms, and it's tempting to read that as confirmation the places are real. The simpler explanation covers it: we share the same neural machinery for generating these states, and we share cultural priming from the same source books. Similar mapmakers exploring similar inner terrain produce similar maps, with no external territory required. For the sober scientific framing of the whole phenomenon, see lucid dreaming vs astral projection.
FAQ
What are Monroe's Locales? They're Robert Monroe's three-part classification of his out-of-body experiences. Locale I is the ordinary physical world perceived from outside the body; Locale II is a vast nonphysical realm shaped by thought and emotion, where he placed most of his experiences; Locale III is a stranger, dreamlike parallel world. The scheme comes from his book Journeys Out of the Body and later works.
Are the Locales real places you can travel to? There's no evidence they're external places. They're a map of Monroe's subjective experiences, organized into categories that many OBE practitioners find echo their own. The recurring structure is interesting as phenomenology - it may reflect how the brain generates these states - but treating the Locales as literal destinations goes far beyond what any evidence supports.
Why do different people report similar OBE realms? Probably because they share the same brain architecture generating the states, plus shared cultural expectations from books like Monroe's. Common features across reports point to common neurology and common priming, not to a shared external territory. Similar maps can arise from similar mapmakers exploring similar inner terrain, without any of it being a real place.
References
- Monroe RA (1971). Journeys Out of the Body. Doubleday.
- Monroe RA (1985). Far Journeys. Doubleday.
This article is part of the REMstack Knowledge Base - a free, open, data-driven resource for Phase practitioners. All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Monroe's Locales?
They're Robert Monroe's three-part classification of his out-of-body experiences. Locale I is the ordinary physical world perceived from outside the body; Locale II is a vast nonphysical realm shaped by thought and emotion, where he placed most of his experiences; Locale III is a stranger, dreamlike parallel world. The scheme comes from his book Journeys Out of the Body and later works.
Are the Locales real places you can travel to?
There's no evidence they're external places. They're a map of Monroe's subjective experiences, organized into categories that many OBE practitioners find echo their own. The recurring structure is interesting as phenomenology - it may reflect how the brain generates these states - but treating the Locales as literal destinations goes far beyond what any evidence supports.
Why do different people report similar OBE realms?
Probably because they share the same brain architecture generating the states, plus shared cultural expectations from books like Monroe's. Common features across reports point to common neurology and common priming, not to a shared external territory. Similar maps can arise from similar mapmakers exploring similar inner terrain, without any of it being a real place.
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