Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Monroe's Pre-Session Intent Affirmation
To set conscious intent and a memory/safety filter before entering an altered state — directing attention toward lucid perception and recall, and screening out unhelpful material — via a fixed statement repeated five times.
Monroe’s intent affirmation: At your deepest relaxation, before going further, mentally say five times — “I will consciously perceive and remember all that I encounter during this relaxation period. I will recall in detail when I am completely awake only those matters that will be beneficial to my physical and mental being.” Then proceed. (Two jobs: prime lucid awareness + recall, and filter for benefit.)
What it is
Tucked inside Monroe’s induction routine is a small but pivotal step that stands on its own as a technique: at the moment you reach deep relaxation, before anything else happens, you state your intent.
Robert Monroe gave a fixed wording, repeated five times mentally, that does two jobs at once — it primes lucid perception and recall (“I will consciously perceive and remember.”), and it sets a selective memory/benefit filter (“.recall only those matters that will be beneficial.”).
It’s a textbook piece of pre-state autosuggestion: you load an instruction into the threshold mind while it’s maximally receptive. You can use it before any deep relaxation, meditation, hypnagogic, or OBE session, not only Monroe’s full protocol.
The Method
From Journeys Out of the Body, Ch. 16, §3, in the step Monroe titles “Achieve the state of relaxation”: 1. First, get deeply relaxed. Work to Condition D or its equivalent (his deepest lucid-relaxation rung) and “hold at the deepest level of relaxation possible without weakening your consciousness.” Take as much time as you need to be sure you’re there.
- Mentally repeat the statement, verbatim: “I will consciously perceive and remember all that I encounter during this relaxation period. I will recall in detail when I am completely awake only those matters that will be beneficial to my physical and mental being.” 3. Say it five times. Monroe specifies: “Say this mentally five times.”
- Then proceed. In his routine the next move is to “begin breathing through your half-opened mouth” and aim attention toward the vibrational state — but the affirmation itself is complete as a standalone intention-setting act. How it functions (two clauses, two jobs):
- “I will consciously perceive and remember all that I encounter” — a prospective-memory / lucidity instruction: you pre-commit attention to staying aware and to recalling the session.
- “recall. only those matters that will be beneficial to my physical and mental being” — a filtering suggestion: a gentle self-protective gate so that what you carry back is constructive. (Sourcing note: the wording is quoted as Monroe printed it; the “five times” and its placement at peak relaxation are his explicit instructions. The two-clause analysis is interpretive paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Robert Monroe (1915–1995) embedded this affirmation in the induction he published in 1971. → (Robert Monroe).
The move belongs to the broad autosuggestion family — setting a suggestion in a receptive, drowsy state — pioneered by Émile Coué and the Nancy School.
Its lucidity-priming half is the same principle later formalized by Stephen LaBerge’s MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams), where a pre-sleep intention (“next time I’m dreaming, I’ll remember I’m dreaming”) reliably raises lucidity rates.
The Traditions' versions
MILD (LaBerge) — pre-sleep prospective-memory intention to become lucid; the closest validated relative of the affirmation’s first clause.
- Coué’s autosuggestion — effortless suggestion impressed in the hypnagogic state.
- Self-hypnosis pre-suggestion / posthypnotic suggestion — instructions planted at trance onset to shape what follows.
- Dream incubation — stating an intention for what to experience or resolve before sleep.
- Prayerful “setting of intention” before meditation or ritual — the same threshold-priming move in devotional form.
Common refinements
Saying it too early (while still alert). Monroe places it at peak relaxation for a reason — that’s the receptive window. Said wide awake, it loses force.
- Rushing or mumbling past the meaning. Unlike Coué’s deliberately effortless murmur, here you want the intent to land — say it with quiet conviction, five clean repetitions.
- Rewriting it into something grandiose. Keep Monroe’s plain, two-clause structure (perceive/remember + beneficial-only). Over-elaborate scripts dilute the instruction.
- Treating the filter as a force field. The “beneficial only” clause is helpful framing, not a guaranteed safety mechanism; the real safety work is in the practice’s own cautions.
- Skipping it. It’s quick and it measurably helps recall and lucidity — don’t drop it just because it’s brief.