Explore the major structured and natural approaches to remote viewing, from early SRI-era development to later systems, derivatives, and application-focused practices.
Remote viewing practices have evolved significantly since the early days at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). As research revealed promising aspects of remote viewing, structured methodologies were developed to make the skill more transferable and teachable. Today, multiple approaches coexist, each with distinct characteristics and applications.
Daz Smith (from remoteviewed.com) has assembled a diagram showing how methodologies and key names are related. The map can also be viewed as a historical snapshot of remote viewing, from the early SRI period through the later spread of practitioners after disclosure of the Star Gate program.
IRVA does not endorse any of the names or methodologies depicted below.
Click the image to open the full-resolution methodology map.
These represent some of the best-known systems, states, and application formats found in the remote viewing landscape.
The most widely known and practiced methodology, originally developed at SRI by Hal Puthoff and Ingo Swann in the mid-to-late 1970s.
A relaxed methodology in which the viewer works nearer the hypnagogic boundary between waking and sleep to access target information.
A system developed through collaboration between military personnel and Dr. Richard Ireland, blending structured reporting with NLP-influenced elements.
A freer, more individualized approach based on intuitive process, used by several early practitioners and later adapted in personal styles.
A target-oriented dream practice that leverages natural altered states, dream recall, and post-waking documentation.
Not a standalone method so much as an application framework, often used for forecasting events with known future feedback.
Developed in the mid-to-late 1970s through collaboration between Hal Puthoff and Ingo Swann, CRV represents one of the most systematic and teachable approaches to remote viewing.
CRV is often described as a trainable perceptual discipline rather than a purely spontaneous psychic talent. Its structure is intended to help a viewer notice, separate, and progressively decode subtle impressions.
The methodology aims to move impressions from subconscious awareness into conscious reporting, while limiting distortion from premature analysis, assumption, or imagination.
After the government program became public, the term “controlled” remote viewing came into broader use, reflecting a more structured and trainable framework than earlier naming conventions suggested.
The “signal line” is a theoretical construct used in CRV-oriented language to describe how target-related information may become available to the viewer.
In this model, the subconscious is assumed to register information before conscious awareness can meaningfully interpret it. The viewer’s task is to notice and report those impressions cleanly.
In practice, one of the central challenges is not merely receiving impressions, but identifying and expressing them without contaminating them through interpretation too early in the process.
Remote viewing methodologies have been described in contexts ranging from research and historical inquiry to forecasting, intuition training, and consciousness studies.
Over time, various schools and instructors created derivatives that retained some CRV foundations while shifting emphasis, terminology, or training style.
A derivative that reorganizes aspects of structure and presentation while maintaining the broader aim of disciplined access to impressions.
A later development associated with standardized protocols and greater emphasis on repeatability and analytical framing.
Despite structural differences, many of these systems share a common goal: helping the viewer notice, record, and organize subtle impressions in a more teachable and controlled way.
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